Flash in manual + hair light: C&C Please

adbsgicom

My daughter informed me she liked the idea of a black b/g so I picked up some duck cloth in black and tried this out. After the fact, I realized that my fill was much to far around to CR handle some of the shadowing :bash. I used a third flash at very lower power with the diffuser plate on skimmimg overhead as the hair light.

I'd like some feedback on any other lighting faux pas that you see here. These were shot at f/5, 1/200, ISO400.

One other thing I noticed was in the lower ambient light the AF is tricky since I didn't have an AF-assist coming from my camera. What do folks do when you aren't using much ambient in the studio setting? She wanted to be moving around and doing different poses, and I missed quite a few. I figured my options were either get a flash w/ AF assist on the camera or stop down the aperture to get more forgiveness on the DOF and just lock in a good approximation of where she was jiggling about.

Processing for the most part is a masked levels adjust to get the duck cloth (which leaked some outside fading light through) to go to black.

Thanks!

Edit: Replace images w/ healthier skin tones....
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Caspian

Andrew, I haven't started working with studio lighting, so the best I can offer is some general observations. Overall, the lighting looks good to me. You are getting enough shadow to show the contours of her face. The balance looks best to me in #2. In the others, the CR light looks like it could be backed off by a stop or so to give a little more facial definition. I really like black backgrounds and the way they isolate the subject. Are you using studio lights or camera strobes?

David

adbsgicom

Thanks for the feedback.

Right now it is just flashes with radio triggers that I have a 30-day trial period for through the local store. So, I wanted to see what I could do here. Studio strobe(s) would be nice, but I haven't taken that leap yet. Agree on the CB, 2 does look most natural, with 1 pretty close as well (IMO). 3 ended up greenish, 4 magenta and 5 yellow/orange.

adbsgicom

Caspian wrote: »

Andrew, I haven't started working with studio lighting, so the best I can offer is some general observations. Overall, the lighting looks good to me. You are getting enough shadow to show the contours of her face. The balance looks best to me in #2. In the others, the CR light looks like it could be backed off by a stop or so to give a little more facial definition. I really like black backgrounds and the way they isolate the subject. Are you using studio lights or camera strobes?

David

Tweaked the skin tones in the original post....

Qarik

andrew this is the best portraiture work I have seen from you...just a the slightest bit hot on the last few but that just my taste

VayCayMom

wow you are so going to be taking awesome wedding photos of her, one day not too long from now. her eyes are so vibrant with expression. nice job dad!!

Scott_Quier

Here's what I see:

• First, and most important, she's so cute and I know she's going to be a real looker in the not so distant future - you have been warned!
• Your key light is a bit hot. I would move it back just a bit and/or dial down the power a bit ... about 1/2 stop
• Your fill on 1, 3, 4, and 5 - just a bit hot. Looks really, really good on #2 though
• The hair light is doing a wonderful job of separating her from the background without being too hot. I can see detail in the brightest areas of her hair so I would think you should be very happy with that.
• #2 - by far the best of the series .... The contour modeling provided by the shadows are just about right .... not to dark and not too light. Very nicely done.
• And, finally, like Trudy says - her eyes! Wow!

adbsgicom

Daniel, thank you! I'll have to see if she will oblige me some more practice....

Trudy, thanks! She was having fun, which made it harder to get the focus and made the lighting a bit more random, but a happy model is much better than an oppressed/repressed one.. I need to get past her becoming Bat Mitzvah before I worry about weddings... she is, thankfully, still just 11.

Scott, thanks for the detailed feedback. I was struggling with the fill during these. Partly because she kept moving and with the lights close, she would change the ratios a bunch just by moving. I think the rest was because it was a first real attempt and I for some dumb reason had the fill at about 45-degrees instead of ~10 degrees. I guess the lesson for the movement is to suffer the lights to be a bit further away so the 1/d^2 changes aren't so dramatic. I was using reflective 60", but they were still just out of view of the camera.