My first time shooting family portraits

[brandy wilkinson]

So tell me what I could have done to improve my lighting and composition.

I photographed my friend's family for practice and I learned so much!! It is like flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to lighting on location!! It changes so dramatically so quickly!! I have to say that when I showed up I had the 3 month old smiling, but when I started taking photos, she wouldn't smile, (feel like I failed to get smile photos of baby with family) I wanted to give them a few different family poses but I ended up with only two. The shoot lasted an hour and once I got my light right, I really loved it. I feel like I had a hard time focusing the camera on the faces. For instance, I thought the camera focused on the faces but when I loaded them on the computer, it was just before the face it focused!! ARGH! I also noticed that I had harsher shadows than I wanted with my umbrella. I only had one light.

Here is the family photo and the others are in my photobucket account.



ISO 200
1/160
f/5.6
white balance A4
SB600 with umbrella exposure up a few

[Trader]

Basically it is a nice family photo. I think you needed a stronger light source to reach the guy in the photo. He appears a little underexposed (while the rest of the photo is fine). An additional light source (maybe a softbox) camera left would have improved this image.

[bethard728]

Beautiful family! I agree, the lighting looks very nice but Dad could stand a little more light on him or maybe do some editing to lighten the shadows on him.

[RuthieMae]

I would have rotated them for better lighting. Use the large window/sliding glass door behind them for fill. I use windows/doors on one side with a light/umbrella on the other. It may not look like much light coming through the window but it's probably just enough to be perfect for fill.

[ttosifa]

Can you give more info about your flash? To me, it looks like your flash/umbrella was a pretty good distance away. The light is fairly hard, suggesting distance. Yet you the falloff from the mother to the father is fairly quick, suggesting close to me. My best guess is that the umbrella was fairly far away but you had the flash zoomed in and aimed towards the mother and the baby.

If this is the case, you might benefit from zooming the flash out (wider, more even coverage). Also, you might consider "feathering" the light in which you aim the hotspot of the flash at the father (the most distant subject) and let the "less hot" parts of the flash hit the closer subjects. Also, it is sometimes preferable to bring the flash closer to the camera for group subjects. Yes, the light will be flatter, but at least the subjects will be more evenly lit.

[brandy wilkinson]

I do believe my flash was zoomed in all the way. I thought it would give me more light. Is it the reason I had harsh shadows? My flash is an sb-600 and was shot through an umbrella close to subjects, but the light was hard.

[ttosifa]

Originally Posted by brandy wilkinson

I do believe my flash was zoomed in all the way. I thought it would give me more light. Is it the reason I had harsh shadows? My flash is an sb-600 and was shot through an umbrella close to subjects, but the light was hard.

Zooming or not zooming the flash does not change how much light you will get. It will change the spread of the light. A zoomed in flash will have more light intensity where it hits; a zoomed out flash will have less intensity where it hits but will hit a broader area. Practically speaking, the amount of light will be the same whether you zoom in or zoom out.

But zooming in makes your light source smaller and more intense. Hence the hard shadows you get. Since you are using an umbrella, you probably want to zoom out so that as much as possible of the umbrella is lit. This will give you a larger, less intense, light. The shadows will be softer.

With a group shot, though, you might benefit by moving the light farther from the subjects to get more even (less contrasty) light with lower fall off.

[Snowdust]

Originally Posted by ttosifa

Zooming or not zooming the flash does not change how much light you will get. It will change the spread of the light. A zoomed in flash will have more light intensity where it hits; a zoomed out flash will have less intensity where it hits but will hit a broader area. Practically speaking, the amount of light will be the same whether you zoom in or zoom out.

But zooming in makes your light source smaller and more intense. Hence the hard shadows you get. Since you are using an umbrella, you probably want to zoom out so that as much as possible of the umbrella is lit. This will give you a larger, less intense, light. The shadows will be softer.

With a group shot, though, you might benefit by moving the light farther from the subjects to get more even (less contrasty) light with lower fall off.

I do believe zooming will give you more light. An SB600 at 35mm has a guide number of 91.9 and zoomed to 85mm, guide 131.2. So at the same distance, at the center spot of the light, it would be brighter and require a different apeture for the same exposure.

[ttosifa]

Originally Posted by Snowdust

I do believe zooming will give you more light. An SB600 at 35mm has a guide number of 91.9 and zoomed to 85mm, guide 131.2. So at the same distance, at the center spot of the light, it would be brighter and require a different apeture for the same exposure.

Well, I'm not an expert on guide numbers and such, but what I said is not inconsistent with you are saying. What I said was that zooming in will not change the OVERALL amount of light. The "center spot of the light," as you put it, will indeed be more intense (a greater guide number?) and would require a different aperture for the same exposure. But the part of the light that is NOT the "center spot of the light" would be less intense. The amount of the light would, for practical purposes, be the same. It's more of an issue of intense, focused light versus less intense, de-focused light. The overall amount of light does not change, aside from relatively minor efficiency issues.