New Toys, First OCF--how'd I do?? (10 images)

CTUphoto

So, some of the backstory first....

Tax refunds and a recent work bonus bought me some new toys. I ordered a strobist-inspired portable lighting kit (two 580EX II's, a STE-2, two lightweight stands, two wescott collapsable umbrellas, and a couple of little extras here and there), and a new Canon 50mm 1.4 (not the L that I wanted, but after the lighting equipment couldn't afford the extra $1,000 for the L). Oh, and a new Tamrac bag that nicely holds everything but the stands/umbrellas but conveniently has just enough room to strap them to the outside of the bag! It's all been coming in the mail over the past week or so, which leads me up to today. It's snowing here in the DC area. I only worked about half the day today, in order to get home before the worst of it hit. So we're basically trapped inside for the rest of the weekend (expecting 2+ feet in the next 24 hours)....what better excuse to break out the new gear and see what I could come up with. My girls even reluctantly agreed to get into their Sunday dresses and let Mom do a little touch up on their hair. My son wanted nothing to do with it. Maybe I'll bribe him tomorrow.

Anyway, so the set up. I wanted to try some basic photos using natural light from this pane of windows we have in our computer room (it's snowing out side, so lots and lots of diffused light coming through them) with one OCF acting as a fill/hair light.

I shot everything wide open at 1.4 on purpose. I really wanted to get a feel for how thin the DOF was going to be at different ranges (man, is it thin!?!). I realize the there's a couple where the DOF is just a hair off. I positioned one of the 580EX II's on camera right and played around with the power to try to balance the image. I had a large stretch of black / white felt stretched out behind my girls between to of my older light stands.

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Here's the rest.

I neglected to mention that I finally own my own copy of Lightroom now too, so all editing was done there.

Would love to hear how you all think I did. I'm soooooo looking forward to spending many more hours working with these lights now that I finally have a set-up. :barb


~jb

sweet caroline

You got some nice sharp eyes! I would bring the exposure up a bit. You are off to a great start.

Caroline

Wil Davis

Nice images, but I think very slightly under exposed (IMNSHO).

Also, I think a bit more depth of field might have improved things a bit (f1.4 is v. nice, but there are many in your set where the eyes are in focus but the rest of the face is noticeably out-of-focus…).

Focus is so critical…

Focus is so critical…

Focus is absolutely critical…

…especially in portraits and close-ups!

Also, the light is a bit on the flat side, resulting in loss of modeling on the face.

Anyway, cute kids…

…thanks for sharing!



- Wil

Qarik

some beautiful girls!:D Seems like you hit focus on the eyes well enough..though I think most images are 1/2 stop underexposed or so.

kidzmom

I agree on bumping the exposure a tad. CUTE though!! Great eye focus. I can't wait to get a similar set-up going . Have fun!!! Thanks for sharing!:D

CTUphoto

Thanks for all the comments/feedback! I'm glad I asked. The underexposure most of you mentioned was more a result of the post processing I'd applied across the series. I went back into LR and bumped most of them up about a third of a stop or so and they do look much better, so thank you for pointing it out.

~jb