CC welcom Easter get tegther

blaser321

I took thees picture this Easter Sunday just had the family all together for a nice Steak dinner
and a photo opp. This is my family Stephanie, Kelly,my wife Elvira me Bryan and Carmen(grandma)


these were taken under the patio in my back yard no directed sun but the tree was 6 or 7 feet behind us was in th bright sum light I used two fill lights left and right off camera taken with my 5DMII
lens 24/70-2.8L at 55mm 200s /f9 CC welcom


1 Kelly



2



3 Stephanie Bryan Carmen Kelly



4



5



6 Elvira & me Bryan

Hackbone

Nice job with your fill lights. I would try to power down one flash a little so you had some shadows on one side of the face. The background almost seems as if it is a second shot with the group PPed in.

PuppY_K1ck3R

Nice even lighting. I like 3 the best.

Agnieszka

I agree. Very, very nice, even light!

Only thing that I didn't like that much, is that the background looks way over-sharpened. I think it just distracts the eye from the actual subjects ...

Scott_Quier

You have a beautiful family. And your daughter, Stephanie, is obviously very comfortable in front of the camera. I would exploit that as much as I could!

I think you did a very nice job of balancing your flash with the ambient light - that's sometimes quite difficult to do, especially under the bright sun. And, judging by the brick wall in some of the shots, I'm guessing you are somewhere in the desert south-west - so you had lots of light to contend with!

Some things to consider doing differently next time:

• Shoot at larger aperture to better seperate your models from the background. Poor Kelly just about gets lost amongst all those beautiful flowers. Blurring the background would help with that. Controlling ambient light is the job of the shutter speed. And, with all that ambient light, that might mean shooting using HSS if your lights are dedicated strobes (Canon Speedlights, or similar) or using an ND filter.
• Under-expose your background just a touch, like 1/3 stop, to better seperate your model(s) from the background.
• The light on the flowers is sooooo bright - maybe shoot at a different time of day when the sun is lower on the flowers, thus less intense?
• As has been suggested, the light from the flashes looks a little flat. A better differentiation between the fill and key light would add a bit of drama/tension to the photos. Dropping your fill by 1/2 to 1 1/3 stops would do that for you just fine.
• The idea of wetting the concrete to darken it a bit is great - but that water acts as a mirror for the light reflecting off the neighbors' houses. This causes a bright area that draws attention. A different time of day when the sun isn't so intense on your neighbors' houses?

blaser321

I tried to off set the light key and fill but with the group shots half the group was darker then the other so I went back to all most even I will try the faster aperture and get a nd filter . Very little sharpening Radius of 1.5 and it was done to the hole picture I think it was just the bright sun on the tree I just hoped the space between the tree and and us would help but it looks like it is right behind us
and you were close Long Beach CA.
And thanks all