Another shot at portrait lighting

dlscott56

Here's another attempt. Tried to get better exposure than my first set and also set custom wb trying to improve on that. Unfortunately I'm fresh out of subjects at the moment so had to try an SP. Composition is a little tough for these. This is SOOC with slight crop off the bottom and right. Thought that would be best for C&C. Please let me know what you think.

JulieLawsonPhotography

I think the lighting looks very good. At least it looks good to me. I think I might have liked to see a little more of the top of your head though.

Nikolai

Dave,
this is so much better than previous attempt!
My biggest - and totally personal - nit: I'm a true believer of the dogma that a subject should either look into the camera, or s/he should look substantially away from it. Missing the eye contact by a hair takes it down a whole notch

BriShay

I wouldn't have noticed if Nikolai didn't mention it but I agree on the eyes! Just taught me something!

Lighting looks great!! Nice job!

adbsgicom

Lighting and exposure are really good here.
-a

D'Buggs

Lighting looks nice and WB seems to be on the mark.

Quincy T

BriShay wrote:

I agree on the eyes! Just taught me something!

Ha. Me too. Second day posting and I think my picture-taking/processing ability has improved 100%.

dlscott56

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

I think the lighting looks very good. At least it looks good to me. I think I might have liked to see a little more of the top of your head though.

Thanks Julie.

dlscott56

Nikolai wrote:

Dave,
this is so much better than previous attempt!
My biggest - and totally personal - nit: I'm a true believer of the dogma that a subject should either look into the camera, or s/he should look substantially away from it. Missing the eye contact by a hair takes it down a whole notch

Thanks Nik. I'll watch out for that in the future.

dlscott56

Thanks BriShay, Andrew and D'Buggs. My brother in law wants me to do a portrait of him for his website so I'll get a chance to practice some more soon.

divamum

Nice lighting indeed - what are you using? It's very pleasing light/shade and colour all round.

With SP's, I've found that it's a whole lot easier to shoot loose and then crop. I did a bunch with a short telephoto lens because I was trying to get some significant blurring (the kind of shallow dof portrait I like and often try to take of others) and it was REALLY hard!! Still haven't nailed it the way I want, so it's kind of my Great White Whale of a continuing project

dlscott56

divamum wrote:

Nice lighting indeed - what are you using? It's very pleasing light/shade and colour all round.

With SP's, I've found that it's a whole lot easier to shoot loose and then crop. I did a bunch with a short telephoto lens because I was trying to get some significant blurring (the kind of shallow dof portrait I like and often try to take of others) and it was REALLY hard!! Still haven't nailed it the way I want, so it's kind of my Great White Whale of a continuing project

Thanks Divamum, it's reflective umbrella with a speedlight, white board for a reflector and a gridded speedlight for the background.

You definitely get some exercise trying to do an SP! At least if you don't know how to set everything just right ahead of time. For me it's lots of trial and error and Diet Coke breaks in between.:D Wine breaks are preferable, however, that little screen on the back of the camera sure gets hard to see after a while

aces1202

dlscott56 wrote:

Thanks Divamum, it's reflective umbrella with a speedlight, white board for a reflector and a gridded speedlight for the background.

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Do you set your speedlights in manual or TTL? Do you adjust the E/V on the flash units at all? I really liked the exposure and how the light sources are used.

dlscott56

aces1202 wrote:

Do you set your speedlights in manual or TTL? Do you adjust the E/V on the flash units at all? I really liked the exposure and how the light sources are used.

Speedlights and camera are in manual. Everything was controlled by manual adjustments and moving lights/reflectors around to get the lighting I wanted. I may try this again since there are several things I still don't like about the lighting.

bloomphotog

Lighting looks fine. Background lighting is also a nice touch. I would only suggest that you use a longer lens; and just keep playing around with your setup! Shoot, shoot, and shoot more.