michaelmowery

Available light exposed for skin tones and lets the background blow out a bit. This technique has been done back in the film days. The other thing that's going on is the color grading during the processing. There are some desaturated plugins that create this color grade. I don't like the colors myself but many people do.

Your are right the words were there but it was not emphasized and I over looked it. For a newbie controlling just the flash is the easiest. I personally prefer to control all light sources independently as it just makes things much easier.

You are correct in your thinking for solving problems BUT your statement that you can put a ND on the lens and it will make the same difference as putting a ND on a flash is incorrect.

A ND filter over the lens is NOT the same thing from what the OP wants to do. Using a ND over the lens effects both the flash and the ambient. The OP wants to control ONLY the flash output and bring it down to F1.4 - F2 exposure.

Keep us posted.

Cini gels are used in the movie industry and are well capable of handing minimum 350 degrees and as high as 550 degrees. Do yourself a favor and educate yourself and don’t believe everything you read on a forum. Rosco gels are a good place to start reading what they offer.

What exactly are you using as a boom? The Hollywood arms are not booms for strobes by the way. You can’t lock down your strobe on a smooth cylinder of steel at the angle you are trying to do. It will always slip. You need a flat surface on one side at the end. Some 5/8” pins have a flat side which will keep your light from slipping when boomed out at 90degees.

Get whatever you can afford and go from there.

You can use ND gels over your flash tube to lower its output to match your desired Fstop.

Group shots of any size I always use two lights to creat a main and full light. How exactly you do this is up to you. Controlling the shadows created by your main light is very important. Outdoors you can use the available light as your fill light.

Very confusing. At this point do what makes you happy. Going forward if you are going to charge money treat it as a job and be professional.

I think this thread has ran its course. The OP has not responded in 7 months.

What your seeing in the background is light falloff from the strip lights. If you want to light the background you have to either light it with separate lights or just move your subject right on the background and reset your strip lights.

PS, Michael Mowery, did you take that shot? From the eyes it looks like the "clamshell" lighting I'm using, but with larger lightsources, and a softbox instead of reflector. Awesome shot!

 

Yes, that is my shot posted and it is 100% available light being a very large picture window behind me with a silver reflector under her chin. So yes it is a variation of clamshell lighting.

 

PS. Your last posted picture of the man is better but don't go crazy by adding more lights as in that kicker light which also lit his nose and neck areas. The kicker light was totally unnecessary and only made it look worse. Learn to master your main light first and create beautiful images before moving one to adding additional lights. Baby steps is my advice.

David Noles headshots are not shot with flash but rather they are all available light which is done most likely by a large picture window the size of a garage door. David is standing with his back to the window in the middle which makes the catch light look like two strip soft boxes on either side.

I want to say that I attended two wedding celebrations. And in one of them was a professional photographer, confused by all sorts of technical aspects, shadows, and so on. And the second was an amateur who understood all this, too, but he worked primarily with people. It was more pleasant for me to look at an amateur who tries and does it with love and not with the goal of making money!

 

That is a good one. It goes to show that being a professional has nothing to do with talent or experience. There will always be professionals who just aren't good at their profession and those who are better than others.

I use what ever mode gets me the right exposure at any given situation. Master them both so you know when to switch between the two.

Any course you take by successful photographers can not be that bad. One usually learns something from everyone. One thing is for sure you will need to master both connection with client and technical lighting skills if you plan on being successful. You can not have or do one without the other.

One generally chooses size of light shaper based on how much they want to soften or harden the light quality on their subject.

I like the ELB1200 but Elinchrom's speed ring locking mechanism for their modifiers is too painful to use so I will not be investing in that company. Profoto has the best speed ring locking mechanism than all the other brands out their.

I agree there are more shallow depth of field photographs being posted. It is always refreshing to see some serious DOF shots at F8-16 that really bring out 3D quality. I try to bring both styles to my shoot.

My take on retouching is we all want to look our best and most want to look 10 years younger. Every portrait I have done needed some form of retouching even if it is to remove one zit or minimize bags or dark spots on the face. No one wants to look like they are 100 years old with sun cancer. The real talent in retouching is knowing just how much to do. I don't just open up a software plug in and push the button. I always start off retouching by hand in PS like hjosepj7 sugested to use the healing tool or the clone stamp. I would do as much as I can with that and most times for guys that is all I need to do. For women they all like the skin smoothing but just go easy with it you don't want it to look like an iPhone app photo that you see n instagram.

In my opinion “Quality of light” is not brand dependent. I can achieve a good quality of light with any strobe and modifier you give me. You can have Broncolor lighting but that alone will not give you quality of light. The photographer must understand lighting and how to achieve a good quality of lighting on their Subject be it a hard light or soft.

Unfortunately it is not enough to have invested in equipment to be entitled to start making money. You need to have business skills, personality and talent.