jonathan_brewer1

It's not accurate enough, they're claiming accuracy +or- 1/3 of a stop, your Minolta and Sekonic meters are good to go to a 1/10 of a stop, and as long as you've had them calibrated, you're then 'right on the money'. A 1/3 of a stop off is 'no biggie' w/negative film, but not good enough for chromes, also you've got cumulative error to deal with,..............................your meter, the aperture, your shutter, film(which varies in sensitvity from batch to batch, age etc.),............several things can be off by a small 'bit', these little bits can add up, and then you don't understand why you may be off by 2/3 to a stop or more,..........so I suggest getting a meter accurate to a 1/10 of a stop, that'll do you.

Maybe saying this will clarify things, consider photographing a single person where you are able to render detail in the highlight areas illumnated by the key, and also in the darker areas left by the key, and this is EXACTLY THE SAME THING as photographing two SEPERATE PEOPLE, with different skintones.

 

Lighting different skintones in the same scene is the SAME THING as being able to render detail between highlight and shadow in the same shot.

'Once Again, I am not a portrait photographer by trait.'...........................nobody is when you start out, you will be if you choose to, by sticking with it, the issue of what you are notwithstanding, I don't think photographing folks with different skintones will be as difficult for you as you think,....................go to my website...........www.imageandartifact.bz, then go2 'about us', the shot of my family, my wife is dark, in person, looking at her skin, you'd think dark Hershey bar, my daughter is much lighter, light brown, the color of wheat bread, my son is right in between.

 

In your shot, the gentleman second from left is in more shadow from his position than from the lighting, you can see detail in the other three, and I just don't think the differing skintones will be a problem for you if you revisit the issue of evening out the light via a broad non-directional lightsource with plenty of fill. They SHOULD LOOK DIFFERENT, their having differing skintones ISN'T the problem, take this to an even further extreme, with using softboxes or a broad area silk, you could photograph somebody with 'pale' skin right next to a dark skinned African American no problem, IF you're rendering detail you can see in the skin of both subjects, AND YOU WILL, if you even out the light and pile in the fill.

 

This is a problem where the solution lies in the type of lighting you use, NOT the subject matter, stick w/it Dave,..........even, broad-non directional key light, with a lot of detail in the shadow areas left by the key because you pumped a lot of fill into those shadows,......................................................... this'll work for a dark skinned person,........for somebody w/pale skin and freckles who walks into the scene and stands next to that dark skinned person,.........a photograph of a white sheet of paper right next to a black sheet of paper,......a white car, parked right next to a black car.

 

Having several African Americans in the same shot, all w/different skintones isn't the problem, it's seeing DETAIL in those differing skintones, pumping fill light into a shadow left by a keylight on somebodies face to show detail in that shadow, IS EXACTLY THE SAME THIN as that same fill light bringing out detail in the skin of somebody with a darker skintone.

 

If you can light somebody and show detail not only in the areas illuminated by the key, but also in the shadow areas by using a lot of fill, then you can use the SAME TECHNIQUE to light a lighter skintoned individual next to a person w/dark skin, it amounts to the same thing, try it Dave, it works,...........Happy Thanksgiving.

'What is it a meter in flash mode actually reads'.........depends on the meter, but a good meter will read both, some will give you the percentage of ambient and flash which combine to give you an exposure when you take a reading in flash mode..............this depends on the meter you have, but I've confirmed what my meter reads by doing this, I've set my meter to flash, taken a reading without popping my flash and gotten an ERROR reading at the shutter speed I'd chosen which was 1/60 of a second,..........then I simply decreased my shutter speeds(in this case it went to seconds) to where I got a reading, which means the meter is reading ambient light.

 

You might want to try an experiment to prove exactly what your meter reads, by standing someone in a dark room where this person is being sidelit by bright sunlight from a window, using a flash to illuminate the part of the person that is in shadow, you should be able to increase the power of your flash by taking meter readings and balance the illumination on the shadow side so that it's equal to the illumination on the sunlit side, and the meter readings should be the same,...........................................if the sunlit side meters F11 @1/250 in ambient mode, you should be able to balance the shadow side with flash and with the same meter reading in flash mode, ........if you get F11@1/250 from the sun in ambient, you should be able to equal that on the other side with F11@1/250 in flash mode.

 

If your meter is reading both ambient and flash in flash mode, you should be able to balance ambient and flash illumination regardless of how much/or how little ambient light happens to be in the shot, if your meter isn't reading ambient when it's set to flash, your meter readings would be off when trying to match the illumination between the two kinds of light sources, and the more ambinet in the scene, the more it would be off.

 

Ever see wedding pictures where a couple of people in a large reception room are exposed and the rest of the room in the picture looks like a 'black hole'? It's of course because of the difference between exposure set for the cameras flash, and the ambient light in the rest of the room which is typically several stops less than the flash exposure,........................so in any of the scenarios you've mentioned it's keeping flash and ambient illumination within so many stops of each other, and of course it also depends on how wide or tight you are, the room can be in total darkness, but if you're tight enough, you can use key and fill to make it look like your subject matter and the whole room is lit with the same illumination.

 

If you've got a lot of ambient in a room, you can go two ways, ...........................................let's say you have light coming in through a window on a fairly hazy/overcast day, which meter F4@1/125sec(in ambient mode)...................things look a little flat........you can use flash illumination w/a meter reading of F5.6@1/125(in flash mode), to add some sparkle to the subject matter in the scene, since there's only a stop difference between your ambient and flash illumination, and depending on what light mods you use, you could disguise it pretty well from most folks that you even used flash.

 

 

Or in a room where some pretty intense/very directional illumination is streaming in through a window, giving you an exposure of F8@1/125sec in ambient mode, you may want to use your flash at F4@1/125 with plenty of diffusion as a fill light to the key light being provided by the sun,.................and we go back to light ratios, and which light source you decide you want to use as your key, and which as your fill.

 

There are numerous considerations with this subject, inside, outside, how wide your are/how much of the background is in the shot, flat light-directional light, whether or not you can use a flash exposure low enough or high enough in relation to your ambient light to register both and have it look right. That's as specific as I can get, it's getting hard to think smelling the Turkey and dressing downstairs, it's been fun, but I gotta run.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

There are several cross-connected issues involved in the consideration of your question, which is really several questions, and the answer or answers really depend on the situation,........the phrase 'mixing ambient with flash' covers a lot of territory.

 

Let's narrow this down to 'fill flash', in a scenario where you're shooting with sunlight as your 'key' light, and you're using flash to 'fill' in the shadow areas left by the sun, say the areas illuminated by the sun give an ambient reading of F11@1/250sec, and an ambient reading of F2.8@1/250sec in the areas left in shadow, and you want to raise the exposure in the shadow areas to within one stop of the suns illumination, you then switch your meter to flash, and you boost the power on your strobe until you get F8@1/250 in the shadow areas, which is one stop lower than your key(which is the sun[taken w/your meter switched to ambient]), and this will look natural.

 

If you hadn't boosted up the shadows in this scene, you would have your key @ F11, and the shadows @ F2.8(assuming the same shutter speed[regardless of whether you've switche to ambient or flash mode]), which is a difference of 4 stops, the human eye is capable of handling a contrast ratio of 1 million to 1, so you'll see detail in both areas just looking at it, but the film can't, and with a 4 stop difference you have to bias your exposure toward either the highlight exposure or the shadows, leaving you with either detail in the shadows and 'blown out' highlights or detail in the highlights and little or no detail in the shadows.

 

What I'm getting at, is that you're making this too complicated, just think of what light is the key, and what light is the fill, irregardless of whether one lightsource is the sun, or a flash,.....................................consider this, 'fill flash', is the SAME THING as using 'light ratios' in the studio,..........the only difference being that in one situation, your key is the sun, and your fill is coming from a strobe, whereas in the studio, you using a flash for both your key and your fill.

 

If you're using 'fill flash' outside, boosting up an exposure in the shadow areas left by the light of the sun, there will be some ambient light present in that shadow area, you are using flash to ADD TO WHATEVER IS THERE(and that's the key to making this simple), until you get your desired reading(after switching your meter to flash mode), and you can juggle readings between the ambient light and flash like this AS LONG AS LEAVE YOUR SHUTTER SPEED THE SAME IN BOTH MODES, to balance things out.

 

If you're in the studio, and using flash for your key and fill, and it's during the day, with ambient light streaming in from the windows, and you've set your key to F8@1/250, and you fill to F5.6@1/250, and you want to check the intensity of the ambient light coming into the studo to see if it's going to affect the shot, switch your meter to ambient and take a reading @1/250, if you get F1.4, they you can ignore the ambient light in the studio, that is that light that is 4-5 stops less intense than what you are using for your exposure isn't going to mean much to your film, now of course you can see it, but it won't make much of a difference in the final exposure.

 

If you're shooting in the studio, and you using flash, and you're worried about ambient light, just increase your shutter speed, which won't affect your flash(if it's longer than your flash duration), but will cut down your ambient light, OR DO THE REVERSE, if you want to increase the intensity of your ambient light in relation to your strobe light you're using in a scene.

 

If you want to balance ambient and flash, switch between your flash and ambient mode on your meter and juggle apertures, but leave the shutter speed the same in either mode,............................if you want to cut down the ambient light in a scene used with flash, increase your shutter speed.

 

When you mix ambient with flash, your film will notice the light from BOTH types of light sources when they're within 3-4 stops of each other, as the difference widens in stops, the fainter lightsource won't register if you then expose for the brightest illumination.

 

I hope this helps, good luck and Happy Holidays.

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

Cedric................don't misunderstand my comments, you've every right to think and feel whatever it is you feel about your art, or what you might consider you might want to pursue as art,............some people swear by Rembrant, think Van Gogh was a 'con man', some folks swear by 'Bird', but can't relate to Ornette Coleman,............my point is that sometimes when you really examine something, regardless if it's something new to you and/or something you may not like, and you get to really understand it, a light goes on and you began to look at it differently.

 

I began the same as you, found that a few of the things I didn't like/couldn't stand, were after a period of familiarization and/or understanding, things that I eventually grew to love doing, I changed, and I think you will too, so my point was to expect this, because after all what artist wants to stay the same?

 

The last thing I would want to do is discourage someone starting out, so keep at it, and take my comments as constructive.

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

If you have a reason for doing something in photography, you then have the right to try it out, names don't mean anything, some painter, sculptor, or photographer, tried something new, something different, which worked so good, that other artist incorporated that trick/new technique/inspiration/new insight into their own work.

 

Techniques or ideas aren't rules, you use them until you or somebody else comes up with something better, and then what came before becomes passe', until somebody rediscovers it after everybody else has forgotten about it, you don't like things shot a certain way, try something else, it either works as well, or it doesn't.

 

Reading you above post, I was struck by the fact that you declared yourself as somebody who didn't know a lot about portrait photography, but you have definite opinions about what you do and don't like,...........................nothing wrong with that, you're trying this out, and acting on your beliefs, that's what an artist should do.

 

I think of what you said from different angles, I make a point of trying to understand a technique I don't agree with so I can figure out whether or not I'm missing some valuable point, which could validate whatever it is I don't like, or on the other hand, upon a lot of scrutiny, turns out to be what I consider non-sensical BS.

 

I don't consider a blank canvas that some gallery has been 'conned' into buying as art, or something of artistic value, to duplicate whatever it doesn't contain, you just drive to the artstore, and you've duplicated the non-existent technique. I don't consider it valid to reject a valuable technique, if you don't have something as good or better to replace it.

 

You don't have to use the so-called 'thirds' technique, if you've got something better/a better way of organizing things in your frame, try it, you don't have to have your sujbect look straight into the camera lens, if you think you've got something better/works better, try it, as long as you you have a legitimate reason for doing whatever you're doing, I believe and agree in the legitimacy of making that choice, trying new things, acting on a hunch, an inspiration, is what it's all about.

 

I would disagree w/you about what seems to be more natural, or what seems to be more or less natural, ALL photographs are unnatural, 'put-ons', and unreal, they don't represent any kind of truth, or reality, a photography print is a flat piece of paper w/clumps of trace chemicals on it, a picture of somebody homeless isn't any more real than an old fashioned movie style portrait, looking into the camera isn't any less real than look off camera, they BOTH HAVE BEEN STAGED BY YOU or by me, or by any artist construction his art.

 

'I like very tight portraits because I feel they convey character better.'...........................let's consider this statement for instance, and your example close-up, I consider this a prime example of what I'm refering to, you chose to cut off some of his face, we can never see his neck, or what he's looking at, or how he's standing, you decided what you wanted us to see, and how you wanted us to see it, but I would insist to you that it's possible that I would get a better idea of his character if I was there without my camera, watching the scene you shot, and watching everything else going on while you shot, so that I could make my own choice as to what was what.

 

So it's all subjective, and really about our choices and style, as opposed to what's really there, I went around the long way of saying that some of the things you reject also have some worth and value(not for you maybe), and that you may possible feel different about them after you've gotten an understanding of them, and then if rejecting them if they have no value for you, I would suggest to anybody in your position to learn about techniques even if you disagree with them which can give you a thoghtfullness that can also lead to inspiration.

 

After going through all this esoteric bullshit, I'll wish you good luck and 'Happy Holidays'.

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

 

 

 

 

Thank you very much Garry, I appreciate it. Yes you are correct, in the finaly analysis everyone has to choose for themselves.

Hey thanks.................I learned something, which I never figured out how to do, but let me make sure I understand it correctly, do you spell out the complete line, not just the part that is blue?

Thank you very much, I'd really rather not get into knocking the work of somebody that does this to eat and pay the rent, but I think the folks that are moulding their future by what is impressed on them now, need the benefit of both sides of the story, or a better way to go if there is one.

 

You've made a good point though, if what I/you/absolutely anybody happens to try, doesn't work, it doesn't work, the best approach is to figure out why, which is the only way to make it work.

I went to the link to Monte Zucker's shot of an African American, it's a series of harsh and garish hot spots, I don't care if it's Monte Zucker executing this shot, it's a mistake, and it looks terrible,..................at the other end of the spectrum, I went to the Jeffrey Hornstein link to his site(which I've seen before).........................and if you go to 'Headshots', the first shot, which is of a dark skinned African American woman, qualifies as a much better technique in terms of lighting darker skin.

 

Lighting a darker skinned individual shouldn't present any more of a problem than photographing folks with 'pale' skin TOGETHER with 'dark' skinned folks in the SAME shot,.....................there's are choices of gear, and techniques that will work, and choices that won't, lighting dark skin w/a silver umbrella is the last thing I would do, a silver umbrella is going to give you silver looking hot spots on darker skin which tends to be warm/earth colored.

 

This isn't any more of a problem than photographing a dark/black car, or a dark/almost black/black anything, and if you're not getting what you want, then throw out the silver umbrellas,.........small garish looking hots spots don't look as bad on pale skin because there's less of a transition between the hot spot and the surrounding areas because pale skin is a brighter tone, on darker skin the hot spots look worse because there's more of a transition between those area and the shadow areas which go imediately dark or black, you can start to address this considering a broad/non directional light source in striving even lighting on the skin, and more intense 'fill' to booset up detail in the shadow areas, and you can do this even if you have both dark skinned folks and 'white' folks w/pale skin in the same shot.

 

Bracketing exposures on light sources isn't going to do you any good if the light source is creating 'small garish hot spots', because increasing the illumination/exposure is just going to make them worse, you need to EVEN OUT your lightsource start thinking of using bigger softboxes, or shooting through a broad area of silk, and using a LOT of fill.

 

Go to a thread 3 or 4 thread below this one, I believe it's called 'please critique this shot' by Elaine Vang,...............I have a shot of Dayna, it's high key, on an individual who's medium brown skinned(think of a jar of honey), go to my website, www.imageandartifact.bz and go the 'about us' section, the picture of my family depicts my wife, who's very dark, compare the technique used on her against the Monte Zucker shot.

 

I'm not interested in a flame war or personalities, and it's a beautiful Saturday morning so spare me any acrimony today, I'm African American myself and have quite a few African American clients and I have quite a bit of experience addressing the issue of illuminating dark skin, and I've come up w/some things that work, I think Monte Zucker has done some wonderful things, but he's wrong on this.

 

Even out the light, w/using bigger and broader, more non-directional light sources, and a great deal more fill, and bracket, forget the silver umbrellas.

'Chairascuro' is a term common for an effect you see in paintings, it means rougly 'light and dark' or at least this is how I've know it, it refers to the separation between the foreground and background in a painting(or any other visual art) by contrasting the lightness of one right next to the darkness of another.

 

Cinematographers picked up on this early and incorporated this into their lighting schemes, which is the idea behind using a kicker/hairlight, emphasizing an edge w/light to separate that edge belonging to the foreground from the background.

 

What is not common however is the idea that you can do this in reverse, which is also found in paintings, and which is also within the concept of 'Chairascuro', which is that you can get separation by having a lighter background and darker areas on your foreground subject matter,.............................if you look at my shot of Dayna, a lighter background contrasts w/her hair, and the shadow detail in the area of her cheeks, and particularly her neck,..................thus either way works.....................emphasis w/light of the edges of a foreground subject against a darker background,...............OR..............darker edges around a foreground subject w/a lighter background.

 

BOTH involve the concept of 'Chariascuro'..............contrasting the EDGE of something by emphasis w/light, or the lack of it, and thereby getting separation between that something something in the foreground and somehting in the background.

 

I know you asked about this in an earlier thread and I hope it gives you a sense of WHY regarding the use of a hairlight.

 

Good luck.

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

Great points in the above threads, background color/tone has quite a bit of an effect separation wise on your foreground subject matter, here's a head shot Elaine, of a client and good friend of mine, Dayna, originally shot in B&W w/a 'Thunder Grey' background, and then converted to a 'duotone'.

 

A 'kicker'/hairlight was not used for separation, since we were both satisfied w/the shot without one.<div></div>

Kelly has hit the 'nail on the head', there's exposure and there's lighting, one is incorporated in the consideration of establishing the other, the masters of duplication/establishing a many times naturalistic setting in scene, whether it was Cinematographer Conrad Hall, or Rembrandt, considered where they were going in what they did with their lighting.

 

It's not JUST exposure, but an effort to SUGGEST/SAY something, to show this mood, this time of day, this effect, and in doing that, ultimately you can say there's no such thing as the CORRECT exposure, THERE IS 'looks right', 'looks very interesting', 'I like that effect, how did you do it',....and so forth.

 

See a movie called the 'Conformist', a lighting masterpiece, when watching this movie, consider that most movies are shot w/tungsten balanced film, sensible because when shooting inside on the set, traditionally, the scenes were lit w/tungsten lights, and when the crew moves outside on exteriors, the Asst. Cameraman doesn't have to be told to slap on the 85B in front of the lens, a warm filters which balances the film for the additional blue hitting the scene from the sun.

 

In the 'Conformist', you'll see a then innovative technique, one interior scene is lit w/tungsten lighting, you can see through the windows that it's snowing, it's also blue, because the DP didn't correct for the light coming through the windows, and it looks blue and cold, it looks NATURAL, the shot inside is lit w/tungsten lights, exposed on tungsten balanced film, and the daylight streaming in registers a blue hue, which because it's snowing, accentuates the effect of 'it's cold outside', IT LOOKS RIGHT, because the DP DOESN'T correct for the mismatch between daylight and a tungsten balance film.

 

There's no right or wrong, or correct, only did what you do work, and why you did it.

With a last name like U got, you're already a true pal :^0.

'I was thinking one sand bag per stand would be sufficient, but I'd rather spend an extra few bucks on a sand bag than have to replace a strobe head and/or hurt someone's child.'..........................................You got it, for some reason the same sandbags you buy elsewhere cost more at a photo retail outlet, safety first, tripping over cords and pulling the stand down is easier than somebody knocking over the stand itself.

 

Happy Holidays

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

'I noticed you said you'd get all AB800's. I'm about to order my first Alien Bee's, and I was going to pick up at least one AB1600 to make sure I had at least one really big light in case I have to do a large group. I'm just wondering if my mindset of "you can always turn down a big light" makes sense.'..........................When you're shooting a portrait and your light is 5 or 6 feet from the sitter, a light w/1600ws may seem like too much light, in fact shooting a close-up portrait in the above scenario may seem like overkill with a head putting out 800ws, but suppose the situation arises where you need to do a group shot, and you need from the foreground to the background in sharp focus, and you need F16, F22, and so forth.

 

Suppose you decide to do a shot in black & white, with a 25 red fiter, the filter factor for this red filter is 8, that's three stops, use this filter over your lens and it makes your 1600ws strobe a 200ws strobe,..................slap on a softbox or various other light mods on your head and you probably knocked down your your light a stop, again knocking down your 1600ws to 800ws.

 

There are going to be any number of considerations and situations, involving filtration, light mods, using a certain technique to get the shot, that use up power, it's not the idea of getting the powerful light you can get out of some arbitrary notion that bigger is better, the more power you have the more flexibility you have regarding any situation that comes up with depth of field, aperture/shutter manipulation as EV numbers, filtration, light mods, balancing daylight-flash fill.

 

If you are always going shoot the same thing, the same way, for the rest of your life, then ignore what I've said,...............a more realistic approach TO ME is considering that your photography is a growth process, a dynamic process, with each shoot presenting different problems, and a consideration that strobe gear that may seem to be too powerful for a head shot/close-up, may be pitifully underpowered when trying to keep folks in sharp focus regardless of whether they're 10 ft from the camera or 20 ft away, any number of things can cut down on the effective power of your strobes, when a particular shot comes up where you need a certain amount of power, and YOU DON'T HAVE IT,.........................what are you going to do? Rent? By the time you get through renting a more powerful light to do a shoot the lights your have can't handle, it would've been cheaper to get the more powerful light in the first place.

 

Sometimes spending more money at the beginning SAVES YOU MONEY later, and conversely trying to save money at the beginning can cost you at the back end, I'm a portrait photographer, that means primarily portraits, which I could do a number of w/my Vivitar 285 or my Armato portable strobes, but when I do a black $ white portrait, and I use a 25 red on the shot to accentuate a 'high key' effect, these lights are now inadequate, if instead shooting one sitter, I'm doing the same shot trying to keep a group in focus, I can ending up using/needing close max power on my WL unit or my profoto 1200ws pack.

 

Get the most power you can afford not just to have more power, but to afford you flexibility in any situation that WILL come up where you'll need that power. Steve I hopes this helps.

 

Good luck, and Happy Holidays

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

KEEP your money in your pocket until the 'fog clears', take your time, listen to everything, question what you've heard, and research this to 'death' and 'bit' by 'bit' this'll start becoming clear to you.

 

You've got a budget that will get you a decent 'base' for lighting, basically there are the considerations of how well made this gear is, it won't do you any good to buy something cheap(in a bad sense, this gear costs very little, and doesn't last, or the manufacturer won't honor their warranty),.................................. a units Power(and how you raise or lower that power to the needs of a shot), to where the unit is flexible to be used on a close-up portrait and then dialed up to effect a group shot,............................and the light modifiers that fit your unit, light modifiers are where you really need to get something decent, since photography is light(or the absence of it), many of these lights have adaptor so that you can use the midpriced softboxes of manufacturers like Chimera,...............and lastly the price of many of these units is a trade off, between price, and convenience, and features that make things like keeping your light ratios/keeping individual lights in the same power relationship to each other as your power up or down.

 

I suggest for a quick 'primer' to dial up the www.bhphotovideo.com site and dial up lighting, and check out the specs of these light units, and their cost, also the light modifiers, adaptors and so forth, you'll get a sense of brands that are 'dirt cheap', gear that's priced in the middle, and top of the line gear in terms of performance AND price,...................your budget will get you some decent gear, but I suggest you research as had been suggested above, all the threads on here about lighting gear, check out the differing opinions, some people offering opinions here are knowledgable about studio gear, some aren't, when in doubt, ask to see an example shot of how they used the gear they're talking about, but at all costs WAIT, that way you don't buy that seems great for a few less dollars, but makes you work yourself to death, buy something that will last, will make taking a shot easy in terms of metering, effecting light ratios/balancing your lights, get decent light stands, lights that are 'arc'-protected.

 

Rather than go into all these terms, I'll let other jump in here, but all of this is gone into in the greatest detail in prior threads, if you decide to research them.

 

Good luck and Happy Holidays.

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

I use anything from my Vivitar 285HV, a Chinese made(I think) Britek strobe w/a small softbox, to one of my portable Armato strobes, to a small slave w/a modeling light that's so old, it gives out a very faint light that I can use very close to whatever I'm shooting. I tend to not want to use a hairlight unless I really feel that it will do something important for the shot.

 

My thinking behind this is that I've been 'burned' before using multiple lights, you 'sweat out' figuring just the right placement, just the right ratio/intensity to your other lighting, and if everything else gives you a good effect, but the hairlight is somehow out of whack, your shot can be ruined.

 

I have a shot on my website called 'KwaZulu Dreams', if you're interested in checking out the shot, go2 www.imageandartifact.bz then 'galleries', then 'And More', the inspiration for this shot is a daydream I had about my African heritage, I wanted a connection to our families African heritage in the shot, in the form a hat that my Daughter is wearing, it's called an 'Isicholo' hat created by Zulu women/Artisans in the KwaZulu-Netal region of South Africa, it's individually handmade, and a geometrical masterpiece, it was very difficult organizing this 4 light shot, and most difficult was using a 'hairlight' on this magnificent 'headpiece', and keeping it off the black background.

 

When I finally got through w/getting everything for the shot, through w/tests, I made over 125 exposures when I shot this project, about three came out because if my Daughter shifted slightly, some light somewhere was out of position, and I had to readjust, plus if I didn't wait between exposures, I would get a partial flash,.......I'm saying all this to say that everytime you add a light you complicate matters, two lights instead of one is not just twice as hard to use, it's several times harder and so forth as you increase the number of lights you use.

 

I like your shot, a lot of energy with this great looking kid and his 'friend', looks like my kids 'buddies', it's all up to you where you place your hairlight, I would suggest starting out, bracketing your shots in the sense of shooting one frame @ one exposure w/o the 'hairlight' and one frame at the same exposure with the hairlight on, and comparing the difference, because this childs 'friend' is turned a little to the side, a hairlight is not a bad proposition.

 

How 'hot' or how prominent you want your hairlight is up to you as is the placement, you've got the 'dramatic license' of establishing the hairlight coming from a 'window' or 'lamp' anywhere else in the location. The consideration is that even though some folks think of a hairlight/kicker as 'icing on the cake', it is another lightsource and is as important as any other light in the shot, it will help or ruin your shot.

 

Some folks place the hairlight coming from the opposite side from the direction of your key to pay 'lipservice' to the idea of balance, some folks put it where they think/feel it 'looks right', but it's just not placement, it's intensity also, and the idea of using a hairlight to effect some seperation between your foreground subject matter and in this instance, your black background.

 

I would suggest getting an inexpensive and very low powered slave w/a modeling light(some of these are sold w/'itty bitt' softlights) which can go for $20-$40 bucks new, and for a few bucks used on e-bay, and start experimenting on this shot and/or on your other shots, experimenting in placement/intensity/harshness/softness, a consideration for you will be the handling of spill. Buy some 'cinefoil', it's black aluminum foil that's stiff enough(you can use wire coathangers to bend into framing for barn doors or flags) to make into flags and 'lips' to control spill from your hairlight if you need to(and any of your lights).

 

Good luck and Happy Holidays.

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

OMT............knocking down everything to F8 isn't bad if you're using some diffusion on the front of the lens, also when you use the foamcore at 6 feet away from the subject, you can defacto adjust your power by moving the light closer/farther away from the foamcore(don't move the foamcore, move the light).

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

One issue is that these strobes are adjustable pretty much only 1 stop, anthother is that @ 6 feet away, your 22" softbox isn't going to do you much good, these other folks you've mentioned are using much bigger softboxes, which suck up more light, and their strobes can be dialed down over a 6 stop range.

 

My 2400ws Profoto Acute 2 can be dialed down from 2400ws to 37ws, the 22" isn't doing what you want it to do @ 6 feet, buy a large piece of white foamcore, turn your light around/away from the subject and bounce it into the foamcore, you're using this rig like an umbrella, then you've got the distance from the light to the foamcore, and the large area of a board of foamcore to illuminate, doing both of which might possibly knock down your stop down to f8 or less with the foamcore(not the light, which is pointing at the foamcore) @ 6 feet away from the subject.

 

This is the dialemma with these lights, they cost less but have less features which cause you more work, I know that saying that doesn't do you any good now that you've got them, so try bouncing them into a large sheet of white foamcore as a workaround(keep the softbox on your light when you try this, it'll knock your light down even more).

When you use Iomega 'Hotburn', you'll click explore, and it will bring up windows explorer, you then select and drag what file/folder you want from this window to the Hotburn window, thus a 'drag and drop'.

 

That part of the operation works perfectly, when I dragged and dropped the 'webbackup' folder that contained my website folders, but in trying to open up html documents(the page), the images are missing because the link between the image and html document the image is supposed to be has been broken in the 'drag and drop'.

My website is up and running, I've been trying to save my web

folders by dragging and dropping via Iomega 'Hotburn' to my Iomega cd

burner, this hasn't worked, a friend and technician has explained that

why this won't work, I've also executed a download from the server

which is hosting my site, back to a folder I created on my hardrive

called 'webbackup', this works perfectly and when I open the Index

file, it behaves exactly like the real site.

 

When I attempt to drag and drop the folder 'webbackup' to my iomega

drive using Hotburn, the html documents are there but minus the

picture and there's a broken link icon in the pictures place. So

somewhere in the process of dragging and dropping the 'webbackup'

folder to the cd burner, all the links are broken. Anybody w/more

computer experience than me have any ideas why this is happening and

how I can workaround to back-up my files.

 

www.imageandartifact.bz

Your initial set-up was essentially a crude softbox, without some of the things that are incorporated in the 'state of the art' softboxes manufactured today to 'feather'/even out the light from 'edge to edge', like internal baffles, extra diffusion/doubled up diffusion in the 'center spot' of the front diffusion of these softboxes, or graduated reflectivity on the back reflective portion of these softboxes.

 

Increasing the distance from your strobe to your diffusion isn't going to totally eliminate having a hot spot, you'll still need to do something with the center portion of the diffusion, also, the side of the face closer to your set-up will still be hotter than the off side, so you'll have to do something in terms of 'feathering'/using some type of scrim to 'knock' down the illumination on the closer side.

 

I would hope that you consider this, sometimes utilizing a simple set-up like this can cause you the MOST WORK, your set-up involves diffusion material, and a light, that's essentially what a softbox does, only with a softbox, they've already addressed the problems of 'evening out' the light w/internal baffles and so forth. Regardless of why you choose to go this route, it's still worth it to keep at it until you make it work, if nothing else but as experience in problem solving.

 

I would suggest that you also consider putting your stobe in front of your diffusion material and bouncing lighting back into the subject matter, bouncing it off a parabolic type light mod like an umbrella will give you one look, bouncing it off the diffusion you have will give it another look, bouncing it off a sheet of white foamcore will give you still another, which leads to my final suggestion, which is to make this a test involving implementing the suggestions you've gotten from everybody here.

 

Problem solving, and testing the hell out of every possible combination, is going to give you what you want, what you can use, what you like, instead of just considering one set-up, play around with this, even if you get it right, try out some of the other suggestions, you cannot lose from this kind of experience.

Yes........and I hope you can problem solve this situation to your satisfaction, it's not the light placement that's not working, it's whatever lightsource you're using in this position that's not going to work....................you've got one prominent 'hot spot' high up, and as you yourself said, it's not working, so to me there are two options, change your lighting, or change the position of your lights.

 

You're actually going through a positive experience, you've got a problem, and you'll come up with a fix, if you refuse to quit. Rembrandt lighting or any other kind of lighting does not demand that you position your lighting in one particular spot, 45deg. on the vertical/45deg. on the horizontal is the starting point for Rembrandt lighting, but you DON'T HAVE TO PUT your lights EXACTLY at that orientation to achieve the effect,...................as you're finding out, their are countless other variables that affect WHATEVER light scheme you choose.

 

You've got the latitude to move your lights until they look right, it they don't look right no matter where you move them, then you've got to change the lighting itself.

 

Things like the quality of your light, the shape of the subjects head and so forth will affect how your lighting works at a certain spot, 45deg. to the left and 45deg. up isn't working, you can still move your lights to the left/right, and higher/lower that the ideal and achieve the Rembrandt effect.