Just one

divamum · January 6, 2011

C&C always welcomed :thumb

It's been so busy I barely had any time to shoot last month - December just flew by with a host of concerts and then the holidays... and now it's already January. :rolleyes I had WANTED to do a family shoot, but no luck - just never happened. I did, however, manage to grab a couple of Mini-D on Christmas Eve. This was the only chance I've had so far to try out the Cheetah 16" Q-box - it was already open from when I'd unpacked it etc, so I just grabbed it and used it for some fill with these few shots (fwiw I love the grid - I am SO happy I got the sb that has that included!)

TenThirteen · January 7, 2011

I really really like this... But I am disturbed that the lighting makes her nose look really crooked... Care to share the setup?

reyvee61 · January 7, 2011

You got the Cheetah...cool...I'm going to get the Firefly this month.
I love the transition of light and shadow here but now that I read 1013's comment, I see it too....
She has lovely eyes.....

NeilL · January 7, 2011

There's a lot to like about it, dm - composition, bokeh, pose, accessories, balance of subject to background, naturalness. The lighting needs tweaking, I think. A little hot especially in the eyes, and the off-key hair a tad lost for idea of this image - use of a light meter to check exposure there would have helped get it right. Nose shadow would probably come more into line with adjustment of light. A little more sharpness and definition in the lips perhaps.

Nevertheless this is an interesting shot, sympathetic, shows a new maturity in your daughter. Different from others of yours, I think?

Neil

Hackbone · January 7, 2011

Divamum, this is one thing I do with prints that I want to do as competition prints. It forces your eye to go to the hot spots. Mistakes jump out at you. Whenever I make a comment it is with how the judges would respond to the print.
1. try to not shoot directly into the shoulder
2. see how the shoulder is competiting with the face for attention. You need to have one focal point.
3. the face is a hot. Her cheek is reading 243-245 and a reading of 250 is blown out with no detail.
4. the angle of the eys seems abit odd.
Hope that helps?

divamum · January 7, 2011

Thanks all.

@tenthirteen, I totally didn't see that and now that you mention it, it's ALL that I can see - HA! Good catch (note to self: always check nose-lines WHILE SHOOTING). The lighting is 430ex in ETTL mode in the Qbox to camera left, but there are also two big windows behind me so there was quite a lot of ambient banging around (which I wanted, hence the slowish shutter speed). What's interesting with this kid is that when she WANTS to be photographed, you almost can't take a bad picture of her; when she's not in the mood, it's hard to get a good one. Most of this series was less-than-good, but there was something about this one I liked.

@Reyvee, the Qbox is excellent value for money - the shoot I bought it for was actually rescheduled until next month and I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to play with it, but based on this quick go-round I'm very happy with it for my needs. For me in my small space, a modifier which offers a soft but tighter light is a great addition to my larger, more wrap-around modifiers (eg the Photek Sofliter). Now I just need to find some time to play with it. One thing I want to try is a setup where it's the key, and I use the softliter for fill (rather than the more obvious setup of large source as key, small source as kicker/hairlight). Work in progress.

@Neil - you've listed all the reasons I like this shot, I think. Not a perfect picture, but one for the "mom file", perhaps

@Charles - AWESOME trick!! Thanks for that.

I'll check the processing. I was working away from the desk, without the calibrator - I actually bumped exposure and contrast quite a bit because it looked flat to me, so those hotspots should be recoverable. (note to self, don't trust old calibration info). I agree with the shoulder competing for attention - I'm generally not a fan of bare arms in shots for exactly that reason, but it's what she happened to have on. In a more formal (ie planned!) or client shoot, I'd have requested something else....

adbsgicom · January 7, 2011

Nicely done, Diva. Definitely a lot to like. Funny how they run hot & cold on being willing to model, and a bit frustrating. New clothes seem to be the best trigger for opportunity in my household.

The nose line is the biggest issue for me; strobes don't have a modeling light so you have to try to catch that sort of stuff on the LCD, which isn't easy. I think your box was a little low given the way the line is flowing across her face.

Hackbone · January 7, 2011

Andrew brings up a good point about not being able to see the light pattern on a strobe in a box. How about adding a light bulb on one of those contractor light sockets to help see the pattern. You can even use a large bulb in a softbox as its own light source. You just have to correct the color in your conversion.

zoomer · January 7, 2011

At home on my good monitor it looks overly bright on the skin. Looks better on my dark work monitor.
The light could have been higher to move the catchlight up in the eye and also to provide more flattering shadows.
She is cute and I know how hard it is getting the young ones to sit still for a shot....I kind of like the pose...yeah the arm and face are sort of stacked but I can get by that.
If it were mine I would crop a smidge off the right and bottom to make it even more of a pano...but fine as is.

Mitchell · January 7, 2011

It just looks too hot to me. I've got to get home on my calibrated monitor and look again.

reyvee61 · January 7, 2011

Hackbone wrote: »

Andrew brings up a good point about not being able to see the light pattern on a strobe in a box. How about adding a light bulb on one of those contractor light sockets to help see the pattern. You can even use a large bulb in a softbox as its own light source. You just have to correct the color in your conversion.

I finding out that this is a valuable tool and I wonder if we shouldn't all start off learning with continious light before working with strobes...
I'm rethinking my strategy for learning light...

NeilL · January 7, 2011

The shoulder is a comparatively large element in the frame, yes. However I like the way that it articulates with the face - I think the face would be somehow lessened without it just so - and I think it helps give the image its own particular interest. For me this pose contributes to the feeling of sympathy with the subject that I think is a strength of the image. Perhaps it would be better to have more oblique light on the shoulder, but this image is not a studiofied model shot a la current conventions - I don't think it was intended to be - and it might not win a prize on those terms, but it is something else, and something else obviously has its own logic. I don't wish my comments to be taken to be in opposition to the fine advice and great tips that Charles has given from his expertise which is greater than mine, and which I greatly appreciate, but I think that this image needs a wider space to occupy than what he describes. Doing it by the rules and not doing it by the rules each has risks. The skill of the photographer (and model) is the clincher.

Neil

divamum · January 8, 2011

Thanks, everybody. I'll reprocess on a recalibrated monitor to get that exposure back where it belongs. It shouldn't be a problem given the SOOC (shot raw):

Interesting thoughts about modelling lights (and glad to have sparked discussion

). I will say that I think mistakes like mine above are as much in not really *knowing* how to work the most out of the equipment: this was the first time I'd used the 16" SB and, unlike my larger more diffuse modifiers, it doesn't wrap the light around as much (hence the wonky nose line). Next time I use it, I'll know that I need to position it more accurately and really watch for shadow placement and/or ensure a bit more fill on the unlit side(in this case, the only thing on CR was a white wall/door, and that was several feet away).

The more I shoot and read, the more I think that really knowing your equipment is half the battle, and that every much includes lighting modifiers as much as lenses and flash settings.

Great comments and discussion, guys - thank you!

reyvee61 · January 8, 2011

Ohhhh
I rather like the SOOC

divamum · January 8, 2011

See, and on this monitor in its current state that is daarrrrkkkkkkkkk. Time to get set up on the desk again and run Mr Huey, clearly

reyvee61 · January 8, 2011

Oh no, don't mind me....I like low key portraits by default...most anyone else would probably say this is underexposed

And I'm still at work on a very dark display.
When I get home I'll peek at this on my slightly calibrated display to see it better.

anonymouscuban · January 8, 2011

The SOOC shot doesn't look dark on my new 27" calibrated iMac. Had to brag a little.

Joking aside, the SOOC looks good, needs just some minor tweaks. The first image was way too bright.

reyvee61 · January 8, 2011

anonymouscuban wrote: »

The SOOC shot doesn't look dark on my new 27" calibrated iMac. Had to brag a little.

Joking aside, the SOOC looks good, needs just some minor tweaks. The first image was way too bright.

Ha, I'm with Alex, now looking on my home display, the sooc definitely looks close with a few minor tweaks.

I so wish I had the new i7 27

anonymouscuban · January 8, 2011

reyvee61 wrote: »

Ha, I'm with Alex, now looking on my home display, the sooc definitely looks close with a few minor tweaks.

I so wish I had the new i7 27

HA! It's A-MA-ZING. When I transfered my LightRoom catalog over to it from my old machine, I looked through a few of my photos and saw so many that were too bright, had artifacts from processing, etc. I really underestimated the importance of a good monitor if you are serious about your photography.

NeilL · January 8, 2011

In the original posted image there are no pixels in the skin area which have a R, G or B value reading over 250, so none of the skin is blown. Whatever display you are using you can always know this information. In most images you want some pixels to be about 250, and you want some pixels to be 0. Some of the tree lights have RGB values of 255 in one, two or three channels, so a levels adjustment on those, selected in Threshold, could be considered as part of PP.

So the problem of the skin is not a technical one, but an aesthetic one. Why the same levels on skin can look wrong in one image and right in another is an interesting question.

Neil

zoomer · January 8, 2011

The sooc looks just a smidge dark but better overall than the original blown one.
A 2 minute clone job to clean up some skin just a very slight exposure bump, crop from the top right and bottom to make it a pano and you have a nice shot there.

NeilL · January 8, 2011

zoomer wrote: »

the original blown one

Neil

Seneca · January 9, 2011

What your shadows...you can see the shadow of her nose on her cheek.

Just one

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