Portrait Sessions: Week 9

[Corey Thompson]

I'm still getting caught up on all my photos from being away on my honeymoon. Finally got the editing done on week 8 and 9. Now I just have to get around to shooting week 10 before this week ends.

I shot this photo of my wife while hiking through Bothe-Napa Valley State Park last week. I noticed the sun coming in through the trees and thought I'd try my luck at a portrait with the sun providing some back lighting and an off camera flash to bring the detail back into her face.

Are the skin tones okay? Should I have gelled the flash? Does her face look under exposed? How is the composition? Your feedback is much appreciated.



Exif:
Canon 40D
Focal Length: 85mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter: 1/60 second
ISO:100

Strobist
Flash: Canon 430EX II, zoomed to 24mm, hand held camera right
Modifier: sto-fen diffuser
Triggers: Radio Popper JrX

[prince]

At first glance, I liked the composition and the expression you got. Backlighting was a good idea. Background is simple and brings all attention to her eyes.

I would have opened up the aperture a bit more, like F4 and increased the shutter speed a little, may be into 1/100-1/125 range.

The backlight on her hair is too bright in the center. I would have also tried to have flash on camera right to bring out her hair.

Just my 2 cents

Looking to hear from the experts as well.

[Doug Sundseth]

First, congratulations. (I'm assuming that the honeymoon was because you recently got married. )

You'll have to judge the skin tones yourself, since different people have very different skin tones. That said, I don't see any obvious color casts.

When shooting in sunlight, it's not usually necessary to gel a flash. Ungelled flash has a similar color temperature to direct sunlight.

I think the composition works for a tight shot like this. If I were to change anything, I might shoot a bit looser to get more of the environment (it looks like it might be a nice area), but that's a creative choice.

Her face does look underexposed to me. If you were to drop the shutter speed by a stop (only affects ambient) and open the aperture by a stop (affects ambient and flash), you could get the same exposure for the ambient and raise the flash exposure by a stop. (This assumes you set the flash manually. If you used TTL, it gets more complex, as the camera/flash is making more of the decisions.)

The lighting is revealing the features of your subject's face well, though, and you're not getting bad specular highlights, so I don't know that you need to change anything else.

[Corey Thompson]

Originally Posted by prince

I would have opened up the aperture a bit more, like F4 and increased the shutter speed a little, may be into 1/100-1/125 range.

When I was adding the exif info to my original post, I had to do a double take. I couldn't believe I shot this at f8 and 1/60th of a second. I usually try to make a point of never shooting hand held at a shutter speed that's slower than 1/the focal length of the lens. I'm not sure what in the world I was thinking when I applied those settings.

Originally Posted by Doug Sundseth

First, congratulations. (I'm assuming that the honeymoon was because you recently got married. )

You'll have to judge the skin tones yourself, since different people have very different skin tones. That said, I don't see any obvious color casts.

When shooting in sunlight, it's not usually necessary to gel a flash. Ungelled flash has a similar color temperature to direct sunlight.

I think the composition works for a tight shot like this. If I were to change anything, I might shoot a bit looser to get more of the environment (it looks like it might be a nice area), but that's a creative choice.

Her face does look underexposed to me. If you were to drop the shutter speed by a stop (only affects ambient) and open the aperture by a stop (affects ambient and flash), you could get the same exposure for the ambient and raise the flash exposure by a stop. (This assumes you set the flash manually. If you used TTL, it gets more complex, as the camera/flash is making more of the decisions.)

The lighting is revealing the features of your subject's face well, though, and you're not getting bad specular highlights, so I don't know that you need to change anything else.

Thanks Doug! Our wedding was on Oct. 2nd.

Thinking back, I wish I would have done a lot of things differently. I wish I'd have used my 50mm lens instead so that I could get more of the surrounding environment in the shot. I had intended to shoot this between f/3.2 and f/5 but my head must have been somewhere else when I set everything up. As for TTL or Manual, so far I'm only shooting in manual. My goal is to be able to create shots that I can look at and create again if I need to. I feel like if I were to use TTL then trying to recreate a shot at a later date would be more of an experimentation because I wouldn't know the exact flash settings that were used.

I agree with you that I think her face is a bit under exposed. I'm going to play with this a bit in camera raw to see if I can add some fill light to compensate. I'll post up a new version of the shot in this thread this weekend if it works out. Thanks for your feedback.

One thing I'm discovering is that I'm wanting to start shooting photos of different people but I'm feeling stuck because I'm not sure where to start looking for subjects I can practice with.

[Corey Thompson]

I attempted to fix the exposure. Hopefully this version is a bit better.

[danbaileyphoto]

I wouldn't say that the flash needed to be gelled, although a 1/4 CTO might make a difference. Id' still like to see the flash exposure bumped up a little bit. She needs to be brighter.

Also, I'd move the off camera flash further to one side, and if possible, use a small softbox like one of the models that Lumiquest makes to help soften the light on her face, especially that shadow under her chin. If no softbox, then use the dome diffuser and get as close as possible, or shoot through a makeshift diffuser, like a white piece of paper so that you get more even light and more appealing catchlights.

Nice job, though. This is how you do it- shoot, look and evaluate. You'll know more for next time.

[prince]

Exposure looks slightly better. Good work!!

[ChrisAdval]

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

I'm still getting caught up on all my photos from being away on my honeymoon. Finally got the editing done on week 8 and 9. Now I just have to get around to shooting week 10 before this week ends.

I shot this photo of my wife while hiking through Bothe-Napa Valley State Park last week. I noticed the sun coming in through the trees and thought I'd try my luck at a portrait with the sun providing some back lighting and an off camera flash to bring the detail back into her face.

Are the skin tones okay? Should I have gelled the flash? Does her face look under exposed? How is the composition? Your feedback is much appreciated.


Exif:
Canon 40D
Focal Length: 85mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter: 1/60 second
ISO:100

Strobist
Flash: Canon 430EX II, zoomed to 24mm, hand held camera right
Modifier: sto-fen diffuser
Triggers: Radio Popper JrX

the lighting doesn't look off-camera flash to me as I can see its coming from the same direction of on-camera flash. I would have used a diffuser on the flash it seems very harsh for my taste.

For my taste when shooting outdoors with a flash unit on hand is two options, use it as a fill light or/and to blow out the ambient light and use the flash as the key light. Those are my two only options, but in this shot it just feel and gives me "cheesey" standard lighting a point and shoot would normally give... don't mean to sound rude or mean, but thats how I feel when I see the shot with the use of the lighting.

[Corey Thompson]

Originally Posted by danbaileyphoto

I wouldn't say that the flash needed to be gelled, although a 1/4 CTO might make a difference. Id' still like to see the flash exposure bumped up a little bit. She needs to be brighter.

Also, I'd move the off camera flash further to one side, and if possible, use a small softbox like one of the models that Lumiquest makes to help soften the light on her face, especially that shadow under her chin. If no softbox, then use the dome diffuser and get as close as possible, or shoot through a makeshift diffuser, like a white piece of paper so that you get more even light and more appealing catchlights.

Nice job, though. This is how you do it- shoot, look and evaluate. You'll know more for next time.

Thank you for the feedback. It's helping me to realize how much I need to slow down sometimes when I'm setting up a shot. When I took this photo, I was trying to hold the camera by hand and hold the flash by hand at the same time. I was too distracted trying to hold everything and shoot the photo that I paid little attention to the fact that my tripod was sitting on the ground next to me and that my camera and flash settings were not optimal. I wish I could go back and re-take this shot the right way but I'll just have to save it for a future week at a different location.

I've been creating a list of lighting gear that I think could help me improve certain types of shots. A soft box is something I've been wanting to pick up for awhile now. I think after I pick up a reflector stand, a softbox may be next on my list.

Originally Posted by prince

Exposure looks slightly better. Good work!!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by ChrisAdval

the lighting doesn't look off-camera flash to me as I can see its coming from the same direction of on-camera flash. I would have used a diffuser on the flash it seems very harsh for my taste.

For my taste when shooting outdoors with a flash unit on hand is two options, use it as a fill light or/and to blow out the ambient light and use the flash as the key light. Those are my two only options, but in this shot it just feel and gives me "cheesey" standard lighting a point and shoot would normally give... don't mean to sound rude or mean, but thats how I feel when I see the shot with the use of the lighting.

I'm having a hard time putting a visual to what you said, "blow out the ambient light and use the flash as the key light". Could you elaborate more on how to do that? Normally when I think blow out, I think of something being over exposed. When you say blow out the ambient, do you mean to under expose the photo and bring a speedlite in to serve as the key light?

I don't think you're sounding rude or mean at all. This is exactly the type of feedback I like to hear. I'm really wanting to take portraits that stand out as being professional quality. I want to improve my lighting skills enough so that people won't look at my photos and think that it was taken with a cheap point and shoot. I want people to look at my portraits and say wow, I want him to photograph me. Thank you so much for your input, it's greatly appreciated.

[ChrisAdval]

Originally Posted by Corey Thompson

I'm having a hard time putting a visual to what you said, "blow out the ambient light and use the flash as the key light". Could you elaborate more on how to do that? Normally when I think blow out, I think of something being over exposed. When you say blow out the ambient, do you mean to under expose the photo and bring a speedlite in to serve as the key light?
.

Yes. Here are a few examples of what I mean...


Miss Shadow On-Location Kirby Park 14 by Chris Adval, on Flickr


DSC_3813 by Anna Merritt, on Flickr


Katie by lawsonpix, on Flickr


Alex by lawsonpix, on Flickr


Kisss | Flickr - Photo Sharing!