Lighting help PLEASE

[sdesrosiers]

I have recently bought lighting equipment to help with my portraite taking however, it has made it much worse. I have 2 lights that I am currently using and I am getting shadows in most of my shots. I am sure it is an angle issue I just can't seem to fix it. And because the shadows are light I can not see them in my view finder. Also, the lighting seems to make my pictures grainy. Please help if you can . I would really appreciate it.

Sarah

[autofocus]

Can you supply the EXIF info on one of the pictures? Are your lights constant power or flash units? Repositioning your lights could help. Moving your subject further away from the back drop could help. Aperture changes could help, but a little info first from you will help get you some better answers

[MrJones]

like autofocus said.. we need more info and if you can, please post your lightning positioning.

[SusanH1970]

Agreed with the others, and also wanted to point out that your subjects are much too close to the background, which is part of the reason you're getting the shadows.

[sdesrosiers]

the info on the girl with the pinwheel is as follows (I hope its enough info or the information that you are looking for: iso:1600, Focal Length 31.0mm (35 mm equiv: 51mm), f/5.6, 1/125s

the little girls face is 1/100s, f/5.6 focal length 28.0mm (35 mm equiv : 46 mm) ISO 1600

I really hope that that helps - I am kinda new to the terminology of all of these number and functions- Thank you for the help about the subject being to close to the background- how far away should they be? Also as for the position of each light I dont have much to give you on that but one on the right and one on the left about 4 feet high and they were behind me. They are constant they are not flash.

Thank you very much for the help.
sarah

[Doug Sundseth]

As noted, your subjects are too close to your background. When that close, you will nearly always get shadows in the image. I'd recommend pulling your subjects forward and pulling yourself farther away from your subjects (if the room allows). This will both reduce the shadows and blur out the flaws in the background somewhat. If you can open your lens wider, you can blur the background further.

In general, farther from the background is better, but the constraint is that your background will start to go to gray if you don't light it separately from your subject. (This isn't necessarily a negative, but it's a different style than you are shooting currently.) Also, as you get farther away, you'll need a larger background to keep the edges from showing in your frame.

The grain you are seeing may well be because of your use of ISO 1600. That works with some cameras well, some only with significant post processing, and some cameras not at all. If you open up to f/2.8, you can drop to ISO 400 while maintaining your current exposure, which should reduce the noise noticeably. I think you'll find yourself wanting significantly brighter lights in time, though, so you have more choices about aperture and exposure time.

I'd recommend not placing both lights at the same distance from the subject. Even small differences in distance can give you a nice fall off on the shadow side to help reveal your subject. Setting one light at four feet and one at 6 feet, for instance, would give you about a one stop falloff.

HTH

[ChrisAdval]

Originally Posted by sdesrosiers

I have recently bought lighting equipment to help with my portraite taking however, it has made it much worse. I have 2 lights that I am currently using and I am getting shadows in most of my shots. I am sure it is an angle issue I just can't seem to fix it. And because the shadows are light I can not see them in my view finder. Also, the lighting seems to make my pictures grainy. Please help if you can . I would really appreciate it.

Sarah

Sounds like you're not ready for flash photography. If you want all shadows gone, you need a lot of lighting and lighting skills. At least 3-4 point light setup to remove most to all shadows on one human subject. There is a foundation you need to have and thats understanding your camera and camera settings pretty well or very well before getting into flash photography, not saying its impossible but it's a lot more complex to understand without doing that.

[westernlights]

Sarah,
There is some good advice above but I might be able to add a little that might give you a path forward. Doug was on the right track above when he mentioned mixing up the light positioning a bit and lighting your background and forground (subject) differently.

I think the outcome your looking for is a nice white background with no shadows and a nicely exposed subject. A common trend these days in child photography is what we call 'high key' lighting. This is where the background is over exposed from the subject exposure 1 or 2 stops. This is normally achieved by a 3 or 4 light setup but you might be able to pull it off with your two lights and maybe an external flash on the camera.

To give it a go you'll need to position one of you lights behind the horizontal plane of your subject. ie off to the side behind them and pointed at the background. What you're trying to achieve here is to paint the backdrop with light and its got to be brighter than the level of light you are using for your subject. It might be a little difficult to get the entire backdrop covered with one light but then I'm unsure of the space you are trying to light.

You can then use the remaining light on your subject and if you are mainly shooting children and people, I would highly recommend the use of a softbox (700mm or 1m ish).
Position this light at slighly higher than your subject and close to where you are shooting from. (Don't go too high or you'll have too much shadow and drop off)
You might also use a little fill in flash from your external camera flash to fill the subject too.

Remember, the exposure for your subject should be at least 1 stop lower than your background exposure.

If all else fails - head to a black background and you can get away with some lovely single light portraits that are easy to achieve with your set up. (Again I recommend the use of a softbox too)

Feel free to drop me a line via here or my website if you want to share more results.

Cheers

Russell

[autofocus]

Yes, a multi-light setup is ideal, but you can get away with less. My example below was shot with one well positioned light camera right, (an AB800 through a medium large softbox) and a large reflector camera left. The background was bone colored paper. Shot at 40mm, f/6.3, 1/200, ISO200. It may not be perfect lighting, but it is do-able with less.


N_0068bw-Rsz by vmontalbano, on Flickr

[zona5101]

I think overall this is typical of underpowered constant lighting...not enough output to utilize light modifiers and still get low iso/decent fstop& shutter. Repositioning the lights will help on the location of the shadows for sure but I think there will still be that direct light source hardness and the elevated grain from pushing the iso and/or underexposing in camera and fixing in post...