7 Year Old Portrait

[maxness]

This is a shot I took of my daughter for her 7th birthday. This is my first major use of off-camera flash, so I'm interested in hearing if my lighting is placed properly and also how to improve on it.

I probably left my aperture too wide open as I had to turn the exposure down a bit.

1/200 second
f2.8
50mm
ISO100

[ccting]

Wow pretty girl but

a) with distractive shadow under the nose.
b) Don't press too hard on the face..
c) Add light into the eyes
d) I prefer if she wear long slaves
e) Make the face thinner by referring to a turtle head (do what a turtle does with its head making face thinner)..
g) The placement of hand may not suit the lighting
h) I see norists.

I wish i have a backdrop..

my Suggestion:
a) If you have additional light source, put at chin level as fill light.
b) Hide the norists by raising the camera level
c) Do like a turtle head
d) Hide arms and legs with clothes.
e) Take a white big towel to hide parts under the chin..LOL.

Ok.. i am just a noob.. but there is no harm to follow my suggestion. Just that, my suggestion is neither validated or verified.. Hopefully some pros will come in and comment. Please do comment on my portrait.. ty.

High ISO Kit Lens On-Camera Portrait

[Mark Engelhart]

Not bad for just getting started with off camera flash. Portrait photography is primarily about the eyes. In your image you have a few things fighting you on achieving eyes with life. Her hands are pushing her eyes closed (I like the pose, but you should instruct her not to rest so heavy on her hands) as well as with your lights at such a high angle her upper eyelashes are obscuring the catch lights.
Also, for shooting “high key” you should illuminate the back with separate flash than what you are illuminating the subject. In your image it looks like you were lighting the back drop with the same two lights as your subject. The tells were 1- backdrop not white because of the light fall off 2- I can see the wrinkles in the backdrop even though you were at a low aperture. Using separate lighting on the back drop will allow you the freedom to separate the subject from the back drop and also allow you more control in the contrast between the subject and the back drop. The separation will give you better blur on your backdrop, the freedom to aim your lights solely to make the subject look good and eliminate the risk of that huge white reflector (back drop) spilling over as almost a flare on the edge of your subject.

[ccting]

Originally Posted by Mark Engelhart

Not bad for just getting started with off camera flash. Portrait photography is primarily about the eyes. In your image you have a few things fighting you on achieving eyes with life. Her hands are pushing her eyes closed (I like the pose, but you should instruct her not to rest so heavy on her hands) as well as with your lights at such a high angle her upper eyelashes are obscuring the catch lights.
Also, for shooting “high key” you should illuminate the back with separate flash than what you are illuminating the subject. In your image it looks like you were lighting the back drop with the same two lights as your subject. The tells were 1- backdrop not white because of the light fall off 2- I can see the wrinkles in the backdrop even though you were at a low aperture. Using separate lighting on the back drop will allow you the freedom to separate the subject from the back drop and also allow you more control in the contrast between the subject and the back drop. The separation will give you better blur on your backdrop, the freedom to aim your lights solely to make the subject look good and eliminate the risk of that huge white reflector (back drop) spilling over as almost a flare on the edge of your subject.

.... I can't see what you have seen... .. If you don't mind, please put circles with numbers so I could learn what you are saying..

( I see backdrop is 100% white without fall off...??????)

@ Mark
Please critique High ISO Kit Lens On-Camera Portrait too. I know i have done quite a few mistakes there.

[Mark Engelhart]

Originally Posted by ccting

.... I can't see what you have seen... .. If you don't mind, please put circles with numbers so I could learn what you are saying..

( I see backdrop is 100% white without fall off...??????)

@ Mark
Please critique High ISO Kit Lens On-Camera Portrait too. I know i have done quite a few mistakes there.

What I am presenting is that if you don't start a shot like this with the proper foundational equipment and understanding of what the result should be you will not achieve a proper result. It's not that it is a terrible shot but I'm sure that Maxness would like to know what could have made it work out more like he invisioned it would be. Maxness, please correct me if I was wrong on this but what I see in the image is the set up started with a white bed sheet.. I am assuming this because that is what I did the first time I tried it. The bed sheet not being very long put the subject only about 2-3 feet away from it, hence the DoF not being shallow enough to obscure the wrinkles. So you started setting up the lights and saw that they were casting an unbecoming shadow on the backdrop. Hot having enough depth to effectively place more lights on just the backdrop you elevated the flashes to rid yourself of the shadows... no I'm not psychic or anything I’ve just experienced similar things. The elevated lighting lost the eyes. The correction for this scenerio would be to put the subject 7-10 ft. away from the backdrop.

The backdrop is not bright white it is grey from a lack of light. What hit the subject at 2.8 fell off even more by the time it got to the backdrop.

[ccting]

Originally Posted by Mark Engelhart

What I am presenting is that if you don't start a shot like this with the proper foundational equipment and understanding of what the result should be you will not achieve a proper result. It's not that it is a terrible shot but I'm sure that Maxness would like to know what could have made it work out more like he invisioned it would be. Maxness, please correct me if I was wrong on this but what I see in the image is the set up started with a white bed sheet.. I am assuming this because that is what I did the first time I tried it. The bed sheet not being very long put the subject only about 2-3 feet away from it, hence the DoF not being shallow enough to obscure the wrinkles. So you started setting up the lights and saw that they were casting an unbecoming shadow on the backdrop. Hot having enough depth to effectively place more lights on just the backdrop you elevated the flashes to rid yourself of the shadows... no I'm not psychic or anything I’ve just experienced similar things. The elevated lighting lost the eyes. The correction for this scenerio would be to put the subject 7-10 ft. away from the backdrop.

The backdrop is not bright white it is grey from a lack of light. What hit the subject at 2.8 fell off even more by the time it got to the backdrop.

Wow.. thanks for the idea --- bad sheet.. Wow, Mark you have great observation capability, i only able to see it now.
That's to say, with proper seamless background paper, you will not have the same problem? How about if it is just a piece of large white paper? A seamless background paper is more expensive than 50mm f/1.8 lens.

[maxness]

I had a second light on the backdrop, but I may have had it too close and the flash wasn't at full power either. I also had it bare, would a diffusion device (shoot-thru umbrella?) make it better? I also probably did have the flash too high, but I was trying to prevent the lighting on the face from being too flat. I'll know that I have a little more cushion in light height from now on.

I probably only had her 3-4 ft from the backdrop so I will need to change that in the future. She was also not being the most cooperative (being 7 does that apparently) so the pose wasn't really thought out, it was more of a 'Hey, she's sitting nice and smiling a bit - release shutter!'

It may not be the best solution but I'll work on it in Photoshop to see if I can fix a few of the issues.

[Mark Engelhart]

Originally Posted by maxness

I had a second light on the backdrop, but I may have had it too close and the flash wasn't at full power either. I also had it bare, would a diffusion device (shoot-thru umbrella?) make it better? I also probably did have the flash too high, but I was trying to prevent the lighting on the face from being too flat. I'll know that I have a little more cushion in light height from now on.

I probably only had her 3-4 ft from the backdrop so I will need to change that in the future. She was also not being the most cooperative (being 7 does that apparently) so the pose wasn't really thought out, it was more of a 'Hey, she's sitting nice and smiling a bit - release shutter!'

It may not be the best solution but I'll work on it in Photoshop to see if I can fix a few of the issues.

The best way is to bounce it off the umbrella back into the backdrop. It will be easier to keep of the subjects and will give you the best spread across the backdrop. It does take more power though. The key to this set up is as much distance between your subject and the background as possible. This just gives you the space to isolate you flash on what it is intended for and with the white backdrop bouncing light backtoward the subject it is needed. Here is an example of keeping the distance even though not on white but tan it will give you an idea of how one light does influence the other lighting.