Playing with light (C&C)

divamum

Comments welcomed!

The other day I spotted a location I wanted to try out; today was another beeeyoootiful Indian Summer day, my child was actually feeling cooperative, and my DH even had time to come along and act as bagman and voice-activated lightstand. What a luxury!

I've long been fascinated by the flawless exposures that many of you get when balancing ambient with fill flash, and I thought this hillside might be just the spot to give it a try, as well as playing with some backlighting. I'd hoped for some true sunset shots, but the sun went behind the trees on the ridge before the light turned full sunset, so that didn't work; I did have about an hour moving from golden-hour to pre-sunset, though, and the light was very pretty. I did remember to gel the flash (CTO 1/2), but I don't think I got it quite right; the wb still seems to be suffering from mixed temps (maybe I should only have used CTO 1/4?). I didn't quite nail my exposures, either, but it's a start.... I think.... :rofl

Flash = 430ex shot through a 45" umbrella fired via STE2 using ETTL; FEC controlled from camera. I think I should probably have moved it a little closer for many of them and then turned FEC down more if I needed to (?)

1. Yes, this one's slightly soft (sigh), but it gives some idea of the light we started with. Plus I just like it



2. I wish I could figure out what it is about the WB I don't like in this one... where'd I go wrong?



3. Closer, but it still doesn't look quite right to me - is the gel just too strong?



4. Inspired by all those shots Heatherfeather has given us of the Alaskan woods.... (I'm patting myself on the back for these in the set, depsite their imperfections - I correctly remembered how to use the sun to get rim hair lighting! :smo)



My other question is about handling flare: HOW does one shoot into the sun without overcooking it!!?? I LOVE the way I see people using it, but I seem to be hopeless at it!! Instead of artistically blown with sunrays and carefully placed bubbles, I get messy haze over the whole image which can't be manipulated for artistic effect. Granted, I was using tele lenses (100 and 200mm) and I seem to recall that flare is better handled by wa, but even so - what's the secret to making it work instead of detract? :scratch:dunno

Tim Kamppinen

As for the ones with WB issues, what I see there is a green cast in the shadows. That's because the natural light on her face is being reflected off the grass, so it's actually a greenish color. It doesn't mix well with daylight balanced flash... I've heard of people actually putting a black sheet down on the ground in front of their subjects when shooting outdoors to block the greenish reflections... never done it myself, but in situations like this where she was very close to the grass it's going to be more of an issue.

As for flare, try different lenses and different apertures. Stopping down to f/16 or and having the sun barely peak out from the edge of someone's head will give a very clean sunburst flare. Wide open and sometimes all you get is haze. Experiment with the apertures inbetween to see how your lens behaves.

This one was shot at f/16 to get the suburst:

divamum

Tim Kamppinen wrote:

DoooOOoooooOOOOOd - that shot is wonderful!!! Yeah, I know about making sunstars by part-blocking the sun, it's the "bubbles" flare that I like and seem incapable of controlling. I can get it by accident, but seldom by design.... Sigh.

divamum

Anybody else with thoughts on WB etc? Thanks!

sweet caroline

I like the vintage feel of that first shot. #4 is very nice. I agree about the green cast.

Caroline

divamum

sweet caroline wrote:

I like the vintage feel of that first shot. #4 is very nice. I agree about the green cast.

Caroline

But how do I go about fixing it...? When I add magenta, it just gets icky. I guess really I'm wondering how to fix that WB better in camera for next time - the gel really didn't help enough, I guess and, while I can see how the green of the surroundings has contributed, it seems to be just as much of a problem in the standing ones, where presumably the reflection shouldn't be as marked? .

Phooey. However, that's exactly WHY I wanted to do a practice shoot in those conditions - I love the results I see others getting, so now just have to learn how to do it myself...

WingsOfLovePhoto

Hey Diva.... one of the things I do to help with the green cast is just to slide down the green saturation. This will remove the green from the face and if you want you can just mask or history brush the other green that you want back in. Then adjust the white balance to however you want the skin tones. I know that lots of people here think that you need to use flash to be creative, but what about trying the sweet light only? I think you might have been able to get comparable if not better lighting without the flash?


I really like the first shot but in its small form it might use a little sharpening? Hart to say....

Hackbone

For a quick fix try going to Image>adjustments>hue & saturation. On the drop down box that says "master" hit the down arrow and select green. Drop the saturation slider to the left and see if it corrects any of the green.

divamum

Thanks Sandy and Hackbone. I processed these in LR and stupidly never even thought about just opening it in PS and playing with the colour channels or saturation

Will mess around with them again later this week when I have some time and post back if I manage to get a better result. Thanks!

Btw, Sandy, I'm not sure I would have got much without flash - I tried some with a reflector (my usual preferred method of "lighting" outside) and they weren't nice at all; fill flash seemed to be the only way to balance the strong back/sidelight with nice light in the eyes. I don't really like flash outside - it confuses me unless I'm all-manual and have control over the walls too (ie studio!) - but I'm determined to keep working at mastering it. I was glad I took the opportunity to try yesterday (and even if they're not photographically perfect, there are some nice silly shots of my daughter for posterity: daddy - behind the umbrella - was making her laugh, so there's a great series of expressions and giggles for the family album! )

heatherfeather

If it were me and I was processing in LR, I would use the HSL adjustment tool. It is the sweetest tool, and my newest best friend. You could select saturation or hue, and then hover over the problem areas click and then and slide one way or another. It changes just that specific color mix you clicked in the entire photo. But you might still have to mask back in the green you want to keep. Six one, half a dozen another.

Whatever the case you got some purdy light there. I love #1, though agree it could use some color tweakage.

(And I rarely use flash in the woods if I can help it. *1/2 second later* although last week I used some for some artifical rim light. , there is always an exception isn't there. )

adbsgicom

Is the issue with getting these colors right that because the sun is coming from behind, the face is therefore in the shade, and a much bluer light than the rest of the image? I have also have a devil of a time getting things to look right during these 'golden hour' times because of how orange things are, or if they aren't looking into the sun, then the face cast is way off.

Is the best (only) solution to use a fill flash with CTO/CTS to keep everything orange and then correct?

Diva, one book I read noted that he preferred CTS over CTO because he felt CTO added too much red. I haven't procured any CTS to know how well that works out.

divamum

Interesting re: cts. I may look into that. I know onstage straw is usually the gel used for "natural" lighting, yet many in here who've posted beautiful results (jeffreaux2 et al) have been using CTO. Eeeentersting....

Heather, tx for the hsl slider suggestion. I can't believe I didn't think of that - my lack of ability to use the obvious amazes me sometimes.... Out of curiosity, is the reason you avoid flash in the woods because of the WB, or is there another reason I should know about?

Thanks for the input and advice everybody - I hope I get another chance to put all this into practice soon!