Soft box Portraits

[miniwakka1]

Took these shots of my daughter with softbox lighting at 45 degrees to left of subject and to right side a flash bouncing off white umbrella, manual setting F11 at 1/200 sec. I dont think the composition or lighting of the shots is too bad for a first effort, but i'm no expert! Any pointers or critisism eagerly anticipated.

[Benji]

Lighting is rather flat but acceptable. The white balance is off.

Benji

[willbrawn]

White balance is off, I would also increase the exposure to lighten it up a bit. Good first attempt though.

[zona5101]

MiniW - really nice shots, she’s a beautiful girl! I think if you follow the suggestions just posted you'll be well on your way. Fix your white balance, increase your main light exposure a bit (like a ½ stop – just want to give it a bit more pop and make the catchlights a bight brighter)...an add a rim or hair light to give it some dimension. So if you just have those two lights, take your fill light flash and replace it with a reflector. Then use that flash as a hair/rim light. You’ll want to restrict the spread of the light. A tube made of cardboard may be all you need! Or place it on the side and feather it towards the background, use a gobo such a piece of cardboard to keep the light from contaminating the main. Good luck and have fun!

[cruelphotography]

The images are OK, but the lighting is not great.

The thing is; 45 degree thingy is really more of a myth, I think it is orignally intended to be a rule for more classical lighting techniques, but even there it doesnt hold up very well since all faces are different.

If you want flat lighting - because there is truly nothing wrong with flat lighting, it can be awesome - I would rater recomend using a single lightsource more straight on and higher up, that brings forth her chins better, and gives her face definition.

If you use 2 relatively close, but not completely identically powered / modified flashes like this, you get some less than optimal shadows around the nose etc.

If you really want to use one light as fill, dont place it on the oppsite side (newbie mistake that everyone makes at one point, I'd reckon), you should just use a as large as possible light source, and place it somewhere behind you where it hits "everything" and doesnt create any unwanted shadows.

Hope you find my critic constructive, and find some sense in it

-O

[miniwakka1]

Thanks for comments - they have been taken on board and hopefully next efforts will be better