Hey Art,
Yeah I can get you an image of the setup. Give me a couple of days and I'll post it.
The 22" AB beauty dish and white sock (i got the silver beauty dish) I was using also has a direct light blocker. This I did not use during the shoot. I wanted to try the BD without it initially. Do you think that will make a big difference in diffusing the light even more?
I would have never thought it was TOO powerful, and I was worried about not getting enough juice when I did my research on a strobe light.
R.
No rush on the set up pix, I just thought it might help us see what is going on......for practice...if there is a beauty school in your area, see if they will sell you a mannequin head to work with.....I have a white styro head with a wig on it, but the schools around here have ones that look natural....in most skin colors.........
Funny thing.....When I first bought my WL5000's, I got scoffed at by tons of other Pros.....especially when I showed up at some of the largest Catholic Cathedral's with only 2 of them for shooting the formals.....but Paul Buff some how engineers his reflectors to seemingly add punch to the light.....with 1 WL5000 I was able to light a wedding party of 40 evenly and the other light got the back ground.......
By putting the blocker on the dish it will help even out the light making it all come from the reflector and the sock should soften it more...now there is nothing wrong with harsh lit portraits, if that is the look you're going for...remember, there was a time of no diffusers..
I have never used a beauty dish but have been looking at them.........
Makes sense. let me ask you waht size umbrella would you use with a AB16 for portraits like these? I have one thats about 45" (shoot through) 39" for a bounce.
It really depends on the portrait, for me any way...I have started not using anything under 45" (my currently brolly boxes) and my 86" PLM........a good midway size would be 60" and bounce lighting will be softer yet that is why I recommended but the stop in the beauty dish so all the light is bounced off the reflector and diffusing with the sock....if that is not enuff, go to a GoodWill, Salvation Army or other used store and get some flash white sheets to make your own diffusers or the fabric store...
Look at the PLM 60" silver with the white diffuser added to it......bounce umbrellas / brollys and plm's allow you to do more angle adjusting than shoot thrus without the need for a boom arm........
Look at the PLM 60" silver with the white diffuser added to it......bounce umbrellas / brollys and plm's allow you to do more angle adjusting than shoot thrus without the need for a boom arm........
I agree. The shot I posted up top was lit with a 60" photek Softlighter which is pretty similar to the 60" PLM with the diffusion fabric on it. (I still want to get a PLM though for parabolic use...). It's a nice soft light source that will be flattering to just about anyone. That said, a 45" shoot through could be just as soft or softer if you had it right up next to the subject's face. Again, it's all about *relative* size. Experiment with what you have before buying anything else.
The hairlight in that shot was just a bare SB-28 which as you can see highlights every stray hair in stunning detail and makes a lot of work for me later. I've since started using a 16" softbox on my hairlight and it helps quite a bit. You could go bigger with it but at some point it would start to lose some of the specularity and I still want to retain that if I'm lighting the hair. The flash in this case was maybe 3-5 feet away and zoomed in to 85mm with a grid to prevent flare.
Right, there is that I sometimes forget people do it also for money and not just for fun
Well in that case, I'd just pop on the biggest softbox I could get my hands on, and set it face-on to the subject if her face is narrow or slightly to the off side if it's broad. Simplest methods usually work best, but again, thats just me.
I'm a lazy portraitist. I only shoot beautiful women.
Comments
R.
No rush on the set up pix, I just thought it might help us see what is going on......for practice...if there is a beauty school in your area, see if they will sell you a mannequin head to work with.....I have a white styro head with a wig on it, but the schools around here have ones that look natural....in most skin colors.........
Funny thing.....When I first bought my WL5000's, I got scoffed at by tons of other Pros.....especially when I showed up at some of the largest Catholic Cathedral's with only 2 of them for shooting the formals.....but Paul Buff some how engineers his reflectors to seemingly add punch to the light.....with 1 WL5000 I was able to light a wedding party of 40 evenly and the other light got the back ground.......
By putting the blocker on the dish it will help even out the light making it all come from the reflector and the sock should soften it more...now there is nothing wrong with harsh lit portraits, if that is the look you're going for...remember, there was a time of no diffusers..
I have never used a beauty dish but have been looking at them.........
It really depends on the portrait, for me any way...I have started not using anything under 45" (my currently brolly boxes) and my 86" PLM........a good midway size would be 60" and bounce lighting will be softer yet that is why I recommended but the stop in the beauty dish so all the light is bounced off the reflector and diffusing with the sock....if that is not enuff, go to a GoodWill, Salvation Army or other used store and get some flash white sheets to make your own diffusers or the fabric store...
Look at the PLM 60" silver with the white diffuser added to it......bounce umbrellas / brollys and plm's allow you to do more angle adjusting than shoot thrus without the need for a boom arm........
I agree. The shot I posted up top was lit with a 60" photek Softlighter which is pretty similar to the 60" PLM with the diffusion fabric on it. (I still want to get a PLM though for parabolic use...). It's a nice soft light source that will be flattering to just about anyone. That said, a 45" shoot through could be just as soft or softer if you had it right up next to the subject's face. Again, it's all about *relative* size. Experiment with what you have before buying anything else.
The hairlight in that shot was just a bare SB-28 which as you can see highlights every stray hair in stunning detail and makes a lot of work for me later. I've since started using a 16" softbox on my hairlight and it helps quite a bit. You could go bigger with it but at some point it would start to lose some of the specularity and I still want to retain that if I'm lighting the hair. The flash in this case was maybe 3-5 feet away and zoomed in to 85mm with a grid to prevent flare.
http://blog.timkphotography.com
Right, there is that
Well in that case, I'd just pop on the biggest softbox I could get my hands on, and set it face-on to the subject if her face is narrow or slightly to the off side if it's broad. Simplest methods usually work best, but again, thats just me.