For a teensy photo in a biz card...

heatherfeather

Since Chatkat lives aaaall the way in California :huh, a friend is going to help me with my accounting (Did I hear somebody yell hallelujah!? Oh that was me...) and in trade one of the things I did for my friend is headshot photos for her business cards. I decided to try my hand at short lighting. So, how did I do? And I didn't bother to light the seamless... I wanted gray.

C & C especially on the lighting, okay?




(And tomorrow I am going to try this out on JAG... that will be fun!)

Scott_Quier

Heather - not a bad job. Here are the things I see (in no particular order):

• The first thing that struck me was how beautiful she is ... very attractive! Stunning even!
• You have the angle of the light pretty much spot on. I might have raised the key just a bit higher though.
• The key light is a little hot. I think I would dial it down about 1/2 stop. I don't think you've blown out anything here so it might be fixable in post.
• I also think a little attention to her skin, especially her left side, would help a bit. It appears she has very finely textured skin (a good thing), but there are some color variances that can be smoothed out a bit to very good effect. If you re-shoot, a bit more attention to makeup foundation will save a lot of time in post.
• Her body angle from the camera might be touch too much, but that's a really small nit.
• I like the catchlights in her eyes.
• I think I might have put a gridded/snooted light behind her, pointed back at her hair on camera right, just to put some highlight/life into her hair on that side.
• I see what looks like an earring on her right ear. Would have liked to have either seen it's mate or not seen it at all.

heatherfeather

Do you think a reflector would work for the snooted / gridded light? I am just working with two speedlights.... Or perhaps if I replaced the fill with the reflector and used the 480exII for the hairlight instead.......

I don't think it will be my life's passion to master the studio, but it is helpful to know how to "limp along" and get some pretty good ones. All learning is good, especially if it is about photography.

Thanks for the help Scott. I really know nothing about studio lighting. Winging it really. But I do want to get it figured out!

heatherfeather

I just thought of a great question that I have been wondering about but keep forgetting to ask... how much light does the umbrellas eat? Rephrased: how much do I need to increase the light using the ETTL system in order to compensate for lost stops due to shooting through an umbrella? +1?

Scott_Quier

heatherfeather wrote:

Do you think a reflector would work for the snooted / gridded light? I am just working with two speedlights.... Or perhaps if I replaced the fill with the reflector and used the 480exII for the hairlight instead.......

I don't think it will be my life's passion to master the studio, but it is helpful to know how to "limp along" and get some pretty good ones. All learning is good, especially if it is about photography.

Thanks for the help Scott. I really know nothing about studio lighting. Winging it really. But I do want to get it figured out!

The highlighted/underlined option is probably going to work best in your situation. And, it's pretty easy to set up. Just remember, the closer the reflector (like any light source) to your subject, the brighter will be the light and the faster will the light fall off across your subject.

heatherfeather wrote:

I just thought of a great question that I have been wondering about but keep forgetting to ask... how much light does the umbrellas eat? Rephrased: how much do I need to increase the light using the ETTL system in order to compensate for lost stops due to shooting through an umbrella? +1?

This one is easy - ETT-L uses a pre-flash. The camera sees the sum of the effects of all the modifiers and your FEC settings to determine the duration of the flash pulse(s). So, no math required with ETT-L.

However, in the interest of completeness, when shooting with manual flashes/strobes, you still don't need to worry about it if you use a flash meter to measure the incident light at your subject. What you measure there is, again, the sum of the strobe and all modifiers involved in the exposure.

The lack of a "straight" answer is because I've never measured to determine the amount of light "eaten" by the umbrella - mostly because it doesn't matter and because it changes depending on the shooting environment. If you are shooting in a small room with white walls, the amount of light incident at your subject will be greater than if you are shooting outdoors (or in a very large room). It's call light spill and it can/will contribute to the exposure.

jeffreaux2

heatherfeather wrote:

I just thought of a great question that I have been wondering about but keep forgetting to ask... how much light does the umbrellas eat? Rephrased: how much do I need to increase the light using the ETTL system in order to compensate for lost stops due to shooting through an umbrella? +1?

Scott's right....ETTL will figure it out for you. Turn the flash off and set (in Manual) a shutter speed of 1/200, ISO 100, and the aperture you desire. Then shoot a frame w/o flash. That frame should be black. Now, the ambient light will have zero bearing on the outcome of the photograph. Set your umbrellas and reflector up where you want them, turn on the flash and shoot. It should be a matter of adjusting the distances on the umbrella and reflector.

divamum

I like this shot, Heather. The only thing might be a slightly higher contrast processing - particularly since it's going to be so small, detail will be lost anyway and just a tad more of the proverbial "pop" might be worth going for.

heatherfeather

Thanks guys and diva... And so that afternoon, after I read all of your ideas, I bribed my daughter to pose for me. She was straight out of school and didn't brush her hair or anything. I was just thankful to have someone to try it on...
So is this any better? Try to see past her cuteness and comment on the lighting again... tough I know. This is with 45 inch shoot through umbrella on camera right... reflector camera left... 480ex un-modified, camera left, to the rear of the model and up high with a quasi gobo to prevent flair. I need to work on that part a bunch.

Scott_Quier

Yes - very difficult to see past her cuteness - I guess we know where she got her good looks

Lighting - This is looking really, really good. The short lighting is doing a wonderful job slimming her face (as if she needs that!), you have very nice shadows and the gradient from shadow to light (or vice-versa) is very smooth and gentle. The light (CL) is doing it job just right - the hot spot on her shoulder (the only nit I can see) is so minor it hardly deserves mentioning. I think I would bring out the catchlights in her eyes in post a bit more.

Very nice job!!

ChatKat

Heather - the 2nd one really works for me. I'd watch the eyes a bit to make sure they are visible that the head and angle of eyes are aligned. It's one of my own personal nits.

And thanks for the plug. I actually do work with clients all over the country but a headshot trade from Wasilla wouldn't work for me - this year - maybe next year.

heatherfeather

Scott_Quier wrote:

Yes - very difficult to see past her cuteness - I guess we know where she got her good looks

Lighting - This is looking really, really good. The short lighting is doing a wonderful job slimming her face (as if she needs that!), you have very nice shadows and the gradient from shadow to light (or vice-versa) is very smooth and gentle. The light (CL) is doing it job just right - the hot spot on her shoulder (the only nit I can see) is so minor it hardly deserves mentioning. I think I would bring out the catchlights in her eyes in post a bit more.

Very nice job!!

Thanks Scott... she is pretty darn cute. I actually enjoy the hotspot on her shoulder. Am I not supposed to? For me it accentuates her nice firm skin and the roundness of her shoulder. I appreciate the comments and especially the steering as far as how to get here. It was tough to shoot with all that stuff (especially the reflector that I hung on a tripod set on top of a stool..) in the way. I can definitely see how a bigger place and proper equipment would be of benefit if I was going to play with this further.

heatherfeather

ChatKat wrote:

Heather - the 2nd one really works for me. I'd watch the eyes a bit to make sure they are visible that the head and angle of eyes are aligned. It's one of my own personal nits.

And thanks for the plug. I actually do work with clients all over the country but a headshot trade from Wasilla wouldn't work for me - this year - maybe next year.

I am not sure what you mean by head and angle of the eyes aligned... Is it because she is looking out of the corner of her eyes? I can see what you mean about that- especially her left eye- how her brow covers a part of it.

And I'll take you up on that trade next year... !

ChatKat

yes- her left eye is just rolled a bit too much so the whole iris is tucked away.