New lights!

[GaryS]

I picked up a small light kit this weekend, and I got two of the kids to sit still for a few minutes tonight to test out the new toys!

I learned one thing so far.... Wash their faces yourself before you start!

Anyway, here are a couple of shots that I was happy with. I believe all were shot at f8, 1/125th. C&C welcome.

#1
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2227/2243594298_7c6faed9dc_o.jpg
2 lights, one with small softbox, one shoot-through umbrella.

#2
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2305/2242802991_507e6a0ae0_o.jpg
One light plus reflector.

#3
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2358/2242803193_a8bb29d63f_o.jpg
Both lights, zoomed in.

#4
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2243594554_d8b88ebff2_o.jpg
One light, plus reflector (and a crazy grin).

#5
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/2243594834_4675a51736_o.jpg
2 lights, with his favourite bear. This one I really notice his hair being too dark...

gs

[griptape]

As constructive criticism, buy an iron! So many wrinkles in the background.

[24Peter]

You're off to a great start! Play with the positioning of the lights to get a little more towards the tops of their heads. And backgrounds can be a pain. Maybe just a solid wall?

Good job! :)

[downtrodden]

I usually don't like posting any sort of comment on photos of people's children, however the first is my fave AND- i agree, pick up an Iron!

[Rooz]

gorgeous kids first up gary. love the first one. cheeky little face. lol and the last one the lighting on his face is great.

imo, you're flash speed is too fast and you're stopping down a little too much. thats giving you alot of shadow and the darkness in say, the hair of your little boy. more importantly, it's also minimising the soft lighting effect you want out of the softbox. portraits don't generally need to be super sharp in the whole frame, just the eyes really. maybe try f5.6 at around 1/80s ?? or even bump up your iso.

that will also minimise the issues with the background cos your dof will be shallower. try and get the kids to stand a little further away from the background aswell. (just trying to help you avoid using an iron ! lol)

[TheWengler]

imo, you're flash speed is too fast and you're stopping down a little too much. thats giving you alot of shadow and the darkness in say, the hair of your little boy. more importantly, it's also minimising the soft lighting effect you want out of the softbox.

What do you mean by flash speed? Is that another way of saying flash power?

[Rooz]

What do you mean by flash speed? Is that another way of saying flash power?

sorry, my mistake. i meant shutter speed. :)

1/125s @ f8 is great for fashion stuff, bold colours and the like, but with a "portrait" style, (if thats actually what you're going for), its too fast for flash sync in a home setup. even if you bump up the iso for the exposure, the shadows may be minimised but the contrast is still quite intense and the highlights get blown alot more where the flash hotspots are.

big huge lights with massive diffusers that spill a shiload of light...different story.

[cdifoto]

sorry, my mistake. i meant shutter speed. :)

1/125s @ f8 is great for fashion stuff, bold colours and the like, but with a "portrait" style, (if thats actually what you're going for), its too fast for flash sync in a home setup. even if you bump up the iso for the exposure, the shadows may be minimised but the contrast is still quite intense and the highlights get blown alot more where the flash hotspots are.

big huge lights with massive diffusers that spill a shiload of light...different story.

Shutter speed has nothing to do with exposure in a studio strobe environment and it never has a bearing on contrast. The darkness in hair, eyes, etc is from the positioning of the lights, not the aperture, ISO, or SS.

[Rooz]

Shutter speed has nothing to do with exposure in a studio strobe environment and it never has a bearing on contrast. The darkness in hair, eyes, etc is from the positioning of the lights, not the aperture, ISO, or SS.

in a non-studio environment, (ie: home set up as i said), with amateur lighting and/ or strobes, it actually has a much more pronounced effect on shadows and contrast...or should i say "perceived contrast" if you want to play semantics. being the difference in appearance of your subjects illumination to the background. ie: very well lit subject...dark background gives the appearance of increased contrast cos the difference in the EV of foreground and background is so different.

shooting at f8, 1/125s means your saying, "screw exposure, i'm so good at strobe lighting i dont need exposure to compensate. ambient light ? screw that aswell cos i'll make sure my lighting is that good that there wont be any need to fill shadows. dark spots ? you're kidding me...my light dispersion is perfect. hot spots ? please man...i know what i'm doing". now...that may be you my dear friend, but it sure as hell aint me with my home set up. i'm just not that good.

a home studio with amateur lighting usually has an element of ambient light. 1/125s @ f8 accentuates shadows of lights falling across uneven parts of a persons face because it will not allow any ambient light to "fill the gaps". if you have good enuf gear to completely control the lighting with flash alone then great. me personally, i have strobes and umbrellas and i always use a combination of ambient/ flash light for any portrait i have done to soften shadows and avoid both hot spots and dark spots. i don't rely on the flash doing the entire exposure.

add to this that most lens' peak their contrast at around the f8 level so you are going to get greater variation between light and shade at that particular aperture. my sigma 18-50mm is particularly guilty of this. its a very high contrast lens and i have to be aware of that even stopping down further than f5.6.

at the end of the day its 6 of one and half dozen of the other because its all about light; and light is controlled by a number of factors. its effected by the ambient light, position of your lights, power of your lights, distance between the subject and the strobes, your exposure, flash direction, diffuser, reflection, postion of your subject in relation to those lights, did they slightly tilt their head and alter their face position etc...heck even how big someones nose may be !

not to mention your focal length aswell which can effect the dof blurring the background so having less of a perceived contrast between light/ shade of things like non-ironed creases, or in fact ANY nook and cranny where you;re not giving ambient light enuf time to fill to make up for your lighting positioning. look at the close up of dp's little boy for a great example of that. its shot at the same settings, but its at 300mm. (would be interesting to note if the postion of the lights have moved here). but regardless...no shadows in the background cos the dof doesnt allow for the shadows to incur on the shot. it looks smoother and so gives the illusion that there is less contrast in the photo. but the fast shutter speed has prevented any ambient light from filling in the small shadows on his face. the small aperture has highlighted that because its so sharp and the dof on that foreground is complete.

adjusting any one of those will have an effect on the lighting and shadowing in your shot. you can do that with position of the lights sure. but you can also control this quite accurately with your exposure. if you're in a pretty well lit room, even small incremental changes to you exposure values will make big differences in your outcome. happy to post some examples when i get back from hols if you like.

[cdifoto]

in a non-studio environment, (ie: home set up as i said), with amateur lighting and/ or strobes, it actually has a much more pronounced effect on shadows and contrast...or should i say "perceived contrast" if you want to play semantics. being the difference in appearance of your subjects illumination to the background. ie: very well lit subject...dark background gives the appearance of increased contrast cos the difference in the EV of foreground and background is so different.

Again, lighting placement. The entire POINT of using strobes in this type of scenario is so that you don't have to deal with ambient light (or the lack thereof). If you don't know anything about a certain subject matter, please don't try to be an expert on it.

[Rooz]

You obviously know nothing about using strobes, so I'm not addressing the rest of your post.

obviously not. i guess i've just been lucky. :rolleyes:

no need to address the rest of my post. your attitude in this post was sufficient enuf to render any further discussion pointless don.

[cdifoto]

obviously not. i guess i've just been lucky. :rolleyes:

no need to address the rest of my post. your attitude in this post was sufficient enuf to render any further discussion pointless don.

1. Please read my edited post. Your advice isn't relevant to the shooting situation. Ambient has nothing to do with studio strobing (and I use "studio" loosely to mean anything where you actually set up lights).

2. Shutter speed doesn't factor into camera shake unless you're introducing ambient light at sufficient levels to register on the sensor (ever hear of shutter dragging?). With studio strobing this is very very rarely an issue.

3. You can use whatever aperture you'd like, provided your strobes are powerful enough and you can adjust them to have proper exposure of the subject as desired, again shutter speed being irrelevant as per point #2.

4. Shadows being filled is a result of moving lights (and/or reflectors) into proper position, not slowing the shutter speed. Backgrounds being dark is the same...you need hair light on the hair (hence the term) and a background light on the background (hence the term). Sometimes you can use the same light for both the hair and background.

[cdifoto]

shooting at f8, 1/125s means your saying, "screw exposure, i'm so good at strobe lighting i dont need exposure to compensate.

This right here proves you have no clue about strobing in this kind of situation.

[Rooz]

i must have missed the bit where i said you needed a fast shutter to avoid camera shake. lucky for me nikon's flash system must have saved my bacon a thousand times since i have no clue. of course, it must be the camera system i suppose cos they don't seem to turn out too bad when i use a flash.

no need to reply mate. i dont need to get into a pissing contest. whatever lack of knowledge i have has gotten me by ok so far and continuing to learn via strobist will hold me in pretty good stead i reckon. thanks for the friendly advice though...i appreciate it. really. :rolleyes:

i guess i must have also missed the part where i thought i could have had a civil conversation with you. oh well...live and learn Don. we live and learn.

[cdifoto]

i must have missed the bit where i said you needed a fast shutter to avoid camera shake. lucky for me nikon's flash system must have saved my bacon a thousand times since i have no clue. of course, it must be the camera system i suppose cos they don't seem to turn out too bad when i use a flash.

no need to reply mate. i dont need to get into a pissing contest. whatever lack of knowledge i have has gotten me by ok so far and continuing to learn via strobist will hold me in pretty good stead i reckon. thanks for the friendly advice though...i appreciate it. really. :rolleyes:

i guess i must have also missed the part where i thought i could have had a civil conversation with you. oh well...live and learn Don. we live and learn.

Playing the coldrain bit now? I hate to tell you this, but telling you you're wrong in a specific situation does not make me uncivil.


Your advice would be fine if we're talking about macro, or environmental portraits with flash as fill to balance ambient. But, we're not talking about that kind of shooting. Your advice is NOT relevant here. Plain and simple. In fact, even for environmentals your logic is flawed. The strobes are used to fill those shadows too. You control subject exposure with the lights and ambient with the shutter speed. Shadows of the subject are not part of the ambient environment. Ambient is the only thing that the shutter speed will have any effect upon.

[Rooz]

Playing the coldrain bit now? I counter your bad, irrelevant advice and you put words in my mouth and suddenly become a victim? Nice..

did i make your quotes up ?

[cdifoto]

I'm not falling for your bait any longer, Rooz.

[Rooz]

so i dont ruin this thread anymore, check your pm's.
EDIT: which are turned off so nevermind.

[cdifoto]

Sorry for that dusty. Hopefully I was able to help a little bit. When working in those situations (where you have a backdrop), you really don't need to concern yourself much about the shutter speed and having a workable aperture and lowering the ISO, as you probably already found out from shooting, is what it's all about. As a matter of fact, if/when you start working with more lights in environmentals, you'll be able to see how you can light up the background with yet another strobe with barndoors, snoots, and/or other types of light-directing modifiers...which again could render the shutter speed moot (depending obviously on quite a few variables). Think Playboy spreads. There's really not much (if any) ambient in some of those scenes.

[chrisl]

Dusty, congrats on the light.
You can do alot with 2 lights and you're off to a great start.
Beautiful kids BTW.

Try moving your subject farther away from the background and fix the wrinkles in PP.
Try using one light as a hair/back light in addition to your maiin light and then use a reflector as fill.

Go to Michaels and buy those White boards for cheap, get 4 of them and tape them together in a V with duct tape. They will stand on their own. They make a great bounce and the V pushes light infront and behind the subject. You can also fire the light directly into the V for a more dramatic effect.

Once you start down this path of lights your wallet will get very lite:D:D

[GaryS]

Wow, I've never started an argument before! I feel like family now....

To all: Thanks for your comments! I do know that the background here sucks. I just grabbed a summer cotton sheet from the closet as I haven't had time to go out to find something decent. My local shop recommended a place I can get a large chunk of white fabric for cheap... I'll get there by the weekend.

I have cleared a space in my basement for this, and I had the ambient lighting pretty low.... I was afraid of getting white balance issues with different lights involved, so I was just using the modeling lamp to light the immediate area. It wasn't dark, but if I took a shot without the flashes firing, then the image was black. Actually, the kit I got was inexpensive (I'll add to it as I go if I enjoy this), and I was surprised at the power. If you turn the lights to full, everything is overexposed at F8.

Chris. About the V's, do you stand them like tents, or on their edges so they look like Vs from above? If you could take a shot of your setup, that would be great!

More experiments to come!

[24Peter]

I'm gonna chime in again briefly to hopefully clear up any confusion from the earlier exchange between our esteemed posters:
the reason shutter speed is generally irrelevant for studio shooting is the duration of the flash is usually much faster than the max sync speed of your camera. So for instance, sync speed on the 40D is 1/250th (slower if you use certain radio slaves). Flash duration of most strobes varies but it usually much faster (Alien Bees 400 for instance has a duration of as fast as 1/6000th at full power and 1/1000th at low power.) So, the flash burst essentially freezes the action, regardless of the actual shutter speed you choose. Exceptions to this are "studios" with high levels of ambient light and sometimes the effect of modeling lamps. Longer shutter speeds do allow any ambient light to seep in, which also makes camera shake possible. This is the reason most real studios are usually quite dark.

ISO and f-stop affect exposure directly, since they are not time dependent. You can also obviously affect the overall exposure of the image by adjusting the light output or the distance of the lights from your subject. Finally light modifiers - umbrellas, softboxes, etc. - will also affect output from your lights. Multiple lights also offset shadows created by other lights. I've read that Playboy shoots often employed two/three dozen lights per shot.

Shallow DOF is often a matter of taste even in studio work. There's no right way to shoot a portrait in that regard. It is helpful however to blur otherwise distracting backgrounds.

[chrisl]

Chris. About the V's, do you stand them like tents, or on their edges so they look like Vs from above? If you could take a shot of your setup, that would be great!

More experiments to come!

Dusty I stand them on their edges so they look like V's from above.
Buy your self 8 (4.5ft by 12 times 2) meters of soft Black suede and have them sew the 2 pieces together. Makes an awesome dramatic backdrop. You no longer have to worry about shadows as the black absorbs the light. You can use velvet also just make sure it has no shine to it.
You can see my set up on my flickr page, choose the set Studio Stuff. The black background is not there though.

[Vich]

I'm gonna chime in again briefly to hopefully clear up any confusion from the earlier exchange between our esteemed posters:
the reason shutter speed is generally irrelevant for studio shooting is the duration of the flash is usually much faster than the max sync speed of your camera. So for instance, sync speed on the 40D is 1/250th (slower if you use certain radio slaves). Flash duration of most strobes varies but it usually much faster (Alien Bees 400 for instance has a duration of as fast as 1/6000th at full power and 1/1000th at low power.) So, the flash burst essentially freezes the action, regardless of the actual shutter speed you choose. Exceptions to this are "studios" with high levels of ambient light and sometimes the effect of modeling lamps. Longer shutter speeds do allow any ambient light to seep in, which also makes camera shake possible. This is the reason most real studios are usually quite dark.

ISO and f-stop affect exposure directly, since they are not time dependent. You can also obviously affect the overall exposure of the image by adjusting the light output or the distance of the lights from your subject. Finally light modifiers - umbrellas, softboxes, etc. - will also affect output from your lights. Multiple lights also offset shadows created by other lights. I've read that Playboy shoots often employed two/three dozen lights per shot.

Shallow DOF is often a matter of taste even in studio work. There's no right way to shoot a portrait in that regard. It is helpful however to blur otherwise distracting backgrounds.
Wow Peter - that's about the most eloquent summation of flash basics I've read. Thanks!

Dusty; my only thought on viewing them was that the camera was a bit close to subjects, making for disproportionately large head sizes.

Congrads on the fun new gear. What kind of lighting? Do they plug in the wall, or was it just lightbox / diffuser for use with a regular flash.

[GaryS]

Dusty; my only thought on viewing them was that the camera was a bit close to subjects, making for disproportionately large head sizes.

Actually, my kids have huge heads! I have some I didn't post, that were shot at 18mm, and really close. The kids like those the best, because they were distorted like crazy.

Peter... Awesome post. Thanks for the info. I was shooting at 1/160th, but every now and then I was getting part of the shot blackened by the shutter... Switching to 1/125th fixed it.

Vich, the lights are AC powered, with 7ft stands. I have one shoot-through umbrella (that has a cover so you can shoot into it also), one 38cm softbox. I also have a FlashWave 10-channel wireless trigger, which seems to work very well. Lots to play with!