C&C Please

craftgirl

I have only just begun shooting "portraiture" in the sitting sense. I don't have any lighting. Most of my stuff is sports and done outside, so I figure, why not ask the people who really know what they are doing. I want to stick with a 3 light set up, Please tell me, what is this shot missing? I dont know what you would want to know so I will say this was done with a shaded window to the left of her looking at you, over head sunk in lights above and a "reading lamp" with 60 watt bulb pointed just behind her from a distance....Pretty low budget I know....lol I have been doing some window shopping and have a good idea whats availible...I just dont want to buy more than I need or junk that I will never use. Oh and also, I haven't done any post processing.....the softness is bothersome to me. I shot this with my 20D and a sigma 70-200 2.8, any advice on the settings would be helpful too. Shot at 1/40th, 400 iso, 130mm at 2.8, no flash, hand held.
Thanks in advance for your input.

dangin

i think the image is composed well overall however it looks like the white balance is a bit off. portraiture typically does not yield strong, sharp lines, some softness is often desirable. i'd suggest a couple of things:

1) move the key light closer
2) change your white balance to accommodate for the light source type
3) introduce a background light to add a little hair light action.

Icebear

Color temperature
See you've got a porridge of light sources. If you mix daylight, and two different incandescent sources and shine them on one subject, you're OK. They combine, and all you have to do is find a nice neutral, and set your WB for whatever the resulting temperature is. The trouble you are facing is that you aren't really combining your light sources. You're using the daylight on one side, tungsten on the background, and another tungsten kinda washing the whole thing. That means you have different temperatures on different parts of the baby. YOU CAN"T REALLY FIX THAT in post (easily).

What you CAN do however, if you want to use tungsten to supplement daylight, is to use daylight balanced bulbs. "Reveal" bulbs are better than nothing, but photo supply houses sell true daylight balanced bulbs. They're not cheap, and have a laughably short life. You'd be better off blocking the light from the window and just using tungsten, or buy a good daylight reflector and turn off the tungsten.

Does that make any sense to you?

craftgirl

Yes, you make perfect sense. Icebear, I did play with the white balance a little bit and got a very interesting array of effects. This is the one that looked best to me (considering what I had to compare it too...lol). I get what you mean about the mixing. Better to stick with one kind of source all around. Youre right to about softness being ok with portraiture, I guess im so stuck on sharp for sports.....lol.

Dangin, I agree with your "hair light action" suggestion. I thought of that but where i had her sitting I was unable to do it. I have a better place to sit her but I was so excited about her outfit (we are huge skins fans).

Thanks for the compliments and the suggestions....if she wasnt sick and taking a nap, I would try again right now....but alas, i must wait.

I will post as soon as she is a "model" baby again....lol

THANK YOU!