Envy !!!

[TransformX]

I want to be able to take such fine pictures!
I suspect it's not just the camera but also the man behind it, I suppose people here might know best.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=547738267&size=o

[az]

Good light, a good subject (we all know how hard it is to get people to look natural on pictures), a DSLR with a good lens, aperture wide open (Nikon D200, 127mm equiv. at f/2 in this case - wonder what lens this was).

It's actually not an extraordinarily good photo: Her right eye (her left eye, but the right one in the picture) is behind the focal plane and unsharp, because he opened too wide and focussed too far to the front (probably AF on the left eye, which is OK, but as you see, he should've stopped down a bit - which on the other hand would have left the background a tad sharper).

[TransformX]

Color detail is amazing.

[ND66]

You know, it is amazing what you can do later....... with picture taken in RAW format.

I don't think this is a straight shot from the camera itself, DSLR in general take pictures on the softer side..... .


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[ND66]

.......wonder what lens this was......

Check out his profile's Public Groups he belongs to, you can tell what lenses or software he's using.

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[az]

Software was Photoshop CS on a Mac, Opera told me that (Opera displays EXIF info)

Alright, it was his Nikkor 85mm 1.4. Could have arrived at that conclusion by simply dividing 127 by 1.5 (Nikon DSLRs have a crop factor of 1.5).

He's also in the Bokeh group, which is one of the things making this picture look nice.

[ND66]

Color detail is amazing.

He uses DxO, no wonder TransformX likes it.

That's the software I had in mind but didn't point to it.

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[az]

I don't see where it would be needed for this shot, though.