Can I do it better?

<p>I am asked to take an organization?s children Christmas party photo again

this year. To do a better job, I would like to hear your folks? feedback on <a

href="http://www.vicina.info/entry_view.htm?id=16&c=1604">my last year?s

works</a>. I am aware that I should have more dramatic lighting on single

individual portraits. I, however, have a space and time restriction. Those last

year photos were at the end of a hotel hallway. I didn?t have much room to move

my single lighting equipments around. And during the party, people lined up

behind me. I didn?t have time to measure light for every single photo (as a

result, some of those photos are over exposed while some others are under

exposed). I would like to know how I can do it better under the condition.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

sorry, your link seems to take forever to open!

 

Can't you post a few samples here?

It takes me 6 seconds to load the page, but 16 seconds to load your page at photo.net.

I'm not on my profiled monitor at the moment, but your exposures appeared to be all over the place.

 

Can you tell us more about how you had the lighting positioned for those shots?

 

If you're limited to just 1 flash, I'd be inclined to go with manual settings - and go for a bounce using something like one of Gary Fong's lightshpereII's.

<quoteblock>

... your exposures appeared to be all over the place.

</quoteblock>

<p>I am not sure that I understand about statement.</p>

<p>I thought that the lighting setting can be identified easily by experienced eyes. Anyway, one light was on the left hand side of my camera, and three various shape and size reflector boards were presented. They were taken in a relative small space. There might be some light bouncing around. Have I mentioned about light measuring? Yes, my camera was set to manual. I always do so for portrait works.</p>

<p>BTW, I wouldn't put a Gary Fong's toy on my flash to do a portrait work and charge for a service fee.</P>

"I am not sure that I understand about statement."

 

I'll have another look on my 24" calibrated / profiled screen for you tomorrow - on my uncalibrated / unprofiled home screen I'm seeing apparent loss of highlight detail and hotspots on about 1/2 the shots - some others with unattractive eye shadowing around some of the eyes. Impossible to tell what you've already done with post-processing or what your histograms looked like - but on the face of it I'd be inclined to stop down 1/2 stop or reduce the light output a tad.

 

"I thought that the lighting setting can be identified easily by experienced eyes."

 

The general direction that it's coming from is obvious enough - but obviously you've got some fairly significant lighting issues that you're wanting help with (or you wouldn't have asked), and yet you haven't told us much about the lighting & setup that you're using - I've got no idea if you're using a strobe or a flash or continuous ... into a reflective umbrella - shoot through umbrella - softbox etc - the more you can describe it, the more I can visualise it).

 

"BTW, I wouldn't put a Gary Fong's toy on my flash to do a portrait work and charge for a service fee."

 

I'm surprised at your comments regarding Gary Fong's equipment - used properly, the lightsphere II does a very good job of directing about 80% of the energy into the "bounce" and about 20% into diffused forward-light which would lighten up the unflattering shadows you have around the subjects eyes in a few of your shots. I use 4 of them on my flashes with great results. Have you ever tried one?

 

Personally, I don't subscribe to the "new age" theory of portrait lighting - can be OK for dramatic effect / artistic licence with 1 subject - but for this kind of thing I prefer balanced lighting. Many don't agree - and that's fine - that's just the way I like it.

For these kind of events, you need to set everything up in manual mode--camera and flashes, and leave them in place the entire evening. That way you measure once, and then just shoot everything with perfect exposures the rest of the night (within 1/3 stop). Allow enough time between exposures to allow the flashes to recycle fully.

<p>Thanks Colin for your detailed feedback.</p>

<p>I agree that some of them are over exposed as I already mentioned. I used print film so that a half or one stop over expose doesn't show up in the final prints.</p>

<p>The light modifier should not make any significant difference in regarding of the light itself other then light split. I used a reflective umbrella. So, light split was an issue in the relative small space. In fact, I had two reflectors on the other side of the main light to take care of light reflection. Split light shouldn't contribute any light on the subjects. </p>

<p>I might use Gary Fong's equipments for illuminating in a situation such as a wedding or a social event. I definitely won't use them in portrait works. </p>

Vernon--the question is--why the exposure differences? If you set up manually and don't move the flashes, or return to the same position every time, you shouldn't have any (or within 1/3 stop as mentioned) differences.

"All over the place" was a phrase that I also thought of. So the answer is: yes, you can do better. In particular, the color sucks; as if you had shot under cheap fluos. Some of the skin tones look really unwholesome.

 

The inconsistency comes from using print film. I don't know if the film did not respond well to the light, they processed it poorly, or did a bad job of scanning it.

You're right, Nadine. The main light had been moved between various shots. Due to the tme constraint, I didn't meter the light for every single shot. That was the cause of the expose difference.

In regarding of the colour, I agree that it is not good at lease from those scans. It was due to the expose difference and the scanner responsed the colour differently. The prints looked fine.

Vernon,

 

As promised I had another look at your shots on my calibrated / profiled screen - they looked better, but still over-cooked a little on average, but as you pointed out, you knew this already.

 

Unfortunately I'm a digital specialist, not film - so I'm afraid that I can't help you with film-based exposure and colour issues - only suggestion that I can think of is shoot a colour-card once you've got your lighting setup - it may prove to be a handy reference point for exposure and colour accuracy during post-processing (especially if they're going to be scanned again).

 

Sorry I couldn't help more.

 

Cheers,

 

Colin

I was going to suggest a custom WB, but since you mention film, I have to agree it's an exposure inconsistency issue. Over and under exposure may be somewhat correctable in density issues, but it will certainly effect color consistency and skin tone. They all look too heavily processed.<p>I think your light placement is generally well done (the kick light is nicely placed) but too complicated for event work. If you could improve consistency in exposure and lighting, you are on the right track. <p>My suggestions would be to pull them a little further off the background for better separation with both brightness and DoF, and use at most one reflector. Keep the main close to the camera position (as it is in most of the images), just above your shoulder and you won't need all those reflectors. Position the camera just under one side of the softbox/umbrella. The closer images at wider apertures are superior... t<p>And what exactly <i>is</i> "light split"?<div></div>

Thanks all for your inputs.

 

My procedure of each set of portraits was the following:

- posing

- adjusting the main light accordingly

- adjusting the reflectors on the other side of the main light

It needed some time to walk over the above steps.

 

The reflectors served two purposes in the narrow space. Other than adding a fill light and a kick light, they also blocked the bouncing light from the wall to prevent colour casting. One reflector should be good enough. But I like to add some kick light to separate the subject from the background. I will use a bigger reflector for the kick light this time so that I don?t need to adjust it for each shot.

 

Giving more background space is a good ideal. I would like to have the widest aperture if possible in theory. But again, due to the time constraint, I couldn?t adjust the main light output each time to achieve the widest aperture without losing the DOF coverage. I think my camera aperture was set to somewhere around F/11. And the lens was 70-200 mm F2.8. I will see whether I can set the aperture not more than F/8 this time or not.

Looks like the light in the top photo is too hard on the girl on the left. Other than that, the main ptoblem throughout looks like color balance.

 

What was the ambient light source? It looks like fluorescent (greenish/whitish hue). Did you color correct your flash with green gel to balance the light source differences?

 

Better yet, could you get away from the fluorescent light and have only tungsten ambient. Might help create a warmer look.