How to Screw Up a Session... I mean what else could go wrong

Travis · December 1, 2008

All right, here's the background. A few weeks ago I did portraits of a friend's twin 4 month old infants and they loved the photos so much that they invited me back to shoot their family portrait. When I say family, I mean husband, wife, and SEVEN kids ranging from the twin infants to college aged. The first thing that threw me was the height difference between the children. There are pretty big age gaps between them. I think I understand why you find very few posing books with illustrations of how to handle a group like this.

I manage to get them in some sort of order and begin shooting using the setting sun and a single SB-900 for fill when I notice that my exposures are all over the map. At the start, I metered the background, set flash to TTL, and dialed the flash down a stop, a routine I'm getting comfortable with. Except, I fire the shot it looks very overexposed. I adjust the flash to -1.3 and shoot again only to find it overexposed again. I adjust to -1.7 and fire. Holy mackerel Batman! It is seriously underexposed! At this point the babies squirming, the younger kids are getting restless, and the older ones are having texting withdrawals. I adjust once again back to -1.0, fire, and perfect exposure. I'm feeling good until the next series of shots totally flake on the exposures.

Have you guessed what is going on yet? :scratch C'mon, take a second, I'm sure it will come to you. tick tick tick .... got it yet?

Of course it didn't hit me until I left their house and was driving home. In the chaos of getting them set, I totally forgot to follow my little checklist with one of the items being the bracketing compensation. My last shoot was HDR brackets of 5 stops. Ugh! I never reset it. Actually, didn't even think about it. 80% of the photos went straight to the recycle bin. Another 10% found there way there in the last 48 hours. I didn't shoot that many to begin with so I'm now seeing if I can salvage the few remaining.

Here is one that I think is decent (would love some feedback). The infants are facing the wrong way. The next shot would have been the winner except the smiling faces of everyone including the BOTH babies were wrecked with motion blur. :cry I thought I'd share my misery with y'all in the hope that it will help at least one person to remember to double check their settings!

sweet caroline · December 1, 2008

So sorry. How frustrating. This is a cute photo- the exposure looks good. Babies hardly ever look the "right way", so hopefully the family will understand. They'll never know what you had to toss!

Caroline

Elaine · December 1, 2008

What a bummer! I think I would have had a panic attack on the spot! You got a great portrait out of it anyway!

Love the colors and light, expressions and setting. Very nicely done.

Travis · December 1, 2008

Thanks Caroline & Elaine. When it hit me what happened, I had to pull over my truck and physically check my camera settings. I just cringed! It is about a 30-minute drive back to my place; however, seemed to take 3-hours. Lesson learned. I am happy that I did manage some keepers but I hate screwing up anything, especially something like that.

It drives me crazy!!!

lisap · December 1, 2008

I have had too many after the fact light bulbs go off to count. *sigh*

I like this shot too. The setting is very nice and like Caroline said, the babies rarely cooperate. Everyone else looks great

-- Lisa P.

Travis · December 1, 2008

lisap wrote:

I have had too many after the fact light bulbs go off to count. *sigh*

I like this shot too. The setting is very nice and like Caroline said, the babies rarely cooperate. Everyone else looks great

-- Lisa P.

Ahhhhhhh, that's it... I need a light bulb replacement

Thanks Lisa!

Travis · December 2, 2008

Here are a couple more from that session...

1.

2.

3. They were happy to be done...

Elaine · December 2, 2008

I must say...she is one gorgeous lady...and then you realize she's had 7 kids (I think they're all hers?)? Yikes! Bravo, Momma!

AND...I love that shot of mom and dad! What a beautiful setting you had!

Mike J · December 2, 2008

I wish some of my attempts look as good as some of these salvages... I think my favorite is #2 (the two older daughters with the younger twins?). On my monitor the infant's skin tone looks very cool though - almost pasty white compared to the older daughters. I don't have any experience with infants so I'm wondering if anyone has ideas of compensating for situations like this where there is such a difference in skin tones of the infants and older siblings?

How were you using the SB-900 for these?

davidweaver · December 2, 2008

Don't worry about the babies. Look at circa 1900 pics to see they move in the long studio exposures. Also baby skin is highly reflective so getting every skin tone in a pic like that is tought to do and you did it!

pyry · December 2, 2008

You say you ruined a shoot and post pictures like this?

I'd say you did rather well

Scott_Quier · December 2, 2008

Looks like you got enough keepers to keep the clients happy. Well done! On these that you've posted, the exposure looks good and you can't beat what you had for a backdrop. And, it's really hard to make bad photographs of gorgeous people - both mom and dad are good looking people and they passed that burden:D on to their kids!

As for camera settings - I've had just one experience like that. Now, I reset all the settings to a known state before I put the camera away - ISO 100, One Shot AF, etc. Then I before a gig, I check to make sure that I did, in fact, put the camera away correctly because sometimes I forget

Edit: That last photo - what's that shadow in the center bottom of the image?

Travis · December 2, 2008

Elaine wrote:

I must say...she is one gorgeous lady...and then you realize she's had 7 kids (I think they're all hers?)? Yikes! Bravo, Momma!

AND...I love that shot of mom and dad! What a beautiful setting you had!

They do make a beautiful family! The mom and go way back to high school and I can honestly say that she has always been this striking. Only 4 of the kids are hers though. It is kind of a Brady Bunch situation. Just think though that she had twins 5-months ago and that is how she looked 3-weeks later! I eat a donut and its off for a 3-mile run.

Travis · December 2, 2008

Mike J wrote:

I wish some of my attempts look as good as some of these salvages... I think my favorite is #2 (the two older daughters with the younger twins?). On my monitor the infant's skin tone looks very cool though - almost pasty white compared to the older daughters. I don't have any experience with infants so I'm wondering if anyone has ideas of compensating for situations like this where there is such a difference in skin tones of the infants and older siblings?

How were you using the SB-900 for these?

Thanks for the comments Mike. The skin tones between babies and adults will drive you crazy. The babies are pasty white. I thought about warming them up a little but it just wouldn't have looked natural to anyone that knows them. The little tykes are a challenge!

Travis · December 2, 2008

davidweaver wrote:

Don't worry about the babies. Look at circa 1900 pics to see they move in the long studio exposures. Also baby skin is highly reflective so getting every skin tone in a pic like that is tought to do and you did it!

Thanks David! Add black and white combination of shirts to the mixture and it will drive you nuts!

Travis · December 2, 2008

pyry wrote:

You say you ruined a shoot and post pictures like this?

I'd say you did rather well

Thanks pyry for the comp. What's killing me are the images "that could have been." There were a few that were absolutely perfect for poses, expressions, the works, but were just totally unusable. Live and learn.

Travis · December 2, 2008

Scott_Quier wrote:

Looks like you got enough keepers to keep the clients happy. Well done! On these that you've posted, the exposure looks good and you can't beat what you had for a backdrop. And, it's really hard to make bad photographs of gorgeous people - both mom and dad are good looking people and they passed that burden:D on to their kids!

As for camera settings - I've had just one experience like that. Now, I reset all the settings to a known state before I put the camera away - ISO 100, One Shot AF, etc. Then I before a gig, I check to make sure that I did, in fact, put the camera away correctly because sometimes I forget

Edit: That last photo - what's that shadow in the center bottom of the image?

Thanks Scott. No joke about the backdrop. That is their backyard! You are familiar with the area - they live right next to the Cavalier Golf and Yacht Club. Their backyard comes out to a point which is gorgeous.

I usually do the same thing that you do as far as resetting my camera settings and then going through the checklist on shoot day. When I was doing the HDR shots, the temps were in the 20's and I lost feeling in hands; so I figured I would reset everything when I got home. Needless to say from now on I will do it directly following the shoot regardless of conditions!

As for the shadow? I have no idea. It appeared in a lot of the photos but there was nearby that could cast it.

Maybe it is ghost shadow....

lisap · December 2, 2008

The background just got more beautiful as your shoot progressed!

I really like the contrast (or is it maybe the saturation?? Or both?? haha I'm so bad with using the technical terminology).

-- Lisa P.

Travis · December 2, 2008

We started shooting just as the sun hit tree-level and continued for 40-minutes until the light was gone. The later it got, the more beautiful the light was and more frantic the shooting became!

Calm Light Photos · December 2, 2008

These are all really nice shots, regardless of the position of the baby's heads. The mom really doesn't look old enough to have college age children!

Scott_Quier · December 2, 2008

Travis wrote:

As for the shadow? I have no idea. It appeared in a lot of the photos but there was nearby that could cast it. Maybe it is ghost shadow....

On-camera flash? Did you have a hood on your lens? If yes to both, could the shadow could be cast by the lens hood?

Travis · December 2, 2008

Scott_Quier wrote:

On-camera flash? Did you have a hood on your lens? If yes to both, could the shadow could be cast by the lens hood?

Off camera flash through a Softliter. Could be that the flash unit itself cast the shadow, but I have never had that happen before. It is also possible that light from the house (coming from behind me) was striking a tree branch (tree just off to my left but out of the path of the sun) caused it. I may try to recreate it this weekend to see if I get the same shadow. I can smooth it in post but I'd rather find the root cause. Nice catch.

Travis · December 2, 2008

Calm Light Photos wrote:

These are all really nice shots, regardless of the position of the baby's heads. The mom really doesn't look old enough to have college age children!

Thanks CLP. The college age kids came from the husband's side, the 2 younger kids from her side, and the twins were a mutual collaboration.

Still, she gaduated a year after me from high school and I graduated in '87. She has amazing skin (though light which was a challenge).

Mitchell · December 2, 2008

Travis, I'm not sure how you survived this incident!! Just your story is giving me palpitations. I hate when gear malfunctions occur, particularly when it's due to user error!

All in all you had still wound up with some great looking keepers. I'm sure t hey will be happy with these. Only you will know that you didn't have your usual large number of photos to pick from.

Nikolai · December 2, 2008

Sorry Travis!
I guess things like that can happen to the best of us. One possible soution for precisely this type of situation is
1) also have bracketing sequence on auto cancel
2) use it only in a conunction with user-setting (provided your camera allows for those)
Other than that it is just yet another thing to do on the national "Check your ISO" day

Travis · December 2, 2008

Mitchell wrote:

Travis, I'm not sure how you survived this incident!! Just your story is giving me palpitations. I hate when gear malfunctions occur, particularly when it's due to user error!

All in all you had still wound up with some great looking keepers. I'm sure t hey will be happy with these. Only you will know that you didn't have your usual large number of photos to pick from.

Surviving the shoot wasn't a problem, it was the post drive home after the realization that killed me.

It is a horrendous feeling sitting there watching Lightroom load beautifully composed images that are a wreck. I had an 8-mile run the next morning so I couldn't turn to the bottle! I appreciate the comp!

jeffreaux2 · December 2, 2008

Poor You!!!

FWIW....we may have all had experiences that are similar. To cough up the truth, I still am often bitten by forgetting to be sure my flash is set to high speed synch. A MUST for the type of shots I am usually after. On another occasion, I had arrived at a location early...waiting for a couple to arrive for engagement photos. In the meantime, I switched to ISO800 and began shooting some of the surroundings. To make the story short, I captured quite a few shots of them at ISO 800 before realizing I had forgotten to switch back. On one more occasion...during a senior photo shoot I was trying to capture a guy on a galloping horse. I would begin shooting the sequence with him far in the distance coming toward me....using focus tracking. BUT....due to the buffer limits of my camera I was getting the dreaded "BUSY" each time he got close enough to really capture. I eventually realized that I would have to forego my normal RAW+jpeg captures and just try to grab it in jpeg.

I believe that your experience served you well here. A lesser experienced photographer may have called it quits. Those you shared here look great.

I am getting very near to purchasing a real stand or two, and either umbrellas or softboxes of some type. What are you using for stands...and what is your basic....go-to...set up. Pocket wizards?.....how are you tripping the unit(s).

I have been reading a lot about this on the net. There are many directions one could take. My initial desicion is to get a 10' stand and a 60" white...shoot through...and just use that with a 580EX and fire it with an STE2. But.....the thought that I may be ignorant of something I am overlooking is holding me back. Thoughts?

Travis · December 2, 2008

Nikolai wrote:

Sorry Travis!
I guess things like that can happen to the best of us. One possible soution for precisely this type of situation is
1) also have bracketing sequence on auto cancel
2) use it only in a conunction with user-setting (provided your camera allows for those)
Other than that it is just yet another thing to do on the national "Check your ISO" day

I need to check the owner manual for the D300 to see if it has auto cancel. if so, you can bet it will be set. I also need to check on the user settings. Sadly it is on my "Check you ISO" day, but it doesn't do you any good if you neglect to look at it!

Preacherman · December 2, 2008

Hi Travis

If I received those shots as the result of my family session with you I would be delighted. I reckon you got away with it.

Don't suppose you tried to HDR any of the shots??? Would be interesting to see

...maybe

Travis · December 2, 2008

Preacherman wrote:

Hi Travis

If I received those shots as the result of my family session with you I would be delighted. I reckon you got away with it.

Don't suppose you tried to HDR any of the shots??? Would be interesting to see ...maybe

I haven't got to the experiment stage yet. I'm still in salvage mode but I'll probably run through some alternative treatments later this week if time allows. I like to do that after each shoot to see if there is a different look that works as well. I've never had a great deal of success with single image HDR but it is probably attributed more to my lack of experience doing it than it not really working. It is definitely something to try. Thanks!

JulieLawsonPhotography · December 2, 2008

Travis, my friend and I were looking at this set and despite the problems you were having....these are great!!!! They will not be disappointed. Great Job!!

How to Screw Up a Session... I mean what else could go wrong

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