Portrait lighting question

mrcoons

I have a event to photograph later this week, I take photos for the local Parks & Rec departments drama events. The perform plays and musicals using area high school actors. They like headshots of all the cast members and then photos of the performance.

The this play like the first one will be in a high school auditorium but not the same one. The first one was in my son's HS and I knew what the light would be like. I took the headshots using a Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens and no flash. Here is an example:


So this time I thought I'd be better off using my Impact Digital Flash Umbrella kit (2 stands, umbrellas and Speedlite flashes and an ST-E2) and find a decent wall to shoot in front of.

The question is how far from the wall would I set the flash stands?

pathfinder

The question is not how far to set the lights from the wall, but rather, how far from the wall do you want your subjects. Your lights should then be placed to illuminate your subjects as desired.

Using the lights closer to the subjects ( with umbrellas) , gives a softer edge to the shadows. Pulling the lights farther away from your subjects ( if the EV level is kept the same) creates a little harder shadow edge. Is your vision one of darkness and intrigue, or a softer, more romantic style of lighting? I might try a few shots with the umbrellas 3-8 feet from the subject to start and then evaluate from there.

The image you posted seems to display the texture of the wall clearly. I would consider placing your subject farther away from that wall.

Art Scott

Also....

Also if your subject is tooo close to the wall there will be shadows on the wall.........if your subject is a min of 3' from wall the shadow should start to fall towards the floor....also it is good to have the light some what higher than subject slightly tilted forward....this will also drive the shadow down towards the floor......also try shooting in portrait orientation for the headshots, they will look much more pro.....

SloYerRoll

In addition, I'd recommend only carrying one light setup and use a neutral corner to control the rest of your light by bouncing the light.
Here's a very informative how to on this method. (This may get a bit confusing for a second unless you really understand light, but it is really worth reading as many times as it takes to really grasp it. It lays part of the groundwork for all your lighting to come.)

There are a couple of advantages to this:
· setup and breakdown is quicker and easier
· it is easier to lug around less gear than more
· you learn how to control one light better so when you go to two lights, you see the option of 3 or 5 light sources. Or just two lights...
· your back will thank you for it

By the headshot you took w/ ambient though. I'm sure you'll do well whichever path you pick.

-Jon

mrcoons

Hopefully the space at the back of the auditorium will be available (if the seats are folded up as they should be this time of year) and then I can set up 20 feet or so away from the wall. A corner may be tough to come by in this room though.

I found strobist.com this morning when I googled this question and am reading through it.

I would think I'll go for the softer image on this one pathfinder, this play is "Music Man" but I could have gone for the harder edge at "Little Shop of Horrors" The director would have loved that.

I did shoot all the subjects in portrait and landscape the first time. I wanted to give the drama organizers choices as they used these shots to make buttons to sell. I asked them what their preference was but they had no idea. Here is one of the portrait shots.



Thanks for the help everyone!!

pathfinder

Art's and SloYerRoll's comments are very apt. I should have mentioned shadow control by light adjustment too. Thanks Art.

Bouncing light off a corner can be excellent if you have white walls, but to my eye, these walls look greenish, so I would be cautious about bouncing off them unless I am mistaken.

Soft or hard light is not a question of better or worse, as you understood, but a question of what serves your image's needs the best.

Post some of your shots in the People thread when you finish up - or here, if you have question's about your lighting.

Scott_Quier

This is more than a bit off-topic, but I offer this observation in hopes that it will make you more successful. The two sample portraits you have posted have some focusing issues. Unless it was intentional, the focus plan is somewhere in the region of the model's ears. With the young lady, her hair at her shoulder is in focus while her face is a bit soft. The young man, his ears are in sharp focus while his face is not.

I might suggest you check your camera/lens combination for back-focusing issues.

mrcoons

Scott_Quier wrote:

This is more than a bit off-topic, but I offer this observation in hopes that it will make you more successful. The two sample portraits you have posted have some focusing issues. Unless it was intentional, the focus plan is somewhere in the region of the model's ears. With the young lady, her hair at her shoulder is in focus while her face is a bit soft. The young man, his ears are in sharp focus while his face is not.

I might suggest you check your camera/lens combination for back-focusing issues.

Not too far off topic in my opinion Scott! I wonder though if this is more operator error than equipment related. The previous and next shots were all taken with a Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens on an XT. I think I had the camera in one shot mode but I'll have to check that. Here are 2 more images that look fine to me (but what do I know) but I'd like your opinion.






All my subjects were standing still (hopefully) but I was shooting hand held and may have been moving(maybe I should shoot off the tripod this time!). I did take a number of shots using a Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens on an XTi. Here is one of those:


I found a link to a site that shows me how to test my lens/camera for back focusing so I will do that this afternoon. Plus I check to see how I had the XT set up. Thanks for the advice Scott.

Scott_Quier

mrcoons wrote:

Not too far off topic in my opinion Scott! I wonder though if this is more operator error than equipment related. The previous and next shots were all taken with a Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens on an XT. I think I had the camera in one shot mode but I'll have to check that. Here are 2 more images that look fine to me (but what do I know) but I'd like your opinion.


I found a link to a site that shows me how to test my lens/camera for back focusing so I will do that this afternoon. Plus I check to see how I had the XT set up. Thanks for the advice Scott.

Por Nada!

Opinions; just like bellybuttons, everyone has one but few are worthy of note. That having been said, looking at the young man in the red shirt on my monitor at my 9-5 (it's not all that good...) it appears he is in very good focus. I downloaded your origianal (or at least the largest I could get) from your site to look at and it still looked pretty good.

The young lady in the hat - it appears that the focus plane is somewhere just beyond her eyes. I'm looking at the weave of her had and extrapolating from that, but that's what I see.

Good luck on your testing. I certainly hope this is either failure of my eyes or your pilot error and not a lens calibration issue.

mrcoons

Here is the test on the 85mm on the XT:


Used a tripod, shot in Program mode, ISO 100. Did not use a flash.

Second shot with the 17-55 F/2.8 IS on the XTi:

This shot was at ISO 400, no flash.

Both shots the focus point was the 12 inch mark on the tape measure.

Scott_Quier

The only thing I can say is that the camera is not focusing where you think it is. In both, photos, the 12" mark is well in front of the focus plane. In the 85mm shot, it appears that focus plane is somewhere around the 8" or 9" mark (it's kinda hard to tell due to the JPG artifacts). On the other, it's even harder due to the height from which the photo was taken. But, it appears it's somewhere around ... actually, I can't tell - the JPG artifacts are getting in the way. But, I know for sure that it's somewhere between 10" and 6".

Other's may have a different opinion (see my comment in previous post), but that's what I see.

The next step is to do this all over again, but manually focus. This will help determine if the AF is off or if it's something else.

mrcoons

Well I found a chart that it was said could be used for determining focus problems but I did not do this test correctly either! (Forgot the tripod this time. How could I do that?)

First shot is with the XT and I did remember to use manual focus. I did crop this photo but that was it. You were supposed to take the photo at a 45 degree angle to the chart but I don't think I made it on this one.



This second one was taken with the XTi - both shots are with the 85mm lens.

LuckyBob

mrcoons wrote:

[...]First shot is with the XT and I did remember to use manual focus.[...]

Just wanted to make sure you meant to say you had the camera on autofocus. These tests are designed to check the autofocus accuracy of the lens/body combo; if you're backfocusing on manual focus, it's not the camera's fault . If they were done on autofocus, it does look like the 85mm is backfocusing a bit. You'd have to try with a tripod to be sure, though.

The other thing I was going to ask about was the shadows on the girl in the first picture - it looks like she's got quite a bruise on the head and a really sharp left cheekbone. I was wondering if that was natural or part of postprocessing?

mrcoons

LuckyBob wrote:

Just wanted to make sure you meant to say you had the camera on autofocus. These tests are designed to check the autofocus accuracy of the lens/body combo; if you're backfocusing on manual focus, it's not the camera's fault . If they were done on autofocus, it does look like the 85mm is backfocusing a bit. You'd have to try with a tripod to be sure, though.

The other thing I was going to ask about was the shadows on the girl in the first picture - it looks like she's got quite a bruise on the head and a really sharp left cheekbone. I was wondering if that was natural or part of postprocessing?

Yes, the camera was set to AI SERVO focus mode.

The girl in the first photo had makeup on as her character was a homeless person, so it was to represent a dirty smudge.

Thanks.

Scott_Quier

LuckyBob wrote:

Just wanted to make sure you meant to say you had the camera on autofocus. These tests are designed to check the autofocus accuracy of the lens/body combo; if you're backfocusing on manual focus, it's not the camera's fault . If they were done on autofocus, it does look like the 85mm is backfocusing a bit. You'd have to try with a tripod to be sure, though.

One can use this test for a couple of different tasks:

• With AF on, you are testing the ability of the camera/lens combination to achive sharp focus lock on the intended target.
• In MF, you are looking at whether what you see in the viewfinder matches what the sensor sees. It could be that the optical distances are not the same, in which case the focusing will be off. Using MF can expose (no pun intended) a case of pilot error.

LuckyBob

Scott_Quier wrote:

[...]In MF, you are looking at whether what you see in the viewfinder matches what the sensor sees. It could be that the optical distances are not the same, in which case the focusing will be off. Using MF can expose (no pun intended) a case of pilot error.[...]

Good call! I didn't think about using it as a diopter adjustment method!

Scott_Quier

LuckyBob wrote:

Good call! I didn't think about using it as a diopter adjustment method!

Nope - won't work for that. I was refering to the possibility that the length of the light path from the lens to the viewfinder might be different from that of the path to the sensor. The MF test can expose that problem - rare though it might be.

cmason

your test photos with the cans appear to be at different aperture settings...the first appears to be at a lower aperture (bigger opening) than the second, where much of the subject, foreground and background are in focus.

Your second test was not conducted correctly, the targets do not work in the orientation you used them, they should be flat on a table.

Try this chart, which includes good info on the back/front focus problem, and specifics of how to set up the test and test chart. (it mentions the Nikon D70, but the chart works fine for all cameras)

http://www.focustestchart.com/focus21.pdf

mrcoons

pathfinder wrote:

Post some of your shots in the People thread when you finish up - or here, if you have question's about your lighting.

Well all my planning was for nothing in the end. To make a long story short the cast was not made available to me for head shots. (I'd say it was a combination of poor communications between the producer/director and horrible organizational skills. But what do I know.)

So I was there a lot earlier than I needed to be with a lot of equipment I did not need. Oh well, I learned a few things from this experience anyway!