Two Lights, a Gray Wall, Many Voices

It's a good thing I'm starting to hear voices. Not voices of destruction and mayhem but voices of teachers, lessons, mentors and common sense. Well ... three out of four ain't bad. I had been wanting to do a simple portrait shoot with a stark background and an engaging subject for a while now. A friend of mine at work needed some portraits done and I thought this might be a chance to get what I was waiting on.

Nikon D300, 50mm f/1.8; 1/100 @ f/5.6, ISO 400 SB-800

First off, I couldn't remember what their home had to offer for background, ambiance and general workspace. I had been hitting +DavidHobby Lighting in Layers Disk I, lessons two and three pretty hard and trying to memorize "the Strobist voice." David talks a lot about balancing the ambient light with flash, in fact, using the ambient light as the first light in your kit. I started making a couple diagrams and jotting down notes of things to remember: work in manual, get the exposure set, move around the setting, key light, fill ... all that stuff.

Nikon D300, 50mm f/1.8; 1/100 @ f/5.6, ISO 400 SB-800 ... ya gotta get the hair flip.

When I got on site (read — got over to their house) it was a gloomy day, raining outside and the ambient light was not very attractive. But imagine my delight when I saw this wall, a gray wall, about six feet wide with pictures hanging on it. And enough room to clear furniture and have a great old time!

We made a plan for some family portraits with the dog and all, worked through those first including a couple of passport photos, and then we could concentrate on individual portraits and take our time ... with the gray wall.

For the portraits of Sarah, I set up a 30" softbox to use as my key light and a 16" softbox to use as a rim, er ... kicker, uhhh ... hair light! See? Many voices! See lighting diagram for most of the details. This setup actually came from +ErikValind and his voice from the workshop a few weeks ago (see post Shaping Light: A Small Flash Workshop). The key light was an SB-800 triggered with a Pocketwizard and the kicker was an SB-800 in SU-4 Slave mode! It worked great! I had never thought of using SU-4 mode ... voices always said CLS is the way to go. Wrong, oh CTO breath!

Takeaways from the shoot

• I think my key light should have been a little higher in relation to the subject and pulled closer to axis; maybe at 30 degrees instead of 45.
• My NEF files seem to be consistently 2/3 stop underexposed ... "watch your histogram," a voice I didn't hear that day but will from now on.
• Engaging with an engaged subject is quite engaging ... that might be a +JoeMcNally voice I was hearing.
• Should have shot at ISO 200. I had plenty of light power.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the work we got done. It's become reassuring over time that I have voices to listen to. They've taught me a lot and are a great reference to help guide the work. Thanks gentlemen.

Portrait Night

Well ... it was Portrait Night the other night. I'm not sure what the inspiration was; probably the combination of wanting to try a little different technique and being tired of sitting around and waiting.

Our house has been in flux a little lately. Lots of stuff going on and the traditional spaces just aren't available for doing a portrait shoot. So, I grabbed all my stuff, draped my old backdrop over the fence in the backyard and set up.

I had gotten a small, square soft-box (20" x 20") for a hot shoe flash a while ago and haven't had much of a chance to use it. I've also seen Joe McNally use a strobe below the subject and bounce it up off a gold reflector ... adding some warmth and softening the light.

Paul


That's what I did - my setup consisted of an SB800 shot into the soft-box positioned camera left, 45 off subject but feathered forward slightly. I have a 42" lite disc with a gold side that I laid down in front of my imaginary subject and bounced an SB600 into the gold reflector and presumably into the face of my ... ahem ... model. Now ... who's gonna be the model?

You know you live in a good neighborhood when you can go across the street and solicit a body for portraits 'cuz they're not doing anything but waiting for their pizza to arrive. Duke and Paul came over. They're actually neighbors, too, sharing a driveway and both are great subjects. Paul's a web guy and Duke's into repos.

Duke


This was about 9:00pm so we were just seeing the last rays of sunlight. I didn't expect any ambient light for the shots so eliminated it with the exposure settings. I set up the camera thusly: ISO 100, Manual Mode, 1/250 @ f/9, WB = Flash. BTW, I'm using my trusty 18-70mm DX EIEIO.

Then I chimped in the flash power settings (SB800 @ 1/8 power & SB600 @ 1/16 power). Actually, before the boys came over my wife helped me get the initial setup and Karlyn actually sat for a shot.



Although, not quite as enthusiastically as I might have hoped. Still got a nice shot, though.

I really liked working with the soft-box; completely different light control versus the shoot-through umbrella. Not necessarily better; umbrellas definitely have a great place in my photographic arsenal but, different. Controlling the direction and spill is what's great about the soft-box.

The reflector on the ground below the subject is a really nice effect that adds some needed warmth without looking "filter-ish" and "post-processy." It added some welcome light up underneath Duke's cap and opened up his face and eyes. Nice touch. Thanks for the idea, Joe!