C&C for a first timer off-camera flash user

trican

Hi all,

I have a Nikon D90 and a SB600, which until yesterday I only used on-camera. So I got a Lightstand, 42" Westcott umbrella and a second flash, and a cheap Jessops flash(360 afd), though I dont have a second lightstand or umbrella. I tried to read up as much as possible prior to starting to take photos.

Using this equipment (flashes in manual mode, triggered optically), I took some photos of my nephew and niece and edited these in Lightroom. Lens is a Tamron 17-50 2.8. The room has a cream wall, which I thought I'd try to blow out with the Jessop's flash. I suppose this would be called a key light(?) and I set this one to two stops higher than the main flash. The other challenge is the room is rather narrow, about 11-12 foot. I tried to get the kids close to the shoot through umbrella and maximise the distance between them and the wall which I intended to light with the jessops flash. Here are the results - I'd love to get some pointers on how to improve - particularly as I found that by using just one flash I seemed to be getting better results.



1. Lighting the background - but caught a piece of a radiator in the lower right - grrr!


2. Lighting the background with the second flash



3. Not lighting the background with the second flash - missing catch lights in my nephew's eye; I dont know why?



4. Not lighting the background with the second flash


5. Not lighting the background with the second flash. Was trying a butterfly arrangement, but with a large white card as a reflector below


6. Not lighting the background with the second flash

wasper

trican wrote: »

Hi all,

I have a Nikon D90 and a SB600, which until yesterday I only used on-camera. So I got a Lightstand, 42" Westcott umbrella and a second flash, and a cheap Jessops flash(360 afd), though I dont have a second lightstand or umbrella. I tried to read up as much as possible prior to starting to take photos.

Using this equipment (flashes in manual mode, triggered optically), I took some photos of my nephew and niece and edited these in Lightroom. Lens is a Tamron 17-50 2.8. The room has a cream wall, which I thought I'd try to blow out with the Jessop's flash. I suppose this would be called a key light(?) and I set this one to two stops higher than the main flash. The other challenge is the room is rather narrow, about 11-12 foot. I tried to get the kids close to the shoot through umbrella and maximise the distance between them and the wall which I intended to light with the jessops flash. Here are the results - I'd love to get some pointers on how to improve - particularly as I found that by using just one flash I seemed to be getting better results.



1. Lighting the background - but caught a piece of a radiator in the lower right - grrr!


2. Lighting the background with the second flash



3. Not lighting the background with the second flash - missing catch lights in my nephew's eye; I dont know why?



4. Not lighting the background with the second flash


5. Not lighting the background with the second flash. Was trying a butterfly arrangement, but with a large white card as a reflector below


6. Not lighting the background with the second flash

Well done for a 1st timer. Small c@c, in the 1st picture if you clean up the bottom right corner & make white.

trican

thanks @wasper for the feedback - its much appreciated! I'll have to be more careful of objects creeping into the shot the next time. I'll have a go at removing the radiator from image 1, I tried a little bit in Lightroom to remove it- but its tricky with her hair and making the result look natural.


Does anyone have any comments on the Lighting setup? I know I could probably improve hugely in this regard?

Tallon

wasper wrote: »

Well done for a 1st timer. Small c@c, in the 1st picture if you clean up the bottom right corner & make white.

Sorry to go OT, but why did you Quote the entire set of photos when you were the first reply?

smash

Photos 1 and 2 have banding in the background. I'd sort that out in photoshop for a better photo.

trican

thanks for the reply smash - are you sure about the banding? I can't see it in photos 1 & 2?

kelly1

Hello Trican, I think they're a very nice set, very relaxed, nice expressions.

Just a few technical points I'd make.

- Their pupils looks a bit enlarged to me. To fix this use a reasonably strong ambient light to close the pupils.

- What aperture did you use for Image #2? The boys face seems a bit out of focus. I'd use f/8 to f/11 or higher.

- I can see light fall-off in images #3 and 4. Was the light very close to the boy?

- Light looks to be too high in #5 and we're not seeing much catch-light in his eyes.

- #6 is adorable :-)

Just regarding terminology, your key light is you main light, i.e. the strongest light source. If your background and subject are predominantly white/light, it's a high-key image. If the background and subject are predominantly black/dark, it's low key.

Hope that's of some use to you.

trican

Hi Kelly1,

Thanks for the really detailed and valuable feedback, Its incredibly useful! To be honest I hadn't even noticed some of the things you pointed out, such as the size of the pupils (I had my shutter speed close to the flash sync speed for most of these shots). I'll have to watch these things the next time I try.

The light fall off in images 3 and 4 is nearly definitely due to the distance from flash to subject. I was experimenting and trying to get an intuitive feel for the inverse square law of light fall off. So I may have overcooked how quickly its rolling off in some of the above images. There could well be depth of field issues when both are in the picture, as I rememer at one point trying to get the manual settings with the flashes and exposure looking reasonable (I dont have a light meter just so I was judging this from the image histogram) and I droped the aperture to f4.

Personally I thought the level of lighting in 5 was ok? And I guess the reason I didn't get catch lights here is that the key light is directly in front of him and at much higher elevation and pointed down - I wonder what I should have done here to get catch light?

Overall I'm still not clear in my head why in some images I get catch lights and in others I dont?


thanks again for the very valuable feedback

kelly1

trican wrote: »

Hi Kelly1,
Thanks for the really detailed and valuable feedback, Its incredibly useful!

Thanks

trican wrote: »

... (I had my shutter speed close to the flash sync speed for most of these shots). I'll have to watch these things the next time I try.

Do you think this is a bad thing? It's best to work at the max sync speed.

trican wrote: »

(I dont have a light meter just so I was judging this from the image histogram) and I droped the aperture to f4.

f/4 is fine for a single person but not for a couple and definitely not for a group. In fact with a small group you'd probably want to shoot at f/16.

trican wrote: »

Personally I thought the level of lighting in 5 was ok? And I guess the reason I didn't get catch lights here is that the key light is directly in front of him and at much higher elevation and pointed down - I wonder what I should have done here to get catch light?

Overall I'm still not clear in my head why in some images I get catch lights and in others I dont?

Just drop the light down a bit and you'll get catchlights.

Btw, did you have an on-camera flash too? I notice some tiny catch-lights in the centre of the eyes.

smash

trican wrote: »

thanks for the reply smash - are you sure about the banding? I can't see it in photos 1 & 2?

My monitor is catching it in the gradient in the backgrounds on the first 2 photos.

trican

smash wrote: »

My monitor is catching it in the gradient in the backgrounds on the first 2 photos.

thats interesting I just checked on my Macbook Pro, and I can see what you're talking about. I dont see this on my work Samsung Monitor driven by a dell PC (probably equipped with a rubbish graphics card). Something else I need to fix

frozenfrozen

No banding to be seen here on my U2711 ips. Are you sure it's not banding from the low(er) quality screen on a laptop? It may not be displaying full 32bit colour depth.

smash

It could be this screen. I'd need to check my monitor at home.

Just strange that it's only on 2 of the photos.

trican

kelly1 wrote: »

Thanks

Do you think this is a bad thing? It's best to work at the max sync speed.

f/4 is fine for a single person but not for a couple and definitely not for a group. In fact with a small group you'd probably want to shoot at f/16.


Just drop the light down a bit and you'll get catchlights.

Btw, did you have an on-camera flash too? I notice some tiny catch-lights in the centre of the eyes.

More mega useful advice - thanks! Operating at max sync speed is what I'd read, but this also meant I was killing all the ambient light - which you mentioned might be effecting the pupil size. I'll have to experiment further.

Aperture advice duly noted!

when you say drop the light down a bit - I guess you mean its actual physical position rather than power?

I didn't use on-camera flash, though at one stage I had the flash and umbrella positioned quite low and in a central position in front of the subject, which might explain the catch lights...... UNLESS they are due to the pop up flash that was optically triggering the off camera flashes?!? I didn't think the pop up flash would contribute to the lighting. Perhaps it did since I had the subjects very close to the key light and camera. Interesting.

thanks again

trican

frozenfrozen wrote: »

No banding to be seen here on my U2711 ips. Are you sure it's not banding from the low(er) quality screen on a laptop? It may not be displaying full 32bit colour depth.

Quite possibly, though it would mean Apple's marketing about the awesome-ness of the retina display isn't quite true? surely not :-)

kelly1

trican wrote: »

More mega useful advice - thanks! Operating at max sync speed is what I'd read, but this also meant I was killing all the ambient light - which you mentioned might be effecting the pupil size. I'll have to experiment further.

Generally the ambient light won't affect the exposure if you're working indoors. Just try taking a shot with the lights turned off and you'll see what I mean. Decent ambient light will keep the pupils closed though.

trican wrote: »

when you say drop the light down a bit - I guess you mean its actual physical position rather than power?

Yes, that's what I meant
Try 45deg to subject or lower.

trican wrote: »

I didn't use on-camera flash, though at one stage I had the flash and umbrella positioned quite low and in a central position in front of the subject, which might explain the catch lights...... UNLESS they are due to the pop up flash that was optically triggering the off camera flashes?!? I didn't think the pop up flash would contribute to the lighting. Perhaps it did since I had the subjects very close to the key light and camera. Interesting.

It certainly looks like pop-up flash I wouldn't advise using a flash to trigger your lights. Go for radio if possible or even a cable.

frozenfrozen

trican wrote: »

Quite possibly, though it would mean Apple's marketing about the awesome-ness of the retina display isn't quite true? surely not :-)

Also no banding seen on an apple cinema display here :P must be a feature of the laptop!