Halloween Portraits - HIGH KEY?

anonymouscuban

Not sure if you guys recall, but I posted some questions about doing a portrait session at work as a fund raiser. Well, tomorrow we are doing a bunch of Halloween activities for employees and their children... games, haunted house, costume contest, etc. I am doing the portraits tomorrow as what of the activities.

Some you suggested doing a High Key setup because it's just so much easier and quick. I'd have to agree. But do you think High Key shots for Halloween will work? We are going to have props setup like pumpkins, hay bails, etc. I think it will but wanted to get your thoughts.

kdog

Hi-key by definition is bright and cheery. Halloween on the other hand is generally dark and macabre. Seems like impedance mismatch to me.

Edit: These are costume shots, right? If they're not, that's a different story. Otherwise, how about horror lighting? Or hatchet lighting? Something dramatic seems more apropos. Once you get it set up, then you're just running the kids through. So the amount of set up time doesn't seem that important.

anonymouscuban

That's what I was feeling... high-key doesn't go with Halloween. And yes, I am hoping kids come in costume.

Looked up hatchet lighting. Looks simple enough. I light to the side and slightly behind the subject, reflector in front. Does that sound right?

The concerns I have with this are:

1. Will this be lighting that I can setup before the shoot and then just run kids through without any adjustments
2. Will this work with 2 or 3 people in the shot?

Another question... I will be shooting against a wall that is off white with black/gray specks, small ones; they almost look like paint splatter. I don't have a real backdrop/stand so I will either be shooting with the wall as-is or I can tape a white or black sheet on it. I can have the kids stand several feet away from the wall and if I go with the hatchet setup, not much light will hit the background. What do you guys recommend?

anonymouscuban

The more I think about this, the less I want to get fancy. I'd rather give them a really nice shot of their kid in a costume than to get too complicated and wind up with either bad shots or fussing with the setup instead of getting the photos. Hopefully Nik and others can chime in with some advice.

Nikolai

anonymouscuban wrote: »

The more I think about this, the less I want to get fancy. I'd rather give them a really nice shot of their kid in a costume than to get too complicated and wind up with either bad shots or fussing with the setup instead of getting the photos. Hopefully Nik and others can chime in with some advice.

Well that "some" was indeed me. rofl
And yes, HK is a great setup for events since you can care less about light pollution/color temperature matching, over which you typically don't have much control over.
As for Halloween... You might remember this (NSFW):
http://nik.smugmug.com/photos/715867017_uv5fa-L.jpg
Works for kids too.

Nikolai

kdog wrote: »

Hi-key by definition is bright and cheery. Halloween on the other hand is generally dark and macabre. Seems like impedance mismatch to me.

Edit: These are costume shots, right? If they're not, that's a different story. Otherwise, how about horror lighting? Or hatchet lighting? Something dramatic seems more apropos. Once you get it set up, then you're just running the kids through. So the amount of set up time doesn't seem that important.

Joel, what you're saying is correct, with only one gotcha: it doesn't work this way....
Check any ad for any Halloween costume, how many of them are on black/dark BG? Less than 1%, probably. I'm not even talking about the fact that all that horror lighting and such requires multiple lights, gels and, in general, careful light control, available in a decent studio but NOT feasible in the event environment.
Shooting kids HK requires minimum efforts on the photog part, and parents will immediately associate that with the "pro" work they used to see in stores and magazines. Also, since most of the costumes are usually dark or bright colored (exception: nurse/doctor), they will look sharp against white BG, so even the rookiest parent will be able to create a cutout for a family album, xmas collage, etc...
I stand my ground.

anonymouscuban

Nik,

Thanks for chiming in with such detail. Yeah... I would love to create some really spooking and dramatic looking shots but I really have to keep the venue in mind. First, I'm setting this up in a very large lobby-like area. I will not be able to control any of the ambient lighting. I also have no idea what to expect as far as customers. Could be I only get a handful of kids, but I may end up having 50-60 come through. I have no idea. Lastly, this is a $10 portrait and that money is all going to charity. I want to give them as a professional a photo as possible but I realize there are going to be limits.

As I said, the more I think about this, the more I want to keep it simple. I want this to be fun for me, not stress inducing. I know myself and I am going to want the shots to be as perfect as possible and if I don't get good results and don't have the time to make adjustments, I won't be happy and I'll do things halfheartedly. I think I will set this up as High Key. Especially since a lot of kids costumes will not be "scary".

SO... keeping in mind the background thing and the fact I have two AB-400 with umbrellas and an SB-600 speedlight... how should I set this up? BTW, I have remote triggers so I can operate all three lights.

divamum

If your shutter speed is high enough, ambient light isn't really an issue - work at maximum synch speed and it will only be your flashes which "count".

Nikolai

divamum wrote: »

If your shutter speed is high enough, ambient light isn't really an issue - work at maximum synch speed and it will only be your flashes which "count".

The maximum shutter speed is 1/250, maaybe 1/400 on certain cameras with PW and phase shifting.
It's mostly about the power of light. Hence if you go low key, ambient WILL affect it. On a high key strobes will flood everything, hence my recommendation.

divamum

Nikolai wrote: »

The maximum shutter speed is 1/250, maaybe 1/400 on certain cameras with PW and phase shifting.
It's mostly about the power of light. Hence if you go low key, ambient WILL affect it. On a high key strobes will flood everything, hence my recommendation.

Can you explain that Nik? I thought that once you were at maximum synch, as long as your flashes were close enough you were controlling (and minimizing) ambient. And why would that change in a more lowkey setup? Just trying to learn, here...

anonymouscuban

Hmm... I think I get what Nik is saying. It would make sense to me that it is all relative to the ratio between your strobes and ambient light. For example, go outside on a very bright day and try to overpower the sun with your strobes. I don't care how fast you set your sync speed to... ain't gonna happen.

So with low-key lighting, ambient light, depending how close the lumens match your strobes, will come through in your photo. Am I right Nik?

divamum

I'm obviously missing something important here, because this still isn't making sense to me. If I'm going for low key, that means I'm using LESS exposure on the bg, yes? The flash will light my subject. If the flash is close enough to the subject and the shutter speed fast enough (combined with appropriate aperture to ensure underexposure of ambient), then the combination of low ambient exposure and light falloff will create a black background. I tried this at home the other week during my lighting experiments. Sure enough, even with my big windows in full daylight at midday, if I kept ss high, I wound up with a deep black bg.

Iz confoozed.

anonymouscuban

Right Diva, but what if your ambient light is very bright? For example, what if you meter just with the ambient light and correct exposure calls for shutter of 1/250 @ f/5.6?

Keep in mind, I will be shooting inside with bright ambient light which I cannot control. I don't really think it's bright enough to matter but I understand why Nik is suggesting High Key for this shoot.

reyvee61

I'd like to see the end results of this as well as the sync speed debate

anonymouscuban

I'll be sure to post the pics that I take. BTW, I've decided to go High Key. That's what I had been planning and I don't want to change last minute. Now let's see what sort of props we get. There is another business setting up a haunted house in our large dining room and I was told they will lend me some hay bails, pumpkins and maybe a scarecrow. However, the gal that is in charge of all the charity events this year isn't very organized so I have a feeling I will be hunting around looking for stuff tomorrow morning.

reyvee61

All said, I hope it goes well for you

divamum

I don't know that this completely resolves the question since it's balancing ambient with flash, but that's pretty bright to pretty dark. Indoors - and by keeping the flash superclose to the subject (to invoke falloff) I think it's more significant, isn't?

http://www.thewonderoflight.com/articles/?p=766

This in particular is relevant (emphases mine):

"Finally increasing the shutter speed by another stop to 1/250 I can kill most of the ambient light in the shot. However in all 3 cases, the subject is exposed the same as it is the flash that is lighting the subject. Click here to see a larger resolution version of the image.

"This technique can be a very creative tool for the photographer. Indeed given a powerful enough shot you can make the brightest day look like night. A system which allows you avail of high speed sync is also advantageous, because it allows you increase your shutter speed to levels which cut out virtually all ambient light, but still allow you expose the subject with flash."

anonymouscuban

Right Diva, that is what I've learned and it make sense but my D300 has a sync speed of 1/250 a second so there is a limit to how bright of ambient light I can eliminate through shutter control. Again, this is just my brain thinking this through logically. My brain doesn't always work so I may be completely wrong.

divamum

Give it a try if you get a chance to play around with it when you're practicing. I was surprised how I was able to effectively black out 98% of what was behind me when I experimented with this in a fairly brightly lit room. I think it would be hard to do it in broad sunlight, but with "normal" ambient it's a pretty cool trick.

Of course, not necessarily relevant for your shoot (sorry for the threadnap!), but it's interesting. And I'm still not sure I understood what Nik meant, so I want to clarify

anonymouscuban

I totally get what your saying Diva. I've done it pretty successfully as well. But like I said, I think there are limits based on your sync speed and the lumen output of the ambient light.

I'm pretty sure for my shoot tomorrow, at apertures of 5.6-8, shutter speed would be <1/60 in order to meter correctly in ambient. At an ISO of 100 of course. I think I will be able to exclude as much ambient as I want.

Now... back to the regularly scheduled program...

What say you guys about the light setup. My SB-600 setup behind them as rim light and then the two AB-400 with the umbrellas in front... one as key and the other as fill, camera left and camera right? Keep in mind, I don't have a modifier for my SB-600, other than my DIY beauty dish so I don't want to light the subjects with it. Or should I blast the BG with SB-600 and move my peeps closer to the BG to get some bounce as rim?

Jeremy Winterberg

the senior session I had with Jeremy, the first picture in the gym. The lights were on, and it was HELLA bright. I was able to knock it down to pretty much no ambient with one AB800 on like.. 1/4 power I think..

It can be done, but like everyone is saying, probably easier on the fly with a high key setup. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing your results!

Nikolai

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Hmm... I think I get what Nik is saying. It would make sense to me that it is all relative to the ratio between your strobes and ambient light. For example, go outside on a very bright day and try to overpower the sun with your strobes. I don't care how fast you set your sync speed to... ain't gonna happen.

So with low-key lighting, ambient light, depending how close the lumens match your strobes, will come through in your photo. Am I right Nik?

Yeah, pretty much.

In highkey, your flash will overpower any istandard indoor ambient lighting easily. Hence even if you get some extra lumens with luminiscent color temperature, they will be lost and won't affect your image.

In lowkey, your flash would have to be on a low level. Hence the ambient lighting will be relative close to it powerwise. And you can't go to 1/8000 of a sec to exclude it, since you won't be able to synchronise your strobes. Hence you'd have to block it to avoid the pollution/color cast, which is kinda hard to do in a non-controlled environment.

Having said that, Canon speedlights have a feature allowing you to actually do that, i.e. shoot at higher speed. But ABs (and most studio strobes) don't... And I have no idea about Nikon or other brands.

Nikolai

@Diva:
closing subjects to light source will have one specific side effect: very steep light fall off. If the depth of the subject (say, 12 inches for a human being's head) is comparable to the distance from the front of the subject to the light source, it means you will have a full stop of light loss over just that distance. Any couple of inches would matter. That can be OK when you work with an adult subject in a multihour shoot in a studio, but if you're having a kwikie with some totally unfamiliar kids, positioning and keeping them with that precision is out of the question.

divamum

Ah, so you were more concerned about ambient creating WB issues than "lightleak" as such. I think I get it.

Oh, and I totally understand why it's not necessarily the right setup for this particular shoot, I was just wanting to understand the principle better since the subject came up....

anonymouscuban

Had the event today guys. Ended up going high key. I was a little frustrated at first because two other events setup in the spot that was reserved for me. After getting that straightened out, setup went well. A little slow at first, actually thought I was going to get anyone to bit but an hour into the event, the kids started flowing in. Some adults as well. Got a little hectic at times... lots of people moving about so it was kind of a get them in and out kind of thing. I'm uploading the images as I type. So far looking pretty good. I will post some when I get them ready.

Thanks for everyone's input. I really appreciate the help. Actually setup some leads for some paying jobs!!!

Jeremy Winterberg

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Actually setup some leads for some paying jobs!!!

Always a good thing to hear! Glad it went well.

CASowers

I've been reading along here as any lighting other than natural is a bit of a mystery to me. Can't wait to see the shots.

divamum

Pictures, or it didn't happen....