First attempt at using off camera flash

Gary752

I got a text msg from a friend asking if I could take some photos of her daughter in her cap and gown before her graduation ceremony. I figured this would give me a chance to try out the 3 modifiers I picked up off eBay. Well, they only gave me about 10 minutes, including setup time, so I only got to try one of them this time. This shot was taken with a Strobie 130 fired by a Tiny Trigger in a 36" Octobox. Camera was a Nikon D300 with a Tamron 70-200 f2.8 using manual focus. Settings were ISO 200, SS 1/200, at f 6.3. I placed the octobox camera left slightly forward and above at a slight angle pointed down and across in front of her to sorta feather it. For pp, I imported into LR and set the black and white points and white balance. Then exported to jpg and the took it into Portrait Professional to clean up some blemishes and then back to LR to add the watermark.

So how did I do? I really want to get better at this so let me know what I done wrong and what I need to do next time to correct it.

Ashley


One question I do have is what do I need to do to eliminate the reflections in her glasses when taking the shot? I really wanted her to take them off, but she wanted the photos with them on, and not having a whole lot of time, I had to take what I could get.

Next test subject I am going to try using a 24" x 24" soft box and a 16" beauty dish. The beauty dish came with a grid and diffuser (some call it a sock). The 36" octobox also came with a grid, but didn't have enough time to try it. Maybe next time.

GaryB

Bryce Wilson

In studio glass glare can be controlled, but outdoors is tough. Easiest solution is to pop the lenses out of the frames for the shoot.

jonh68

Scott Kelby has a tip to take one pic with glasses on and one without glasses. You can then use the eyes from the no glasses pic and draw them into the glasses pic.

I don't think the reflection is too bad in this pic.

Hackbone

I think you did a great job especially for your first try. Ditto on two shots one with and one without glasses, makes life much easier. Nit is push the glasses up so they don't cut into the eye.

divamum

Nice natural balance between flash and ambiet I'd bump the exposure/brightness overall at least a 1/2 stop (maybe more) as it's reading dark (and will likely print dark).

THere are a couple of tricks with glasses but, as Bryce says, outside even if you avoid the flash reflecting, you'll probably get other reflections, and you can't do much about those. Generally, have the subject turn away from the flash (so, effectively, short lit) or if you can't really control the position (eg in groups) have those with glasses reach behind their ears and push down on the earpieces so the glasses lift up to a different angle for the duration of the shot. Also, pushign them RIGHT the way back to the bridge of the nose (which is higher than you'd wear them in real life) helps prevent the cutting-iris-in-half problem (you've avoided that here, but it is often a challenge when folks wear glasses).

Nice job!

Qarik

overall the shot is simpy too dark. You could bump the exposure probably a full stop on this shot. Also where is the smile? She looks distant and even upset. About the glasses..you could try a bunch different tricks to avoid reflections but the easiest thing to do (in the future) is to ask her to remove the glasses (take shots with and without)

lifeinfocus

jonh68 wrote: »

Scott Kelby has a tip to take one pic with glasses on and one without glasses. You can then use the eyes from the no glasses pic and draw them into the glasses pic.

I don't think the reflection is too bad in this pic.

Great tip and something I should have thought of for my last senior photos, where one of the lenses caused a distortion that took way too much time to fix. Ah live and learn.

Sam

An other way is to tilt the back of the glasses (side pieces) up. Do not move the gasses up or down. Only change the angle of the glasses.

The whole idea is to change the angle of the glasses in relationship to the camera to have the reflection go off at a different angle.

This is impossible when doing fast PJ type photography.

Sam