Princes Leia - need feedback

Foques

I had a few shoots past Saturday..
This one I am unhappy with, but can't figure out if I'm just being a judgmental ass to myself, or if these are really not that great.. thoughts?

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Hackbone

My concern is the lack of contrast between subject and background. Neat idea and costuming.

Foques

thank you! any suggestion on how to improve it?

Hackbone

Can you do any contrast adjustment and or pull up the black point some? That should help some. The bkg is sooo white and so is her skin, maybe warm it up a bit also.

Alex P

Whilst I don't know exactly what you were going for, I can't say I quite "get" the style of this. To me it comes across as though the fact that she's dressed as princess Leia is a little incidental if you know what I mean. I just don't find the blue carpet and armchair screaming Tatooine to me.

Hope that helps a little.

Foques

This was shot at the Convention; not much of a choice as far as backdrop goes.

Alex P

My bad, that explains a whole lot!

Wiren

While I like the outfit and think the model is quite beautiful, I feel that the only keeper is #4.

Most of the shots are too brightly lit... lower the EV a tad, ad a slight bit of contrast and maybe a trouch of clarity.... that ought to help.

A lot of these poses has that "deer in the headlight" look and don't give off the idea of a strong willed Leia..... looks like she wasn't able to portray the mood of her character, but 10 points on the costume... and awesome that you got to shoot her! What guy in his right mind could pass up a beautiful woman dressed up like Leia wanting it on film?!?

Is this somebody you know that yuo can try to shoot again.... If so, you could do a lot more with lighting so they aren't so bright and have her give a moodier look while posing....

Good job you lucky devil... I hope you get to shoot her again, she'd make a beautiful model for so many other shoots......

Foques

She is a local cosplayer, this was shot during the convention.
I was provided with a very short time frame- i think we did all the shooting in about 20 minutes. I can bring images down in brightness, this is no problem.

When I shoot, I do like to have my models brightly lit, but I did - I believe - miscalculate here as she has quite fair skin. All the red tones I have are brushed in. I definitely see room for the improvement, and I wish we had more time to work.

It is my hope that her and I will be able to work more.

I had total of 8 shoots that day, i'll be posting some other ones soon (those are, in fact, lit better).

M38A1

Darn, I see no images from my MBP (firefox) or iPhone (safari)

Foques

yes, sorry. I have reedited and reuploaded them.

M38A1

I certainly have the least experience here, yet I'd say 3 and 4 tend to be the strongest as #3 almost has the appearance of a white seamless background, and #4 is closest to a standard headshot. The first two she seems to get a bit lost in the space/background and the contrast is a bit weak.

I can only guess that was in a venue with lots of large windows up high. Did you try any with a simple off-camera handheld flash?

Foques

I would have loved to have the time to light her up with a BD, but I wasn't permitted enough time for that.

Truth be told, I am a fairly imposing person (at 6'4" and 250 lbs, not fat) and those models who haven't worked with me before often times take a bit of a time to warm up. 20 minutes - as I see it - just isn't enough.

Qarik

I like 3 technically. 1 is tosser because of her facial expression, 2 and 4 are just ok.

D3Sshooter

Nice dress and concept, but to come back to your question. Indeed there is an issue with the luminace/light balance between the foreground and the object.
The background is by nature in these shots very bright (sun or whatever). The model is under the same conditions less bright, and as a result the exposure time or volume is cranked up. That way the model is lit as it should. The consequence is that the background becomes to bright.
How to solve this:
- Use a flash and set it to i-TTL
- Use spot metering on the models face
- Repoint the spot metering on the background and see the difference between the front and back measurements
- Adjust the F and S on the camera so that the Flash is not more then one stop higher then the back
- If it is not possible to get a good exposure, due to the fact that your flashsync is limited at 1/125 sec (or more depending on the camera) use a Neutral Density filter to keep the ambient light under control.

Steve

Foques

gents, thanks for your feedback.
Steve, i'm well aware of the poor lighting. If you read my comments above, you'll see that I had no time to set up my flash.

Here is one of the shots I got when I could set up my lights and spend some time with my models.