Walking Boots, first time OCF and ACME snoot!

[candidrachel]

I took myself out in the garden with my light stand, tripod, flash and made an ACME snoot out of black card tied round with elastic bands. Don't ask my what I was doing because I had no idea!

I really like how the photo came out. I'm really pleased for a first attempt.

My questions are:

A) How is the compostion. too central?
B) How is the lighting for a first try ?





Canon 550D
f5.0
1/125
109mm
ISO 100

[DelCan]

It looks good to me Rachel...
Very simple. I'm gonna guess this is where the kids left them?

[candidrachel]

Actually they're mine. Very muddy. I'm lazy. It's so much easier to clean the mud off when dry and they have been "drying" for days

Thanks for the feedback!

[scootermcq]

Lighting is not bad... maybe a little hot on the toes, but a good first start.

For crop, I would prefer it more on the left of the frame, heel closer to the edge and some open space by the toes, but hey.... that's subjective

[candidrachel]

Thank you Scott. I did find it quite difficult to get the proximity of the flash to subject right. I had the flash dialled right down to -3 (I use a Canon speelight 430ex) and kept moving the stand backwards until it looked ok. I'm also using these little remote triggers.

With the crop. I was wondering if there was too much space on the left too so your right there! I'll do a little adjustment later.

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I feel less scared to experiement and at least with a pair of boots they don't get arsey with having their pic taken. I got the palm treatment from my daughter when she made the mistake to venture into the garden to ask me what I was doing. I asked her to sit on the step hence the "talk to the hand!".

[ext41]

Originally Posted by scootermcq

Lighting is not bad... maybe a little hot on the toes, but a good first start.

This is what i was going to say

+ dont crop it anymore than that imo it strangles the object in that photo, let it breath

[zona5101]

That is awesome first try. I really like how you thought about the light and came up with the idea to create a snoot. yeah you! Maybe a tad hot on the toes as was mentioned. That is less of a concern to me because the blowout kinda goes with the spotlight feel (to me anyway). I have more drawback with the strip of green grass as a distractor. In any case nice work...save that set up and try it in a couple of different locations...

[candidrachel]

Thank you so much for the replies. I really was trying for the spotlight effect. One thing I did notice was that I had to dial down the EV to -2 stops in the camera and also way down on the flash and like I said I kept moving the light stand back to to get the effect that I wanted.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[NgaiHill]

Hi Rachel, I really like your idea here. Composition wise I like that the boots are not all lined up and neat - they look like they have just walked in. And the mud adds texture and interest to them, they would just be boots with no story if they were clean. Its already been mentioned but I think they could do with a wee bit more space to the left since that is the way the right hand boot is facing. The fence and grass bother me a tiny bit but I can't quite put my finger on it - I think it cuts the picture horizontally.
Cheers