First Studio Portrait

tmlphoto

Just got my Alien Bee 800 and a black background, so I thought I'd try my hand at a studio portrait of a friend of mine. Comments welcome.

F/8 1/125 ISO 100 AB 800 w/ softbox & silver reflector fill

pathfinder

tmlphoto wrote:

Just got my Alien Bee 800 and a black background, so I thought I'd try my hand at a studio portrait of a friend of mine. Comments welcome.

F/8 1/125 ISO 100 AB 800 w/ softbox & silver reflector fill

TML - these are my first impressions and I assume you sincerely want criticism rather than praise. This is MUCH better than most snapshots, but there are areas for improvement. I am not a portrait shooter by trade or inclination, but to my eye the shadow to the left of her nose needs to be controlled by increasing the illumination with the reflector or moving the mainlight. There are highlights over her clavicles also. A side note - I am a fan of soft side-lighting also.
You are shooting at f8 - why not open up a stop and move the softbox back a little further or diffuse the light more to flatten out the light a little on her cheek too.
I would use the healing brush over the lines in her neck - she will be sensitive about those . You might also place a small light behind her head for catchlights in her hair and to seperate her better from the back ground.

She is a gorgeous subject and with a little improvement in the placing of your lights I think you will have a great shot that you and she will both love.

Hopefully some of the other real PROS here will give you their opinions also.

tmlphoto

pathfinder wrote:

TML - these are my first impressions and I assume you sincerely want criticism rather than praise. This is MUCH better than most snapshots, but there are areas for improvement. I am not a portrait shooter by trade or inclination, but to my eye the shadow to the left of her nose needs to be controlled by increasing the illumination with the reflector or moving the mainlight. There are highlights over her clavicles also. A side note - I am a fan of soft side-lighting also.
You are shooting at f8 - why not open up a stop and move the softbox back a little further or diffuse the light more to flatten out the light a little on her cheek too.
I would use the healing brush over the lines in her neck - she will be sensitive about those . You might also place a small light behind her head for catchlights in her hair and to seperate her better from the back ground.

She is a gorgeous subject and with a little improvement in the placing of your lights I think you will have a great shot that you and she will both love.

Hopefully some of the other real PROS here will give you their opinions also.

Thanks for the comments Path. I really am just starting the learning process. I just pulled the strobe out of the box about 30 minutes before taking this shot. I've never done any kind of studio stuff at all before. I agree with the nose shadow comment. I think I need to adjust the position of the reflector. I think maybe the highlights are a little too bright as well, especially on her clavicles. I am going to play around with the postion of the softbox as well. I'm really excited about learning about this studio stuff. Thanks again for the constructive criticism.

GREAPER

The pose is the thing that strikes me as needing some work. Too straight on.

Have her turn her body slightly one way or the other then have her turn her head to different angles and tilts. You can end up with more dynamic shots.

examples:








Just my opinion, and I am no pro, but I am working on it.

pathfinder

tmlphoto wrote:

Thanks for the comments Path. I really am just starting the learning process. I just pulled the strobe out of the box about 30 minutes before taking this shot. I've never done any kind of studio stuff at all before. I agree with the nose shadow comment. I think I need to adjust the position of the reflector. I think maybe the highlights are a little too bright as well, especially on her clavicles. I am going to play around with the postion of the softbox as well. I'm really excited about learning about this studio stuff. Thanks again for the constructive criticism.

I would be interested in a more specific description of your studio lights - I would like to try that someday.

Tml - check out Greapers smugmug site for posing suggestions - he has some excellent shots there also.

ginger_55

She could change her clothes and put some makeup, different makeup, on too.

, funny critique.

Who are you all. Thomas, keep truckin. Greaper has some good tips, but his models prepared a bit better, too. Probably more motivated, like senior photos or something.

I thoroughly agree on the head tilt, body turn and stuff. When the high school graduates join the company for high school photograpy, where my husband works, they send them to a training place to learn head tilts and stuff.

I hate them personally, I will not take a picture of my husband in head tilt mode, but he tries to look "cute", I hate it. There are masculine head tilts and feminine head tilts...........I could not make myself do that for a living. The lighting is automatic. He does have a light behind the model, I know that. I took photos of his studio, but they aren't on my computer right now, I will try to find them. The light behind the model shines on the backdrop and the colors can be changed. It looks to me like there are slaves.

My idea of portraiture is to wait for the person to do something I find attractive. I am terrible at posing people, or telling them what to do. So you done good for the first time.

I will find pictures of the studio and post them. I was worried legally at first, but it has been awhile, I don't care. I took some photos of Bill too.

Greaper has good advice. I don't know about a nose shadow, I used to think there was supposed to be one, haven't thought about it in a long time. Kind of a triangle.

ginger

tmlphoto

Thanks for the comments. I guess I should explain a little more. I took this shot as a test shot to try and figure out the lighting. The "model" is actually ou baby sitter, whom I hijacked into "posing". I guess I'm more interested in the technical side of the lighting right now. Where to position the softbox, how close etc. Thanks for the feedback. I'll make some tweaks and post some more later if I can find a willing victim (uh, oh, model :-) ).
Greaps, What kind of setup do you have?

tmlphoto

Hey Greaps, Thanks for the feedback. I really like your portraits. I have checked out your gallery in the past. What kind of setup do you have? I am trying to start out with a single light and a reflector until I get that simple setup down before going to a multilight setup. I had the softbox about six feet away, but I think it might be too far. I also think I need to increase the distance from the background to the model ( you can see a crease in the background if you look closely) The f stop may have been too stopped down as well, what do you think? I don't have a light/flash meter, but instead just took some test shots and looked at the histogram. I don't know if I can get very far with that method though.

tmlphoto

pathfinder wrote:

I would be interested in a more specific description of your studio lights - I would like to try that someday.

Tml - check out Greapers smugmug site for posing suggestions - he has some excellent shots there also.

I have a single strobe with a medium sized (30x40" softbox) from Alien Bees. (www.alienbees.com ) The reflector is about a 36" silver reflector. The cost is about the same as a 550EX including lightstand. My studio is my gameroom (my wife is having a fit . The whole thing sets up in about 10 min. I bought a black background from adorama and used spring clips from Home depot to clip them up in front of my TV cabinet. (very professional, eh?) The alien bees seem to have a cult following on the FM lighting forum.

GREAPER

The first ones I did were taken at our club house where we have hot lightning strobes. They are expensive.

I joined a studio group where we all pay rent and share the equipment and we have some of the hot lightning lights but pretty much we all use the alien bees lights like you describe

I use one light for the main light shooting into a silver reflector umbrella, I set it at full or 2/3 power. I use another light with a softbox on it for fill on the opposite side ussually set to 1/3 or 2/3 power, The distance from the model varies. Our studio has big windows on one side and the ambient light can vary. We are looking at ways to cover them but they are huge, 10' high going across the entire 60' of studio.

I ussually try for f/10 or f/11 at my flash sync speed (1/125 I think).

I am pretty new to all of it as well, but you learn a lot each time you try it. Quality by volume, take a lot of shots varying your method slightly. As you do this you will find the things you like and weed out the ones you dont.

With the one light set up you have, try moving the reflector a little closer to the model, but keep the light back where it is, this should help fill the shadows a bit better.

tmshots

Just an input if I may be so bold. For portraits you have a need of min two lights. One yes a soft box that should be either left or right kanted maybe a few feet away from the target and direct. I like 1/16th. The second is a hairline light that should be posed high and on the side aiming just shy the top of the head. You may want to play with it a little to get just the right hairline effect you look for. I too am fond of bees and you get alot for what you pay! I feel they are the "only" ones worth it on the market for us snappers. But again this is just me. Normally you'd want a meter to get the right settings but as I have found when it comes with shooting a 10D for most meters you may want to stop it up a bit. For that glow that alot of people like to get, I'd go with a hotbox and filters on pods. I've always loved the look, though a fan is ideal when using them (Man does it get hot under there!) Well this was my two bits, use them or toss them. Hope that helped a little

FreeUps

Just a quick tip too
It seems that your model might be trying a little to hard to look "UP" at the camera. She almost looks strained. Try a different tripod height and see what ya get.

tmlphoto

Thanks for the feedback. I played around with the position of the softbox and reflector. Couldn't get find any models wandering around the neighborhood, so I was forced to use myself . Warning: Extream caution should be used when viewing this picture, eye protection recommended .

Self Portrait in B&W:


I think maybe it might be worth investing in a "hair light" after all, I REALLY do have hair, a little, at least....

tmshots

Hey Thomas
Any way we can see the color on that? Or you happy with the results?..
Here is a portrait I did but as you can see I coulda dropped a stop.

tmshots

This one is where I used a white backdrop but you can see here due to the shadowing on her left (or right depending on how you look at it) that I coulda moved the hairline light just a bit forward

tmlphoto

tmshots wrote:

Hey Thomas
Any way we can see the color on that? Or you happy with the results?..
Here is a portrait I did but as you can see I coulda dropped a stop.

Yes, yours does look a tad dark on my monitor. I like the way the light gradually drops off as you get away from her face. Were you using the setup you described earlier?

Here's mine in color. The lighting is improved from my first shot, i think. I moved the softbox a little closer, increased my subject to background distance and turned my reflector a little. My right shoulder seems too bright compared to my face. I guess because its closer to the reflector than my face. I suppose I could back up the reflector a little to even it out a little or cover up the bottom of the reflector.

What do you think?

tmshots

Yes, the lighting is much better on that one. And as I have found, it takes quite a bit of play to get it right.

Yes the light setup was done on both of the shots, the first one was needing a stop down and the other was just a little misplacement of the hairlight, But with a bit of curves it is salvagable. But I think you got it from what I saw of the pic