Canon EOS 1000D

Canon Speedlite 430EX II on a light stand with an umbrella. Unfortunately, the batteries of the flashgun seemed to have given up after like 10 shots haha. I´ll try some more anytime soon.

The light itself isn't bad imo but it looks like you may have used too wide an aperture because one eye isn't in focus and to me it almost seems her face is disproportioned or slightly distorted..... I like the way it reflects off her lips though and the catch light is nice in her eyes

Personally, I'd try to get more light on your subjects so that the eye color stands out more....they just look flat black there.
Also, I think that the DoF on that picture is a little bit too shallow. Increase the aperture (numerically) to increase the DoF so that you can get a bit more in focus.

I'm not too sure as to what kind of portrait you were going for, but unless it a high-key type shot, I'd try to decrease the flash power from the left side and use a longer shutter speed to get more ambient light in to fill in the skin color properly.
Lastly, a hair light is an easy way of making your portraits stand out more.

I´d need a second light source for that I guess

about the focus thing. I was also abit dissapointed about the focus. it seems to sit somewhere on the hair or something, even tho I tried to focus the eyes. gotta practice the focusing abit I guess. But I think it could also be due to the bad focus abilities of the 1000D AND the 50mm 1.8

This post was edited by RecoveryChannel on Oct 20 2010 02:35pm

The 50mm f/1.8 is a very good lens, especially for the money. You just need to use a bigger aperture to get more in focus. I'd say like f/8 or so.
If you're shooting wide open at f/1.8 - even if you focus on one of the eyes, the eye farther back is going to be out of focus since it'll be out of that very narrow DoF.

Edit : Post the settings you used when you took the pictures.

This post was edited by WarCow on Oct 20 2010 03:15pm

^This. Since the bg is white, you don't really need to throw it out of focus by selecting a small aperture. Shooting wide open also reduces sharpness of the image and somewhat prone to CA.

Also, do you have a reflector? They're great for portraits and is uber cheap (roughly $10 each when on sale).

Shoot by a north facing window and try to bounce some light with the reflector back onto the subject's face that isn't being window lit. Have the flash shoot from behind preferably diffused for some hair light. Use the white side for soft images and the silver side for punchier images.

yeah I´m familiar with the window lighting / reflector techniques. I wanted this dramatic looking light this time tho. I´m not sure what settings I was on with this shot, too lazy to look it up now.

E: ok it was 50mm, f1.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 100. I wanted to do some f8 / 160 sec shots aswell but then my flash batteries passed out as I said. will try again tomorrow propably and take it a step further.

This post was edited by RecoveryChannel on Oct 20 2010 03:42pm

Well keep it up and post some results tomorrow... I'm interested in seeing what a few setting changes could do to improve the shot.