First Shots in Basement Studio with Alien Bees

Gringriff

Okay so I got the Alien Bees strobes and got some shots of my family during Thanksgiving break and one other family the next weekend. Boy using the lights begins a whole new learning curve. Any advice to improve would be helpful. Thanks for looking and comments.

1.


2.
Playing around in Photoshop


3.
And a couple with the automatic timer - That's me -the big guy on the far right


4. Another timer shot with a tree


5. One with the boys



6. Also took some shots for a friend, her family and her brother's family. Here is one of her cute twin boys....




7. All the kids


8. And one more of the whole group...

Scott_Quier

Posing will come with time and reading. There's lots of resources on the net - just do a quick google. However, it would help some of these if the people were all looking in the same direction when the shutter tripped.

For the Christmas tree shots - if you slow down the shutter a bit, your tree will come more to life ... you'll actually be able to see the tree lights.

#4 - A trick I've used to avoid getting shadows on faces is to ask everyone if they can, without moving their head from side to side, see the lights with both eyes. If not, you are going to get shadows on their faces.

Something to watch is your framing. Some of these are a bit centered and some have cut off feet, etc.

Overall, I think this is a really good first go at it.

Gringriff

Thanks Scott for the reply.

I have been reading and looking as much as possible but I haven't got the posing thing yet. More practice should help.

I had read about the slower shutter speeds to bring out the lights and had tried some at 1/15 and 1/10 but when the time came I had to take the camera off the tripod because the groups sizes kept changing and I was standing up then down low for the kids. So hand holding I had to up it to 1/25 and 1/50. This was really new to me because I usually shoot only sports at 1/400 to 1/1000.

I agree so much about everyone looking different directions and that really bothered me especially when I started processing. I have got to demand they look at the camera next time. I can understand the 2 year olds looking off but not the others. This I must correct before next time.

Thanks for the tip on the shadows (#4) - Hopefully, I will remember that one too.

I have read so much about the framing issue and not having the subject in the center. Does that also apply to groups of 4 or more?

The cropping was done for print sizes. One problem I had was that the ones on the floor the kids feet were actually at the very edge of the cloth so I had to crop down a little extra.

Thanks again,
Andy

D'Buggs

Nice!
And welcom to the land of; "Making What We Desire"!

IMO the biggest issue in these is posing - Get-a-Googlin'.
Scott touched on this but I just wanna add; you have people standing in others light - This is what causing the shadows and again, posing will cure this. Also, perhaps try smaller groups at 1st - The more people there are, the more dynamic thy challenge becomes (:bash ).

Scott_Quier

Gringriff wrote:

I have read so much about the framing issue and not having the subject in the center. Does that also apply to groups of 4 or more?

The cropping was done for print sizes. One problem I had was that the ones on the floor the kids feet were actually at the very edge of the cloth so I had to crop down a little extra.

Thanks again,
Andy

Rules, rules, rules ... are meant to be broken, but when it works. The centering thing apples (if you want it to) to groups of any size. Take a look at your last image - a group of ten people. If you were to draw a line through the eyes of everyone in the back row (OK, get as close as you can), you will not that the line does a pretty good job of bisecting the image. This is also seen in the huge expanse of backdrop behind/above the heads. Tilt the camera down just a bit and you'll have that nailed.

As for the kids being at the edge of the cloth .... get the feet all the way on the cloth, even if it's just barely, and then add some cloth in post processing. There are lots of ways of adding stuff if you have Photoshop or similar tool; you can use the clone tool, the patch tool, etc. It may take a little extra work, but it can be well worth the effort.

ivar

Scott_Quier wrote:

Rules, rules, rules ... are meant to be broken, but when it works.

Hackbone

You've got great exposure. Agree with everyone on watching the posing. Try not to photograph people straight on. Turn them and place their weight on the rear leg. Again try not to keep the heads always on the same plain. With larger folks try to get them seated and try to partially obstruct them with another body, pillow etc. You can cut down the weight issue some by getting them to lean forward slightly.

Gringriff

Thanks to everyone so much for the feedback. I will continue to work on the posing and camera angles.