Ok, how did I do?

[SGToliver]

Marine Corps ball is over and done with and now I am left to process and start selling these things. I already have a good idea of some of my mistakes and areas I would like to improve upon but I would like any other constructive comments you might have about the lighting and setup.

I used two flash units; a SB600 on a stand about waist high behind the couples and a sb800 to camera left at the safe 45 mark with a shoot through umbrella. I would have liked to have had a boom setup so I could have had the flash as a fill/hair light from above but I did what I could. Only thing I thought of after the fact was that I could have found some way to setup my reflector on top of the background enough to get some more fill light because I lost some hair amongst the backdrop. Anyway, tear em up, beat em down and say what comes to mind. It won't hurt too much. I was pretty proud of myself regardless for my first paid job. My screen at home makes these looks brighter than my screen here at work. Not sure which will be closest to what you and everyone will see so please let me know.



Exif data
Camera Nikon D3100
Exposure 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture f/5.0
Focal Length 34 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias -1/3 EV

[zona5101]

Nice!.
I think your self-analysis is spot on. A hairlight would have been the ticket to separate the subject from the background. I think the way you lit you background flags was perfect. On my monitor, the subjects themselves look a little dark. Could be my monitor or they might need a little tweak in exposure/fill light. I like your main light angle. It is doing a great job giving dimensionality. She has a bit of a deep shadow on her face but that's a matter of having her turn her chin more towards the light. All in all if it were me I would be real stoked about how this came out especially lighting the whole thing with just 2 lights.

[mwatson]

I think you did a pretty solid job. You seem like you know what your faults were and know how to fix them. I am really impressed with the lighting up the flags.

As for the hair light, that could have been your one addition that brought the whole thing together. But, I still think these are worth something.

As for the subjects being a little dark, they are on my monitor also. But, I know how that goes. I work on my photos on my laptop but when I look at them on my desktop, they are always darker than what I originally lead to believe.