First attempts with off camera flash - how to fix the hard shadows?

jasonscottphoto

One 580exii on the camera, one off to the side. How do we fix the shadow you see on dad? Put the flash up higher? Fill more from the on camera flash?

Travel

The more people in the group the closer the light is to the camera. IMO the light is too far from the camera. If there is just one person this distance would work. Raising the light would help too.

jmphotocraft

Gonna need something to diffuse it, like an umbrella, softbox, or beauty dish. For on-location shoots I think a beauty dish is probably least prone to being blown over.

jasonscottphoto

We do have a diffuser on both flashes...

http://amzn.to/1cB081h

time2smile

Jason,

Front fill needs to have more power, than the side light, I would use a softbox and not that diffuser and raise it. You could also just try to remove the diffuser from the camera flash, that will gain a stop by itself.

Personally I would

Good Luck.....

jmphotocraft

Yeah, that's not really a diffuser, it's an omni-bounce. It basically turns your flash into a bare light bulb, scattering light in all directions. It only has an effect indoors where the scattered light can bounce off of walls and ceilings. Outdoors it's just wasting your batteries. As you can see, your light still looks like unmodified direct flash.

To soften shadows, you need to enlarge the apparent size of the light source so it wraps around your subjects. This is done with something like the devices I mentioned. And when you use one of those, you will get the greatest effect by placing the light source as close as possible to your subject. The further it is from your subject, the smaller it appears and the less the effect.

jasonscottphoto

Thanks for the help everyone!

zoomer

move the boy so his shadow doesn't hit the dad. light from right above you and up high. shadow highlight tool not so much.
use a strong diffuser instead of direct flash. increase ambient using higher iso and less flash power....you get the idea

Qarik

diffuser = very large umbrella or soft box

exact same shot with 50 in umbrella = nailed shot

divamum

qarik wrote: »

diffuser = very large umbrella or soft box

exact same shot with 50 in umbrella = nailed shot

+1

jasonscottphoto

More recent attempts at this:

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(These were all taken on cloudy days vs. the cloudless night of the first attempt. But still, we're getting the hang of this more and more!)

Hackbone

Nice job on these. Remember for the future, the larger you can make a light source the softer it is and the closer you can get it to your subjects the softer it becomes. View the shadow the sun casts on your body. See how sharp the edge of the shadow is and how dark the shadows are=======small light source and far away.

jasonscottphoto

Have had some more good attempts lately, but also some "fails." I'll put a few winners here... no losers, .

Question: which flash should be "more" - the one on camera or the off camera?

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Thanks for the continued help!