Playing with new off camera lighting.

Candid Arts

I've got two speedlights (580EXII and 420EX) on stands shooting through white umbrellas each hooked up to a Pocket Wizard Plus II. I got two new backdrops yesterday and my first roll of gaffers tape!

Camera: Canon 50D
Lens: Canon 50mm f/1.4
Shutter Speed: 1/250th
Aperture: f/3.5, 5.6, 8
ISO: 100

All edited in LR.

I'm looking for opinions on mainly lighting and the background. However any opinions in posing, editing, composition, etc... is always appreciated also.

My girlfriend gave up on modeling for the night, so I took to models who couldn't talk back and didn't have an opinion. :-)

Thank you for all your thoughts!

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Bryce.

Candid Arts

Nothing worth any comments? Suggestions?

sweet caroline

The yellow elephant is killing these shots for me! I know, you were just working on technique. The first shot looks underexposed, but maybe you were going for a low key look. It looks like you are off to a good start. Now get some people in there!

pathfinder

The first image is under exposed - the elephant's ears are white in the rest of the images, but dull grey in the first image. Both cannot be right.

Overall the lighting looks pretty good with good separation of the lighting on the subjects and either a nice white or black background not affected by the light from the flashes. A very good first try I would say.

The_Fat_Zebra

I think the lighting is pretty good, but you'll want to look at the colors of the image: compare the brown of the bear in 1,2 and 4. 1 is a bit dull, and 4 looks a bit oversaturated to me, and I presume that 2 is the closest to reality?

Scott_Quier

The lighting looks pretty good but it's a bit hard to tell for sure with these models. With real people, you can better see the shadows and how they define the model's face. And, you can also better see the catchlights in the model's eyes which gives the evaluator a better clue as to light placement.

Candid Arts

sweet caroline wrote:

The yellow elephant is killing these shots for me! I know, you were just working on technique. The first shot looks underexposed, but maybe you were going for a low key look. It looks like you are off to a good start. Now get some people in there!

I was trying to make it a little darker, but not underexposed, and looking at the white ears, I can see that it is underexposed. I know, I am working on getting some people to practice shooting with. Thanks for your comments.

pathfinder wrote:

The first image is under exposed - the elephant's ears are white in the rest of the images, but dull grey in the first image. Both cannot be right.

Overall the lighting looks pretty good with good separation of the lighting on the subjects and either a nice white or black background not affected by the light from the flashes. A very good first try I would say.

I can definitely see that. Thanks for pointing that out. I had to do some LR magic with the white background, but I think it turned out well. The black BG seemed to be easier to shoot with. However I do like the shadows on the bottom in the white BG that actually grounds the photo.

Thanks for the comments.

The_Fat_Zebra wrote:

I think the lighting is pretty good, but you'll want to look at the colors of the image: compare the brown of the bear in 1,2 and 4. 1 is a bit dull, and 4 looks a bit oversaturated to me, and I presume that 2 is the closest to reality?

Looking at them, 4 does look a bit over saturated, 2 is correct, but I did purposely desaturate #1. I'm going to try bringing up the exposure a little and see if it makes it look better.

Thank you.

Scott_Quier wrote:

The lighting looks pretty good but it's a bit hard to tell for sure with these models. With real people, you can better see the shadows and how they define the model's face. And, you can also better see the catchlights in the model's eyes which gives the evaluator a better clue as to light placement.

It is hard to tell, I agree. Until I get some real human models, this is what I've got to work with. I do like the lighting on the back though, just highlighting the back edge, and I think (for the models present) the fill light is pretty decent. But as you pointed out, can't really see the catch lights, which is a very important piece.

Thanks for the tips everyone. Much appreciated.

Sam

I think over all your on your way. As you have already seen the yellow elephant throws a yellow cast over the bear and the white back drop.

You can however clean it right up.

See if this this is an an improvement or not.

Sam

Candid Arts

Sam wrote:

I think over all your on your way. As you have already seen the yellow elephant throws a yellow cast over the bear and the white back drop.

You can however clean it right up.

See if this this is an an improvement or not.

Sam

I compared my original, a newer - more desaturated version, and the one you posted.

What did you do to the photo?

Sam

Basically I mucked (Photoshop technical term) with color balance, selective color(yellow, red, white), selective color and levels on the elephant. Added a small amount of sharpening.

I can never remember exactly because I work from a visual "muck" with it approach.

Sam

Candid Arts

Sam wrote:

Basically I mucked (Photoshop technical term) with color balance, selective color(yellow, red, white), selective color and levels on the elephant. Added a small amount of sharpening.

I can never remember exactly because I work from a visual "muck" with it approach.

Sam

Hmmm... Well good job. I like it better than mine. Is doing sharpening and this work better in PS than in LR or something? I dunno... I need to learn PS more I suppose, but LR does SO MUCH that I haven't been using PS as much lately, now that I know how to use LR better.

Anyways...

How is this for a try with a person?