Portrait attempt #4

This was another portrait attempt, and I think this went a lot better than last time!

Again, bear in mind, these shots are just for testing my light, not posing or even the facial expressions. So I would just make changes to the lighting, then have the subject look at me, take a photo, and then evaluate the lighting changes. That is what you are seeing here, nothing more.

SETUP A

First up, I had a three light setup with one main umbrella light in front and two bare flashes behind. This is a setup I am hoping to use for small groups so I wanted to get a feel for how it works. In the end, I don't think it is very good for a single subject (at least not how I was using it), but I think it can work well for say five or more people.



I felt that was just way too dark on his face at camera right.



Just a funny head angle here, but notice how his head angle changes the lighting!



Got rid of that darkness from the first photo, but now it is a little too bright on his cheek and there is a funky shadow on his neck.



I liked the lighting in this shot quite a bit, but the nose lighting/shadows look bad.



This was where I finished with this lighting setup. A decent portrait in my opinion.

SETUP B

Next up, we have a simpler, two light setup. Umbrella in front, bare strobe off to camera right as a hairlight.



The light at camera right is too bright, and it is creating a really odd look on his ear.



I liked this one quite a lot, but the light was hitting his nose a little too brightly, so I needed to fix that.



I turned off the light at camera right to get a feel of precisely what it had been contributing; yes, it was the source of that nose highlight I was wanting to get rid of.



This was, in my opinion, my best portrait lighting of the evening. I would prefer a touch more light in his eye socket area, but I felt that overall, this had a pretty nice, dramatic look to it.



That is the same lighting setup, but the main light in front is turned off so you can see what it had been providing.

SETUP C

Next setup is two shoot through umbrellas, one on either side of him, in front. Then a third light behind him, bare flash, aimed upward to provide light for his hair in an attempt to separate him from the background.



In this initial shot, I can't see any contribution from the light in back and everything at camera right is too dark.



Now we are getting light from the back, but his ears have light shining through them!



His ears are more under control, the shadow in his eye socket is opening up a bit.



In this one, his ears seem to be fine, we have separation from the background, but the light on his face seems too flat.



I dropped the output from the light at the right a bit, which provided more modeling, I liked this one better. The shadows aren't harsh, he is separated from the background, we called it a night at this point.

Portrait attempt #3

I have been really struggling at getting my lighting how I want it for the subject, but yet having the backdrop be truly black. This most recent session, I finally got things to be pretty close to what I want.

Bear in mind, I didn't do any fancy posing or anything - these are very strictly just lighting tests, and absolutely nothing more.

I went through and made meticulous notes as I changed the settings, the positioning, etc. For this test, I kept the camera settings the same throughout - the camera was set such that it had absolutely pure black without any flash added to the photo.

I learned a lot. I think my next test is to see how quickly I can set things up from "scratch" to get them how I want. One VERY notable difference from my last test is that I have learned enough now that I can actually verify in camera if my photo is going how I want it to. I was kindof struggling with that last time.

-Verxion



Click here to see the full details of how my shots progressed.

Portrait attempt #2

This is another portrait session. I didn't do anything with posing or really even in terms of trying to get good modeling in the lighting - I mainly just was trying to see if I could light the subject without having the backdrop be visible.

I failed utterly. I never succeeded in having the subject be evenly lit without also having the backdrop visible.

I was actually very depressed after this session. I tried many of the things I had read online, all to no avail.



For my notes on the photos, click here.

Portrait attempt #1

Images from today's children's portrait test session.

I setup the new backdrop on the backdrop stand. In retrospect, I realize a couple of things. One is that the dog hair from the Thursday session was REALLY REALLY bad (the only editing these photos had was cloning out immense amounts of dog hair). The other is that when you are shooting children and only children, it would be a TON smarter to have the height be a lot less than ten feet up. The extra room on the floor for the kids to play would have been nice. I'll remember that for next time.

I shot with one umbrella off to the left. I started out with it almost completely to the left and with the umbrella practically at floor level. Later I moved it back a few feet, and up a few feet, then aimed the umbrella down. I like the light a lot better in that second position.

There was some fill light from the windows to the right, but not much, as you can see in the photos.

After going through the photos, I have the following conclusions:

1. I think I want a tiny flash for the camera itself to make sure there is always a catch light. Either that, or I want some small light source near or behind where I am photographing from.

2. I needed additional fill light. I really like the quality of the light that the one umbrella gave, but the small amount of additional light from the windows was just not enough in my opinion. I could either have reduced the umbrella flash output to balance more with the window light or supplemented with an additional flash.

3. I don't like the way the background ends up being in the photos. In a few, it was fairly dark, but not completely black. I played a bit with subject<->flash and background<->flash distance as well as shutter speed and ended up with a couple shots where it was darker and a couple shots where it was much brighter. I think I need something to help separate the subject from the background more. I don't like that this sounds like another flash at ALL. Before I look at using another flash to solve that problem, I want to explore alternatives...

Finally, I think my faves are 4, 13, and 14. I tried for over an hour to get good photos of the kids together, but it just didn't happen. I could have the kids near each other and happy, but only for the few seconds just prior to my getting into position to actually take a photo of it. Once I was in position for a photo of them together, Alex would bolt. :(