Lighting Question

Montec

Lighting Question
So I purchased a couple of large soft boxes (36x48) and have 1000W halogens in each one. Seems like lots of light...but I have a hard time getting the Fuji 9000 to give me a reasonably fast shutter speed. I am shooting children a lot and a fast shutter is essential. (as you know they move around a lot!)
I am using these for portraits and have a black backdrop that is probably causing some of the problems but I am sure I am just doing something wrong. The best I can get for shutter speeds is 1/50 when I meter right off something white in the frame.

I am set up on a tripod about 10 feet away from the subject, Approximately 100mm focal length, ISO 100 and wide open Aperture. I have the key light set up at 45 degrees to subject and slightly above them, the fill light is on the opposite side but lower and about 2 feet further back to reduce intensity. I have a 120 W hair light above the subject.

I don't really want to boost the ISO in a portrait so does any one have any suggestions?

Montec

Not to bother....I had the lights too far away from the subject (12 feet)
I did not realize they needed to be so close.

Art Scott

How are your pics turning out....any over exposures.....Might I suggest that you INVEST in a decent light meter....as metering at your sugject (incedent metering) is almost always beter that any reflected metering you might do for portraits. This way you aretelling the camera what to do and letting the camer run the show, so to speak.

A 1000 watt lamp from 12 feet from subject, even diffused from a white softbox should give you ample light...say f5.6 at atleast 1/60 sec and that was for years standard portrait lighting .... even for kids....

Remember tooooo that 2000 watts of light is a lot of HEAT coming from floods and that will make the little beggars squirmmy also...:D

Good luck

Montec

Art Scott wrote:

How are your pics turning out....any over exposures.....Might I suggest that you INVEST in a decent light meter

Exposure seems pretty good with the lights up closer...anything further back was way underexposed. This one is at 4.2 Aperture, 1/100th shutter with 100 ISO.

Here is a sample from after I moved lights up, still seems like some thing is wrong here...

JohnDC

A couple of suggestions
1. Light intensity on the subject decreases geometrically with distance from the lighting, so you do have to be careful about the distanace of the lights.

2. Exposure of the subject's face has nothing to do with the darkness of the background.

3. From the shadows, it looks like you have the lights close together and aimed almost directly at the subject's face--too front on. There only seems to be one shadow, which is too harsh (hard), and too much glare off the subject's face. Are you sure both lights are working right? I would also change the position (angle) of the lights to reduce the glare and shadow edges.

4. Your color is odd--not natural. Too saturated? Too warm? Check your settings and what your are doing in your processing (e.g., in PhotoShop).

5. I would also put the subject much further away from the background, so the background texture is more out of focus.

Montec

Thank you, that pretty much sums up how I had the lights positioned...I am not doing anything in PS...but the white balance seems off or something. Will check that on camera.

JohnDC wrote:

3. From the shadows, it looks like you have the lights close together and aimed almost directly at the subject's face--too front on. There only seems to be one shadow, which is too harsh (hard), and too much glare off the subject's face. Are you sure both lights are working right? I would also change the position (angle) of the lights to reduce the glare and shadow edges.

4. Your color is odd--not natural. Too saturated? Too warm? Check your settings and what your are doing in your processing (e.g., in PhotoShop).

LiquidAir

Generally portriats need shadows or else they look flat. If you put one light box on each side, pull one back twice as far from your subject as the other. Say one is 3 feet from the subject, the other should be about 6 feet. You then expose for the closer light and your shadows will be 2 stops underexposed which is still bright enough to give you good shadow detail. This, of course is just a starting point. Much of the art in portraits is getting a good light balance. Take a bunch of test shots with different light locations until you get something you like.

Barefoot and Natural

I have one 36" soft box light with a 500w bulb that I use......by reading this thread...I am guessing this is not enough.

I also have a HUGE window on the opposite side of where I place my soft box and this window has a lot of available light.

I am also using my 580 ex flash with Garfy Fong Lightsphere (still learning how to used the flash properly)

Should I not use the window as part of my lighting and get another studio light...or should I increase the wattage on the light that I already have?

Now these two shots where not used with window light because these were taken last night and I saw this thread today.

Barefoot and Natural

the other

LiquidAir

Take a look at http://www.strobist.com. It is a great introduction to flash photography and it will give you a great sense of artificial lighting in general.

The simplest lighting scenarios usually have two lights: one is the main (or key) light, the other is the fill light and the balance between the main and fill lights one of the main creative controls in portraits.

In principle you can use any pair of your three lights sources (soft box, window, flash) as your main and fill lights but you need to be careful about your color balance. Your softbox likely has a considerably warmer color temperature than the light coming in the window.

My suggestion is that when you are using the window as one light source, you pair it with the flash because both will be close to the same color temperature. With a good diffuser on the flash, I'd use the flash as main and the window as fill because it gives you an exposure about 2 stops above ambient. To do that, you need to get the flash off the camera (which is a good idea anyhow) so you will need some sort of remote trigger system (cable, optical, infared or radio) and a stand for the flash. The Strobist website will give you some good ideas here.

I'd use the softbox as a replacement for the window at night. When doing that, you will need to balance the color temperature of your flash to the color temperature of the soft box. Get a set of CTO gels (color temperature orange) in different strengths to place over the flash and adjust for a good match.