Christmas portrait with light from lamp

bobcool

I had a pretty bright, adjustable directional lamp that I wanted to try and use as a main constant light for an indoor night portait attempt. As usual, only one picture out of 25 was even barely usable with lots of motion blur, even with my 50mm 1.8 lens. Come to think of it, my daughter might be OOF slightly not because of motion blur, but because of the small DOF by using f/1.8. Anyway, we may use this, or we may try again during the day and use window light.

Has anyone tried this with success? Here's my try.

1/13 sec
f/1.8
50mm Nikon lens
Nikon D80
directional lamp above and right of camera
42' white reflector camera left for shadow fill

dgrinjackson

Hi Bob,

Nice lense! Did you try upping your ISO?

Also, how about bouncing your directional lamp off a second reflector with it being place very close to your subjects to give a softer shadow under your daughter's nose.

Scott_Quier

If you daughter is blurry/OOF in this shot (hard to tell at this small size), it might be either/both motion blur or a DOF issue. I suspect DOF may be a contributor: at a focus distance of 6' (I'm guessing here) your DOF will be inches. So, if you focused on your son's face, then your daughter will be outside this range. You will get better results if you focus on a point somewhere between the two faces (like his right ear); but even with this, you will have DOF issues. More light and smaller aperture is called for here.

That having been said, I think the concept is a winner for a holiday post card type image. If you re-shoot, I would get the shadow/dark areas and door frame (on the image left) out of the frame - they are something of a distraction. Oh, and some emotion?

bobcool

Scott_Quier wrote:

If you daughter is blurry/OOF in this shot (hard to tell at this small size), it might be either/both motion blur or a DOF issue. I suspect DOF may be a contributor: at a focus distance of 6' (I'm guessing here) your DOF will be inches. So, if you focused on your son's face, then your daughter will be outside this range. You will get better results if you focus on a point somewhere between the two faces (like his right ear); but even with this, you will have DOF issues. More light and smaller aperture is called for here.

That having been said, I think the concept is a winner for a holiday post card type image. If you re-shoot, I would get the shadow/dark areas and door frame (on the image left) out of the frame - they are something of a distraction. Oh, and some emotion?

Hi Scott,

, I have plenty of pics from this session where they are smiling ear to ear, but they are blurry because they are not staying still! I'm going to re-shoot and try manual flash w/diffuser and reflector so I can raise the shutter speed and stop down to the sweeter spot of f4 for this lens for a sharper image. That should give me a deep enough focus plane to get both kids in focus. Agree?

It's funny, when you're photographing other people's kids, they do what you tell them to, for the most part. When it's your kids, they whine, fidget, don't do what you tell them to, get impatient, all that. Challenging...

Scott_Quier

bobcool wrote:

Hi Scott,

, I have plenty of pics from this session where they are smiling ear to ear, but they are blurry because they are not staying still! I'm going to re-shoot and try manual flash w/diffuser and reflector so I can raise the shutter speed and stop down to the sweeter spot of f4 for this lens for a sharper image. That should give me a deep enough focus plane to get both kids in focus. Agree?

It's funny, when you're photographing other people's kids, they do what you tell them to, for the most part. When it's your kids, they whine, fidget, don't do what you tell them to, get impatient, all that. Challenging...

Go to dofmaster.com and take a look at the calculator there for an answer to your question - one I can't answer without knowing the distance between your camera and your subject.

As for kids and for whom they will behave - it's a well know fact that a kid will do just about anything for a stranger, but nothing for the parent. I think it's the old "unfamiliarity breeds contempt" thing.

DavidS

I love the boys expression.

bobcool

Trying again with flash this time...
Thanks for all the input on this photo - we tried again after a few days and had to bribe the kids with some chocolate, but it worked. I think this is a better photo, but I'd like some C&C from my friends here. Happy Holidays!

gregneil

I think it's a great portrait! I like the darkness of the background in this one more than the lighter tree in the first attempt, it really makes your kids stand out. Looks like you got better focus this time! A couple thoughts... there's a pretty big shadow on your daughter's neck... I'm guessing you used a flash pointing down, and very slightly off to camera-right, and then it looks like you used a reflector for fill on camera left (guessing from the catchlights in your son's eyes...) Perhaps a different angle of the flash would get rid of that shadow. I have no idea if this would work well, but it's something I thought of... If you've only got one flash to play with, maybe move the flash to about 45 degrees to the subject (camera right) and still have the reflector camera left. Aim the flash more at the reflector than at the kids, and angle the reflector to properly bounce the light back onto the other side of their faces. So the spill from the flash will light the left side of their faces, and the bounce from the flash off the reflector will light the right.

But I really don't know if that could work well, I'm just making it up as I go.

I think what could really make this picture stand out is a hair light... just a little, but it would help separate their dark hair a bit from the background.

Even without doing anything differently, you've got a great shot. Thanks for sharing!

Scott_Quier

Aside from the strained expressions and her clenched fist, this is a better photo. I do think a longer shutter (to increase ambient light contribution) would be in order to bring out more of the tree behind them, maybe bring up the ambient 1 whole stop.

bobcool

gregneil wrote:

I think it's a great portrait! I like the darkness of the background in this one more than the lighter tree in the first attempt, it really makes your kids stand out. Looks like you got better focus this time! A couple thoughts... there's a pretty big shadow on your daughter's neck... I'm guessing you used a flash pointing down, and very slightly off to camera-right, and then it looks like you used a reflector for fill on camera left (guessing from the catchlights in your son's eyes...) Perhaps a different angle of the flash would get rid of that shadow. I have no idea if this would work well, but it's something I thought of... If you've only got one flash to play with, maybe move the flash to about 45 degrees to the subject (camera right) and still have the reflector camera left. Aim the flash more at the reflector than at the kids, and angle the reflector to properly bounce the light back onto the other side of their faces. So the spill from the flash will light the left side of their faces, and the bounce from the flash off the reflector will light the right.

But I really don't know if that could work well, I'm just making it up as I go.

I think what could really make this picture stand out is a hair light... just a little, but it would help separate their dark hair a bit from the background.

Even without doing anything differently, you've got a great shot. Thanks for sharing!

Hi Greg,

Great suggestions! I'll try that the next time I can convince them to get back in front of the camera. I was using a reflector with one off-camera flash, ala Strobist method, but I need to work on aiming the flash and angling the reflector properly. Practice makes perfect, right?

I think I need to look on eBay for another flash and perhaps a grid box for a hair light, because you're right about bringing their hair out more. Man, this hobby is getting expensive! In fact, I just bought a 70-200 2.9 VR yesterday for sports and outdoor portraits. No other presents for Daddy this year! Thanks again for your feedback...

System

great lookin' kids and a great photo (except for the look of 'hurry up dad, this sucks!')-

bobcool

Scott_Quier wrote:

Aside from the strained expressions and her clenched fist, this is a better photo. I do think a longer shutter (to increase ambient light contribution) would be in order to bring out more of the tree behind them, maybe bring up the ambient 1 whole stop.

Thanks for the feedback Scott - that's something I'll try as well. Balancing ambient and flash is tough to learn for me, but the more I do it the easier it will become. Also, I missed the clenched fist, darn it! As for the expressions, well, you know what the last picture was like, so I'll take this as an improvement.

Thanks again...