Testing my lights, what did I do wrong?

Flutist

I just got my lights and I'm trying to teach myself how to use them, because they did not come with any sort of direction. As I mentioned in another thread I had to go with inexpensive lighting to get me started and once I have enough money and know how to trade up will do so. In the meantime, I'm gonna work with these. (Pretty much, same thing as not gonna give the 16yr. old the new jag as the first car, they get the beater first) :rofl

SO............tell me, where did I go wrong? There is nothing telling me how to set the lights nothing. Lay it on me, I need your help here!! These pics are in order of how I took them. They were all taken on Manual setting at ISO400. I'm pretty sure that's what I did. I blew out a tone of pictures trying to get anything that resembled a good picture. Oh and I just draped the background over my couch cuz I wanted to try the lights so bad.

Middle of my living room, 2 soft boxes, 1 on either side of subject (my daughter and husband) and for some reason I'm not able to figure out. The flash lights would not fire unless I left the modeling light on?


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C&C needed!! How did I get ok light on some, and what the H*** is that lighting on others?

afev0602

Your right, some of these are good. I think it's the positioning of the lights. I'm still working on that as well. In the meantime, I will say you got some awesome catchlights in the eyes didn't you??

Flutist

I did catch lights in their eyes which is a good start for me. I've never been able to get that before.

LiquidAir

Some comments:

Simply placing two lights symmetrically left and right rarely gives you interesting light. Personally if I am putting two lights on my subject I usually place one behind my subject as a rim and use a reflector for fill.

You typically more separation between your subject and backdrop.

Some of your shots are underexposed. Remember that the exposure changes as the distance changes from your light to your subject so any time either moves you need to adjust either your aperture or the power on your lights to compensate.

For a more detail on where to go with your lights, pick up this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Master-Lighting-Guide-Portrait-Photographers/dp/1584281251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233793194&sr=1-1

Qarik

what kinds of lights were these?

Flutist

Qarik wrote:

what kinds of lights were these?

Cheap. and what I could afford. I ended up getting a set that I didn't intend on getting, but a friend got it and loved it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=140296703146

Flutist

LiquidAir wrote:

Some comments:

Simply placing two lights symmetrically left and right rarely gives you interesting light. Personally if I am putting two lights on my subject I usually place one behind my subject as a rim and use a reflector for fill.

You typically more separation between your subject and backdrop.

Some of your shots are underexposed. Remember that the exposure changes as the distance changes from your light to your subject so any time either moves you need to adjust either your aperture or the power on your lights to compensate.

For a more detail on where to go with your lights, pick up this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Master-Lighting-Guide-Portrait-Photographers/dp/1584281251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233793194&sr=1-1

I would have loved more separation between background and my daughter, but she is not the easiest model to work with. She is 3 and does most everything on her terms.

The lights were on either side. I did not place the third because I could not get it behind her being that I did not hang the background.

Off to Amazon......

Flutist

jlw~

THANK YOU!!! That wasn't a book, but was just what I needed. I swear I've got a bit of learning disability Explain it to me, and I get it. If you make me read a book, forget it.

I can't do any more photos tonight, but when I get home from work tomorrow. Going to try everything you just mentioned. Now I know that these particular softboxes are small, but all my current budget would allow. Maybe a good thing maybe a bad thing, but nonetheless it's what I've got to learn on.

If I could figure out why I couldn't fire the flashes with the model lights off I'd be a bit happier.

This "kit" did come with a third light and umbrella, but I think I'll leave that packaged till I get the hang of the main light and fill first.

Scott_Quier

jlw has covered a lot of ground in a very shot time and done a wonderful job doing it. I would like to add the following:

• If you have a math background, do some research on the inverse square law. This will give you the founddatoin for understanding how and why light intensity falls off as it does. This will lead to an uderstanding of how you can shot against a white background and have it expose black and how a black background can be exposed white.
• Lighting isn't all about illuminating the subject. The largest part of it is creating shadows and getting those shadows to fall where you want them. Google the following terms, "Loop Lighting", "Rambrandt Lighting", "Butterfly Lighting", and "Cross Lighting". When you understand how each of these look and how they are created, you have the basic building blocks for portrait lighting.
• As jlw has suggested, start working with only one light. This will help you better understand how light behaves. For positioning lights, undertand just two things (1) light travels in a straight line, and (2) if the subject can't see the light, it won't get illuminated by the light (this one takes a bit of time to understand how it can be used).
• Shadows - the intensity (strength) of the shadows created by your light(s) is a function of the light source as it appears to the subject. It is for this reason that the sun (a quite large light source) produces quite sharp and high contrast shadows and why a small softbox inches from a face will produce lovely soft shadows. From the perspective of the subject, the sun looks quite small and the softbox looks quite large.
• As alluded to by jlw - the intensity of the fill light at the subject is not as "hot" as the main light. Google "lighting ratios". Something to understand here - it's not how bright the light is that is important, but how bright the light seems to the subject (or at the position of the subject) that is significant. By the same token, it really doesn't matter how far the camera is from the illuminated subject - that doesn't have much (if any) impact on exposure settings.

If your willing slaves ... um models ... get tired of sitting there for you, you can always use yourself or a stuffed animal to get a feel for how light creates shadows. The shots don't have to be in sharp focus to see the shadows - and that's a good thing when using yourself as the model as it can be difficult to get well focused SPs.

Ed911

Light meter...
Some great advice here, but I didn't hear anyone mention a light meter. Sure you don't need one, if you want to use the same setup over and over. Or trial and error every new shooting solution.

With a light meter, once you have your lights set up and metered for your shoot...place your subject/model, meter the subject...set up your camera and shoot.

It is that simple...or you can shoot and run. Take a picture...run and adjust the lights...run back to the camera and...do it again...and again...and maybe again. The more lights you use the more complicated it gets.

I can suggest a couple of inexpensive light meters. The Sekonic L-308 works well for a friend of mine. It's about $170 at B and H video on-line. Then there is the Sekonic L-358, a very popular light meter with forum members and professional studios for around $260 from the same place. You will see this meter used in a lot of lighting tutorials on-line.

These meters might sound expensive, but actually are at the low end of the price range for light meters, which can cost over $1000. And there are other brands, priced similarly that will do the same job.

Here's a great tutorial that will help you see the light...lol. This guy's name is Mark Wallace. This is just one of his tutorials; he has more.

Hope this helps.

http://www.studiolighting.net/category/photography-video-tutorials/

Scott_Quier

Ed's right about the light meter making life easier. And, like he said, the more lights you use, the more the light meter pays for itself.

I have the L-358 and love it - FWIW

Flutist

You guys are great. I'll post more here after I get home from work today!!

TPBinKC

Flutist wrote:

Cheap. and what I could afford. I ended up getting a set that I didn't intend on getting, but a friend got it and loved it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=140296703146

Are you happy with the quality?

Flutist

TPBinKC wrote:

Are you happy with the quality?

As a starting point yes. The softboxes are difficult to put together, but once I figured it out, I can do it as easily as folding up my 60x60 photo tent. I'm not thrilled with the umbrella as I was under the impression is was a gold one, but hey I'm new what do I know anyway. It may be better that it's silver.

Flutist

jlw wrote:

Hello again --

Glad you liked my little writeup and I hope it helps. A couple of follow-up notes:

1) I took a look at the listing for the kit you bought, and I don't think you need to apologize for it. It has plenty of capability to get you started, and you should be able to produce good-quality results with it.

The main drawback to buying this kind of pre-packaged proprietary kit is that later if you decide you need a bigger soft box or a strip light or a beauty dish or some other crazy kind of thing is that you won't be able to just run down to the local camera store and buy one, or order one from B&H. But that kind of problem is still far in the future for you, since your kit covers all the basic stuff you should need for quite a while. Even if you eventually get so far into this that you use an expensive name-brand flash system, you'll still be able to use your kit lights as supplementary lighting.

2) You don't need to apologize for your 20 x 28 soft boxes, either. I think that's actually a good size for close-distance people shooting. It's possible for a soft box to be too big and produce light that's too soft -- you don't want to wipe out all texture and shadowing from your subjects.

A rule of thumb I learned years ago is that the diagonal measurement of your soft light should be roughly the same as the approximate diameter of your subject, and you should position it about the same diagonal distance from your subject. That means a 20 x 28 box would be a great starting point for head-and-shoulder portraiture, when positioned about a yard away. If you're lighting a bigger subject, such as a full figure, you'll just position it a bit farther away and get a slightly "harder" light; if you want a softer light, such as for baby pictures, you'll just position it a bit closer.

3) I don't know why your units won't fire unless the modeling lights are on, but it could just be the nature of the beast; I've seen some other inexpensive units that are the same. I think maybe they use the modeling lamp as a current limiter, to keep from frying the circuitry when the light recycles. I wouldn't think a 75-watt modeling light would be so bright as to drive you crazy, but if it distracts the subjects or is getting too hot, you could try putting in lower-wattage bulbs.



I also noticed in another post that you mentioned something about your soft box being smaller than you'd like... I don't think you need to worry about that either. A 20 x 28

I'm glad to know that I didn't end up with something that's complete garbage. Good to know that you think it will suit my purposes. I think that (and I want to make this a supplementary career, I'm kind of done with my current placement) I really want to make something of this I will eventually trade up and maybe even keep these, as you said for backup purposes of additional lighting.

LiquidAir

Flutist wrote:

I would have loved more separation between background and my daughter, but she is not the easiest model to work with. She is 3 and does most everything on her terms.

The lights were on either side. I did not place the third because I could not get it behind her being that I did not hang the background.

Off to Amazon......

I have a 4 year old so I know how it goes. Most of the shots I take of my son I use a single shoe mount strobe with an umbrella on a stand and count on the ambient light for fill. I generally let him do whatever he wants and I move the the light around to match. I set the camera on manual set for the amount of fill I want and use ETTL with exposure compensation set the power level.

For more formal setups with multiple lights I always get help; both as a stand in for setting the lights and to keep him occupied and interested when I am shooting.

Qarik

one last thing which other have alluded to wrt to not lighting from underneath...related to this is to try not to shoot from underneath the model face and/or have your model not tilt their head back.

what I am trying to get at here is ..no shots looking up the model nostrils!

That can be very unflattering.

Flutist

Qarik wrote:

one last thing which other have alluded to wrt to not lighting from underneath...related to this is to try not to shoot from underneath the model face and/or have your model not tilt their head back.

what I am trying to get at here is ..no shots looking up the model nostrils!

That can be very unflattering.

For my husband that's easy, but the girl. She thinks it's great to show off her nosey.