Headshot Feedback
I was asked to shoot a headshot for a friend to be used in corporate communications. Since I had everything set up I shot a few of my peers too. This is actually the second time out using my strobes and I'm still trying to learn studio lighting. All were shot in my employer's video studio using 4 ceiling mounted floods for background and ambient, 1 small flood on a boom for hair, 2 softboxes and 2 strobes with umbrellas at about 45 degrees and 5 feet in front of the subjects and a single strobe bounced off the ceiling. Your C&C is welcome and requested.
John (no hair light on this one)
David
Elizabeth
Kent
Richard
Selim
Rob
These are all straight out of the camera with absolutely no PP. I like to nail exposure and composition as much as I can on camera. What really concerns me are the highlights on the cheeks and foreheads on some. Is it a factor or skin or lights to hot/close, or both?
Cheers
Craig
John (no hair light on this one)
David
Elizabeth
Kent
Richard
Selim
Rob
These are all straight out of the camera with absolutely no PP. I like to nail exposure and composition as much as I can on camera. What really concerns me are the highlights on the cheeks and foreheads on some. Is it a factor or skin or lights to hot/close, or both?
Cheers
Craig
http://craigm.smugmug.com/
"When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do." Walt Disney
"When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do." Walt Disney
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Comments
The hightlights are a combination of lights being a touch too hot (too much light) and, maybe, a little close and the nature of the individuals' skin. People with darker complexions and/or more oil on their skin (I'm cursed that way too) will tend to have brighter hot-spots. The solution is to either apply clear powder (yeah, guys are going to go for that in a heartbeat:D) or to use a disposable oil absorbing cloth right before the exposure.
Lighting - what you have is kinda flat and boring and not terribly flattering to your models. This is caused by the two strobes at 45 degrees from camera-subject axis and set to a similar power. Think about your key light being 1 to 1.5 stops brighter than your fill light. This would give you a lighting ratio in the neighborhood of 2:1 to 3:1, making for pleasing facial shadows - shadows which would give nice depth to the face. For ladies, 2:1 is about as strong a contrast as you want to use, but with guys you can go higher and still be flattering.
And, you had way to many lights for something like this. Something I learned from a hugely successful wedding photographer (Shay Stephens - search for some of his posts here for some interesting information) is to use lighting ONLY to solve a problem. If there's no problem, there's no need for additional lighting. A corollary to that is, "Test the results after adding each light. When all your solvable problems have been solved, STOP."
For an alternative way to get as good (or better) results, give this page a read. It's simply amazing what can be done with minimal gear, used in a thoughtful manner. And, OBTW, I've actually used this technique with good success on a real gig. The client really appreciated the fact that I was in, set up, and ready to go in about 3 minutes. It took even less time to strike the gear and get out of there.
I am no one's expert, but I have been successful a couple of times and I offer up these as examples of the success one can have by keeping it simple. (EXIF: 1/250, f/4.0, ISO: 100)
Don't want to go that simple? Then how about this:
- Main light with softbox
- Reflector opposite the main for fill
- A light on the backdrop
- A final light for the hair
Bam ... done ... with three lights and a reflector.Finally, as a general rule, hot lights don't contribute much to an exposure unless you are shooting high ISO and very large aperture and quite slow shutter. Taking your shot of Elizabeth as an example (and assuming similar settings for the others - I didn't look, just assuming) you were shooting at 1/125, f/8, ISO 200. With those settings, you didn't get a lot of contribution from the floods.
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How does a professional photographer do some damage limitation when presented with something like that over which, presumably, he has no control?
Just wondering.
Tell them in advance to wear a solid color shirt or whatever.
Just a bit of semantics, but these are really more portraits than headshots. In the industry, headshots are generally shot outdoors and lit with just a reflector. Headshots are what you'd see in an actors portfolio and are not as stiff as these (natural, big smiles or whatever to "sell" the person).
I know, I know... seems like a small thing but it drives me nuts when people call my beauty shots "headshots" or my portraits "headshots". All three are different and approached differently from a lighting, posing, and photographers perspective.
That said, your portraits are okay-- they really look more like school portraits than anything. I'd suggest ditching the muslin background and working a bit more with your subjects to REALLY capture a portrait-- something unique that captures their personality.
Lighting and backgrounds can be simple. This is a senior portrait shot with a single light (no modifier, if I recall correctly) and a parking garage for a background.
Portland, Oregon Photographer Pete Springer
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Use asymmetric lighting. You want your fill light to be as large as physically possible given your gear and your space. As the fill gets larger, the specular highlights get dimmer. My standard fill light is a 60" shoot-through umbrella placed as close to the subject as I can. Generally I place the fill such that when framing the shot I am holding the lens right up against the edge of the umbrella.
As for the main light, go as small as your subject, ratio, and lighting angle can handle. Specular from the main light is not bothersome like the specular from the fill and keeping the main small will result in bright, tight highlights giving your image some pop and sparkle without being overwhelming. If I am using a larger light (like an umbrella or a softbox), I generally place it significantly farther away from my subject than the fill (or the camera). If I want to bring the main in close, I'll use a smaller light source like a dish.