Fill Light Help

[mwatson]

Camera Pentax K10D
Exposure 0.3
Aperture f/6.7
Focal Length 53 mm
ISO Speed 200

Just in case you didn't catch what I was going for, it is a literal idiom, "Taste of Your Own Medicine."

This is week five of my self portraits and I finally started using lighting. I think I screwed up though.

I had two lights on this shot; one on my right side pointing down between me and the wall. and another to fill my left side. But something just doesn’t seem correct with the lighting. Is it my white balance? It is kind of hard to judge because my walls have a slightly blue tint to it. As this is my first lighting portrait, I could use any help ya'll have to offer.

One more question though, my elbow going out of the screen. Is that is awkward crop? I kind of like it but something is telling me it should be completely in the shot since the rest of my body is.

Thanks for your help.

[BigFuzzy]

I'm assuming from the color of the light hitting you that you used some sort of household lamp?

If so, these lights will almost always have a yellow/orangish cast to them. But you clearly also have ambient light which is lighting/showing the walls as they are (ie with the blueish tint, at least on the left of the frame) so in your image there is a struggle going on between the ambient lighting and the controlled lighting (the presumed lamps). In fact, the yellow is hitting the right side (our right) of the wall and has made it more grey than blue like it is on the left side. At least that's how it looks on this uncalibrated monitor.

So, if you adjust your WB to fix the light coming from the lamps, it will affect the color of the walls.

As for the elbow, yeah, it's such a small amount, it should be included.

[Doug Sundseth]

If you're going to use two different kinds (colors) of lights, you need to gel them to the same color or you will get strange color casts, and multi-colored shadows. (If that's what you want, then never mind. )

For example, if you were using a flash with an incandescent lamp, you'd gel the flash with a CTO ("color temperature orange") gel. Once everything is the same color, you can color correct in camera or in post and get consistent lighting.

[mwatson]

I did not have the flash on this portrait but I understand what you are saying. I have been thinking about this for a little bit and I think I know where I went wrong. Tell me if this could be the cause.

The two lights I was using for the wall and the fill on my face were true white fluorescents but I flipped on the dinning room light (almost directly overhead) which is the incandescent light we are seeing.

What do you think?

Also, does anyone have any links they can send me for effective lighting set up?