Ringflash Portrait

[Ewie]

I had an opportunity over the weekend to use a photo studio and lighting for the first time... ever... One of my friends wanted some portraits and I wanted some shots for a course assignment so we struck a deal. I also had the good fortune to be given a new, yet to be released, Orbis Ringflash to have a play with.

The shoot had a distinctive sports flavour as my friend is a very active person.. unlike yours truly..

Here's one of my picks from the session:

"Determination"


Shot info:

Sony A700 + 50mm F1.4
1/250 @ F5.6, ISO100
Sony HVL-F56AM strobe, 1/2 power, off camera with Orbis Ringflash attachement.

As my first portrait using ringflash I'm reasonably happy with the shot however I'd appreciate some general feedback on the overall look and feel of the shot. All composition is as shot, no cropping, and I was going for a moody sort of feel.

Anyone with experince with ringflash technique? How did I do? Is there enough "catch light"?

Cheers...

[sk66]

I think the flash is a bit hot. The reflective part on the nike logo is distracting...actually the entire logo is distracting.
I would have made this perfectly centered and used a shallower depth of field focusing on the eyes. Maybe less ball and more of his head.

It is a nice concept and the eyes are well focused.

[Ewie]

Thanks for the critique... kinda get what you're saying re the logo, but in this case, we wanted the logo in the shot and I felt that between that and the greater focus on the eyes it would keep the viewer attention.

As mentioned the composition is pretty much as shot and initially I did frame it so that the eyes and head were more central, however, to me this looked better and also generally follows the good ol golden mean (rule of thirds)

Agree somewhat with the flash, made worse by the fact that it was very warm in the studio and Mike was beginning to perspire....

Thanks

Ewen

[pbdweeeebie]

I am no lighting guru but the flash does appear to be too "hot".

The size and symmetry of the ball and the the glare of the swoosh command too much prominence.

Nevertheless, you have some nice compositional attributes going on.

Did you try turning the ball to move the logoto the side?

If you had had the benefit of a new ball, I would have loved to see a shot real close in on the ball's texture with shallow depth of field in the background. I think the nipples on the ball set against the shallow face and rotated logo could have been nice!