Using a Diffuser to Soften Light

[Pichead]

As any parent will tell you, my son looks pretty cute at all times. But when he hops in the bubble bath, it might be even more so...

For some time I'd taken 'no-flash' shots of him in the bath and, despite our bathroom being quite bright, they weren't turning out as I'd hoped. So, one day as my wife was running his bath, I set up a light stand, complete with a shoot-through umbrella and a Nikon SB-600 Speedlight.

I wanted to use this lighting setup as I knew it would maximize the brightness of the scene, which would play nicely with all the bubbles he usually has in the bath. Also, the light going through the white umbrella would soften and fall nicely onto my son's face. Finally, the large umbrella being lit up in the direction my son is looking adds nice 'catch-lights' or small patches of lights, in his eyes which add to the shot.

I positioned the umbrella and flash at the maximum position allowable by my ceiling and pointed the system downward, directly at my son. I put my D700 in Manual Mode on f/5 @ 1/200th of a second and placed the flash in TTL Mode with a positive Exposure Compensation dialed in to make the scene slightly overexposed. With a shot like this, I find it better to overexpose as opposed to the alternative. I controlled the power of the flash and triggered the SB unit directly from my D700 using Nikon's Creative Lighting System.

I took several photos. Most were of him smiling, as he's pretty well trained to say, "cheese" upon request. But this one was my favorite.

I imported the photo into Aperture 3 and made a slight crop to tighten the framing. I didn't need to touch the light or shadows, as the umbrella ensured that those were great right out of the camera...

[peeperita]

nice work, ryan.....and isn't it great when straight out of camera is this good.....

peeper

[zona5101]

nice work and excellent description of your shot set up.

[softwarecoupons]

May be there's something that they did but still not reveal to us? So that make your think like this way :")

[Glayva]

Very nice shot Ryan. The catchlights are just perfect in the eyes. I don't like seeing multiple catchlights in portraiture - they seem so unnatural. Very good write up too. Thanks for sharing. He must be a joy!!