How bout some help on technical issues?

[kim_ramsey]

Recently, I've overlooked my creative side have been trying to focus

on the more technical issues of photography. I believe my main

issues are color, clarity, and contrast...hummm, that would be just

about everything lol. For the most part, I think I've got my color

right where it is supposed to be. My lighting is looking much

better. but, still I can't seem to get that crisp contrast that i

see in so many other photos. I'm shooting digitally with the cannon

rebel 300d, 2 unadjustable strobe lights with 1 silver, and 1

translucent umbrella. No backlights. My light set up is: silver

umbrella placed approx. 3 feet from subject directly in front of

them, light shot through translucent umbrella set directly to the

subjects right side approx. 2 feet from subject and 1 foot above

shining down from the right side so that I don't get a shadow on my

subject. I'm trying to acheive very even lighting with no shadows

what so ever. I've pretty much done that here but lost my catch

lights in the process. Any suggestions?

[elaine marie]

Kim

 

I am still learning about studio light myself and I have been doing mostly high key lighting so I would not be much help on that. It does appear to need more lighting from the front. I place my shoot through white umbrella right in front of them,camera left and at head level. One thing I can help you with is beaware of fingers and hand placement. Her hand would look more attractive and softer if her fingers were pulled together laying across her arm instead of spread out.

Keep up the good work Kim!!!

 

Elaine Marie

[kim_ramsey]

I totally agree with you Elaine. This is my step daughter. I'm lucky if I get her to pose for me at all lol. She's a hard one. You move her head, she moves her shoulders, you move her shoulders, she moves her arms lol. I'm not happy with the placement of her fingers in this photo. but, I just have to live with it! hehe :))

[elaine marie]

Kim

 

I played with the constrast in Photoshop a little.<div></div>

[kim_ramsey]

thank you Elaine. Yea, I know I can fix the contrast in photo shop. But, I really wanting to get the contrast fixed with my camera so that I don't have to add it in photo shop. I want a perfect photo straight from the camera lol

[daydreamsart]

Are you using a light meter? Being able to measure each strobe's output can help you create more dimension which would help with the contrast I think you're after. Having some back lighting would also help. The topic of contrast or "pop" in portraits was recently discussed <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Eh5S&tag=">here</a>. It's an interesting thread that might have the info you're looking for.

[mike_earussi1]

Out of curousity, what lens are you using.

[kim_ramsey]

Cindy: no I'm not using a light meter. thank you for the link. I've never considered shooting in RAW because I was told that images are harder to photoshop? Also, I'm working with a retoucher for my pageant photos now, and she says that she doesn't know how to work with that format?

 

Mike: I'm using the lens that came with the camera 18-55mm. I also have the lens from my film rebel 2000 which is 28-80. I think I read somewhere that the lenses from the film cameras are actually a bit larger? However, I'm not sure how to calculate that.

[alexander_havriluk]

You color is not right as you think. The face has a lot of red. You absolutely need shadows on your subject face to show dimention otherwise your subject will look flat, not contrast. If you are using 2 light sources try to set the output ratio to 3:1.

I have achived some results using just one light source. Check out my galley at http://alexphotostudio.smugmug.com.

And the last, every photo needs to be adjusted in Photoshop if you want it to look perfect.

[mike_earussi1]

Good color, clarity and contrast are directly dependent on lens quality of which your lenses are not known for. Try a good inexpensive fixed lens like the 50 f1.8 or 85 f1.8 shot at f4 or 5.6 and see if this doesn't make a noticable improvement in the three areas you mentioned.

[kim_ramsey]

Thank you Mike. Yes, I read that on another thread and talked to my local camera shop about it. There seem to be some differing opinions in this area. The cheapest lens the camera shop could come up with is $1000. However, I have found on ebay that you can pick an off brand such as tamron or vivitar and the price ranges from $150-$400. Which brings another question to mind---Will a lens make any difference with the dof? My camera or lens whichever it is will not blur my backgrounds.

 

Alexander: are you talking about the output on my lights? They aren't adjustable. I have to move them forward or backwards to adjust my lighting. I'm looking into getting a better set now. I started out with these just to get used to shooting indoors with lights.

[mark pav]

Kim, your lens is the one thing that will make more differene to your DOF than anything.

The kit lens that comes with your Rebel camera isn't very good. It's not bad for a kit lens,

but it doesn't come close to a good portrait lens. Portraits of one person are typically shot

with a focal length of between 85mm and 135mm and an f-stop of between f2 and f6.7.

I'm generalising like crazy, but that's a rough guide.

 

Here are my tips for this (and other) shots:

 

1) Buy a better lens. Honest. Then step back and frame tighter. What you've done here is

to get too close with a lens that has emphasised her arms. I don't like the grey space to

her upper leeft either, but a recrop won't fix that as well as a reshoot with a longer lens

and tighter crop would.

 

2) This isn't the first shot you've posted here and they've all had colour balance problems.

This one has too much red and magenta in it. I loaded it into Photoshop, clicked the wall

behind her head and the colour was instantly better. I'll load the pic here for you to look

at. On your monitor it will probably look too cool, but I'm pretty sure my monitor is

accurate. Calibrate your monitor or upgrade it. This is probably more important to your

end results than even a new lens.

 

3) Buy Katrina Eismann's book 'Photoshop Restoration and Retouching'.

 

4) Make sure that your colourspace is one that will help your photos look best when

posted on the web, if that's what you want to do with them. Photos proofed for printing

will look pretty blah online.

 

Hope this helps.<div></div>

[kim_ramsey]

yes, thank you Mark. Funny you should mention callibrating my monitor. When it was mentioned above that there was red in the photo, I could not see it. and i never do notice it! so, i thought I should try to callibrate my monitor. that's what I did. And I'm not sure it was done correctly! lol. My screen seems awfully dark to me right now lol

[kim_ramsey]

Mark, one more thing about color.

 

i'm pouting now btw lol. This is very frustrating for me! well, actually a few more questions...

 

1)color--it looks good in my camera. the histogram was reading pretty even. Are you saying that a lens is going to help with color too??

 

2)the gray space on my photos...I was wondering about that the other day. I noticed that other headshots don't have as much space as mine do. They seem to fill the entire frame. Where as when i shoot mine, if I fill the entire frame with my subject, I have to cut off parts like clothing.

 

now i see the magenta in my photos...aw shoot. I don't know what to do as far as the color balance goes. if i try to manually set it goes crazy. this was shot on automatic and it's not correct. how frustrating is this?

[mark pav]

Kim, as far as I know your camera's histogram doesn't tell you much about the colour. It's

more about the exposure--the light and dark areas and the midtones. A good lens won't

help so much with the colour <i>balance</i>, but it will render colours a little more

pleasingly just because a good lens should give you better overall quality. <br><br>

 

If your auto white balance isn't working for you, then either shoot in RAW or set the white

balance before you shoot (or do both). Some cameras have better auto white balance than

others. My Pentax DSLR is great, but it still gets things wrong when under certain lighting

conditions.<br><br>

 

As far as your framing etc. goes that's just something we all have to learn about as we go.

In this shot you could have posititioned Carly (?) differently so that the tree filled the

background, or you could have turned her a bit and shot down at her, or whatever. Each

shot will requuire something a little different as far as posing and composition goes. You

might find this site helpful for posing: http://jzportraits.home.att.net/

[daydreamsart]

A good and very inexpensive lens is the Canon 1.8. It will blow your kit zoom away with sharpness and overall quality. Retail cost is about $70. Properly calibrating your monitor will make a big difference in what you see. I was amazed at the difference in tonal range when I finally bought a real colorimeter. About the lighting ratios, you really need a light meter for strobes. It takes a lot of guess work out of where to put the lights for the best effect. 3:1 is nice and dramatic, 2:1 is very nice also. That means there is 2 stops more light on one side as on the other. There's nothing wrong with shadows, you just don't want harsh ones. Softening the light source by either moving it further away or even bouncing it will help. The thread I linked to previously mentioned that straight on lighting does not have the same dramatic effect that directional lighting has.

 

Another question, do you sharpen your pictures at all after capture? All digital SLR cameras need some sharpening in post, and really helps with the contrasty look to an image.

[kim_ramsey]

what about the dof blur? will that lens also help with that?

 

When I get ready to print my photos I do a color correction, contrast correction, saturation, and clarify them.

 

But, this is a completely raw image. I haven't done a thing to it. I got interested in photography when I started retouching photos. So, when I started learning to take photos, I wanted to perfect the picture taking process without having to retouch them at all. I thought thats what real photographers did...took awesome pictures with no retouching. am i wrong? I want to be able to shoot a picture and burn it to cd, and hand it to the my client with having to fix anything. Is that not possible?

 

As for shadowing...I know nothing is wrong with shadows as long as they are placed properly to enhance the photo. However, I'm working on pageant photography and the retouchers all want even lighting with absolutely no shadows whatsoever. They have a different idea of what a good photo is and what isn't. too much contrast isn't good but they still want the eyes to be sharp.

 

So, basically I'm trying to learn to do it their way. completely even lighting, no shadows, and sharp eyes. But, I'm finding out that my photos are flat...which I don't like. the retouchers don't notice that they are flat. I guess that is because they remove any all shadows and traces of features?

[mike_earussi1]

Shallow DOF is enhanced by two factors: 1. shooting wide open with a high aperature lens like an f1.8 (the greater the aperature the shallower the DOF--canon makes an 85 f1.2 which produces the shallowest DOF available but is very expensive), and 2. a moderate telephoto (85-135mm) which crops your background tighter (the tighter the background is cropped the less "junk" there is in the background to show) and produces a more natural perspective, that is it doesn't exaggerate the facial or body features as a wide angle, normal or strong telephoto lens does. The canon 50 f1.8 (which is the equivalent to an 85 for the 300d) is only $75 and their 85 f1.8 (135 equiv. for 300d) is aprox. $300. The 85 would be prefered but it depends on your budget (who told you that the only thing available was a $1000 lens, a hungry salesman?).

[daydreamsart]

Sorry, but the only way to get quality without post processing is with film, or a P&S digital, but that would be poor quality compared to what your Rebel is capable of. Download this pdf file. It's mostly about the EOS-1 series cameras, but has some good info for all EOS users. It's a good read: http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/EOS_Digital.pdf<div></div>

[daydreamsart]

About the lens, the 50 1.8 is a great little lens. It has nice bokeh (DOF), too. I have it. To get the sharpness and quality of this prime in a zoom, you would need to look at the Canon L lenses which are in the $1-2000 range. If you can get one of those, I highly recommend the 24-70. I love this lens!

 

I don't know anything about the pageant photography you're involved with. It's a strange world for sure. I remember the thread you had recently about it. My pageant experience is more with Rodeo Queens, Junior Miss, and Dance/Photogenic competitions which are nothing like what seems to be required for what you're doing. But for sharp eyes and DOF, this lens will give it to you. Hmm, sounds like I work for Canon or something.

 

Anyhow, here's a sample of a portrait taken with a 50mm lens, although it was the 50 1.4 lens. I set the aperture at 4.0. This one is the original, and I'll post the cropped, processed version so you can see the DOF range closer and how sharp the eyes are.<div></div>

[daydreamsart]

And here's the cropped, softened, sharpened image. Hey, the post work is as much fun as the shoot! But maybe that's just me.<div></div>

[Jochen_S]

Just about that RAW shooting: With RAW you get something like a digital negative. There should be both, a stand alone RAW converter software which came with your camera and maybe a photoshop plug in. Canon is common enough so photoshop should provide a RAW plugin now to import these files. I shoot RAW and adjust white balance exposure and contrast as good as I can before I convert to a common photoshopable format. IMHO this gives the easiest control over color. About sharpness: Well known killer lenses do a far better job than cheap zooms. If you're looking for affordable 3rd party lenses try out their 50 and 100mm macros, but better forget about zooms.

 

I try to use manual set color balance, but discovered that at least my strobes need a little color correction. If you are shooting whole sessions in RAW mode batchconverting the pics is very convenient. - I'm using Pentax, so I don't know what the Canon software is capable of.

 

Cheap DSLRs don't have 100% viewfinders. OTOH labs and magazines don't deliver 100% of the picture, they use to cut of a few mm, to avoid white borders. Painting something to be cut away or not around the picture is harder work than cropping if necessary.

[kim_ramsey]

Cindy, thank you for that link. It helped answer a few of my questions. And also made me feel less of a cheat for my post processing lol :)

 

Jochen-I'm going to try shooting RAW tonight. Wish me luck! :)

[bill c.]

Kim-- Your lighting ratio may be somewhat low. Try using just one light and a reflector for a while, just as an exercise. Experiment using the reflector at various distances from the subj.

 

Happy shooting. -BC-

[michaelmowery]

lighting ratio is key. first lets deal with seeing the catch light. there is no need to place the

lights high above the head. that is why you don't see the catch light. Place the lights at

head level the light up the eyes nicely. Ok lets move on to ratio to create contrast. With out

sounding technical just set your lights both to the same power. this is called symetrical

power. now place your main light on the side to which your subject's face is turned to.

keep the light as close to the subject as possible (2 feet)and sweep the light (aim the light)

across the face. You can keep it slightly aimed at the face. Make sure the umbrella is

forward of the face meaning the far edge of the umbrella does not break the line where

the head is. we are not split lighting. Now the easy part is placing your second light twice

the distance as the first, keeping it near the camera. If you want more ratio pull the second

light back a little farther away. The other thing would help is to use a long lens to

compress the background and make the face pop out. by the way check out my website to

see my loup lighting and short lighting.

 

Michael http://www.michaelmowery.com