First Off-camera Portrait

[ccting]

Just received my softboxes and 3 YN560 Flashes last night. I was too excited to play my new toys, and i took the pic without much thought, design or following any guidance from Light science and magic..




Lighting result without any post production except size & resolution reduction. My mum and nephew..
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Please critique about lighting... and everything including distractive background..
a) Is the fill light bright enough?
b) How's the hair light?
c) how's the main key light?

[zona5101]

Nice to see you taking & posting some pics - this will accelerate your learning curve...

Background: distracting and not what you really want with a bright color on one side. Bright colors in general atypical backgrounds.

Hair light - looks good, position and power settings look just about right,

Fill - looks good as well

Main - did it even fire? I would say it didn't or if it did, the power is set too low. There are lots of lighting ratio recommendations you can go by but in all cases the main will be one to 2 stops brighter than the fill. The rim/hair light will be equal to or 1 stop brighter than the main.

In trying to achieve the ratios you want, recall that not only can you/will you change the power output of the flash heads but also change the distance between the light to the subject

[ccting]

Background: distracting and not what you really want with a bright color on one side. Bright colors in general atypical backgrounds

It is hard to get model to practice. This is a surprise shot and I set up everything within seconds to take this shot. I take a few pics of my wife that look better (when I put those softbox, umbrella etc extremely near her - about 1 foot from her) but always I don't have permission to publish them...

Originally Posted by zona5101

Nice to see you taking & posting some pics - this will accelerate your learning curve...

Thanks Zona..

Main - did it even fire? I would say it didn't or if it did, the power is set too low.

Yes, i also realize about it. The reasons
a) the umbrella looks weird for me, it is 3 layers white, silver and black. I don't know how to get rid of those layers...The diffuse reflection looks extremely weak.. Perhaps I need to buy a new umbrella with silver..

b) I set the power to 1/8 (YN560), and put 6 foot away from subject. Perhaps the distance that i need to reduce. Going to buy an umbrella bracket that can hold 3 YN560... (I think the rest of flashes have the same power level, I think i need to put the umbrella extremely near to subject and power up).

There are lots of lighting ratio recommendations you can go by but in all cases the main will be one to 2 stops brighter than the fill. The rim/hair light will be equal to or 1 stop brighter than the main.In trying to achieve the ratios you want, recall that not only can you/will you change the power output of the flash heads but also change the distance between the light to the subject

Thanks very much Zona, i learn a lot from you today. . I have big problem to autofocus them in this low-light situation with my "kid" lens where I need to manual focus..Any tutorial how to get rid of the white layer from the umbrella?

Question 1: 1/8 is 1 stop brighter than 1/16; 16 is one stop brighter than 1/32?
Question 2: The brightness of flash will reduce 2X by distance (in meter? in foot?)
Question 3: Do you think switching the umbrella and softbox is a better idea? Reasoning : umbrella has shape harmony with head, thus producing wider area of hair light. At the same time, softbox produces more lights..and it serves for main light.

[zona5101]

Question 1: 1/8 is 1 stop brighter than 1/16; 16 is one stop brighter than 1/32?
Question 2: The brightness of flash will reduce 2X by distance (in meter? in foot?)
Question 3: Do you think switching the umbrella and softbox is a better idea? Reasoning : umbrella has shape harmony with head, thus producing wider area of hair light. At the same time, softbox produces more lights..and it serves for main light.

1 - as 1/8 power 1/16 power - yes one stop different - theoretically anyway. No telling if the output to power setting of the manufacturer is linear with out metering it.
2 - I believe it is a factor of 4 - inverse square law
3 - stick with the umbrella for now. no need to spend more $$yet

On your white/silver/black umbrella...this sounds like a convertible umbrella. the white on the inside, the black on the outside and the silver is the other side of the black... if so there is usually a cap that unscrews at the apex of the umbrella on the outside. Then each of the ribs has a slip cap that is attached to the black/silver than can be pulled off. Once all the caps are pulled off the black silver is removed leaving you with a white shoot through umbrella.

[ccting]

bad posting..but just see the fill light and main light..

[zona5101]

strange as it may seem, to make the background go dark you need to increase power.
Increase power necessitates an increase in fstop to control the exposure. Increasing the f stop causes the light to fall off faster over a shorter distance.

Also your shots are very under exposed.

[ccting]

Thanks Bruce,
I try again tomorrow using my own camera D5100.. D3000 performs quite different from mine.

When i try with my D5100, 1/200s and f/8 will darken everything when YN560s are set to minimum power.
However, when i used this D3000, when i set f-number to f/16 @1/200s, I still able to see things clear, with same level of lighting power.

[graciousness]

Ccting - can you please follow the rules like everyone else? You know you're suppose to only post ONE photo per day in the critique section.

It's good to see you posting here again for critiques, but you still need to follow the rules.

ONE photo. Like everyone else. It isn't fair for anyone else if you keep adding photos for new critique on one thread and think that it's ok.

Thanks.

[ccting]

one photo? ok, i deleted the extra pics above.

Ok. i will reminder that rule.. i never read the rule..