Takara, Sabrina, Tasha fall senior photos..

Still working on the mysteries of lighting.
All constructive critiques appreciated.

All shot with one on camera flash, I try to keep the fill flash light and use ambient light to provide the shadow for depth on the face.

For Tasha, the blond girl, the photos were taken at mid day so the flash had to be quite a bit stronger, it was also pretty windy.

..Gals and images....care to share your camera and flash setting...

Lovely ladies but you really would benefit from getting off cam flash or lowering your ratio. I "see" the flash too much.

First two are really good. You have obvioiusly exercised real restraint with tyhe flash. There is something funny about the others, the "stick-on accessory eyes" look. Maybe it's the flash too close to the lens.

Very nice with the exception of the over-processed eyes. Much too white -looks unnatural.

The last 2 look overflashed.

BTW - Are you same guy who used to post on steves wildlife forum. Zoomn or Zoomer.

--
Bobby

http://bobbyz.smugmug.com

zoomn said:

Still working on the mysteries of lighting.
All constructive critiques appreciated.
All shot with one on camera flash, I try to keep the fill flash light
and use ambient light to provide the shadow for depth on the face.

Click to expand...

Ok, those first time photos are awesome. Just a simple plain pose and composition but her eyes speak volumes. The lighting looks spot on for me.

Unfortunately, I see the problems with the blond girl's photos, too harsh a flash? I'm thinking that perhaps a customWB or diffuser would have saved the image but not sure..

Loving those 1st two photos. wow

Thanks rs,
First two sets ttl bl -1 and the last two ttl with -1.
I needed more flash on the last set because of the very bright sunny background.

Thanks Nicholy,
I am not sure what stick on accessory eyes are.

The second girl had amazing eyes. Dark eyes with bright whites. I did not add to the whites.

HI Bobbyz,
Yep it is me, zoomer.

I am branching out into people photography. Still getting the nature shots though.

The last girls photos were at midday with a very bright background, needed a lot of flash to even her out. I do need to come up with a way to get the flash off to the side more or use a reflector.
Thanks for taking a look.

Thanks Peter,

My technique works better the darker it gets in the evening. Midday photos tend to come off more harsh as you see here.

The blond girls photos had that bright sunny background and it took a lot of flash to even her out.

MarkMc said:

over-processed eyes

Click to expand...

So that's the problem(?) I didn't realise that.

zoomn said:

Thanks Peter,
My technique works better the darker it gets in the evening. Midday
photos tend to come off more harsh as you see here.
The blond girls photos had that bright sunny background and it took a
lot of flash to even her out.

Click to expand...

Midday shots are to be avoided if possible.. Early and late day are always best for that nice warm colour.. they tell me that for winter too but those people don't live up here.. =)

been waiting for over a week now for the winds to die down to be able to do brollie strobe shots at dusk around here but it ain't happening.. sigh

Thanks Peter,

If anybody has a better way to do that bright background subject in the shade shot I am all ears.

I expose manually for the background and then use ttl flash at -1 or -2 for the subject. Then try to even the two exposures out further in editing.

Of course often it looks like the subject was pasted into the background if you don't do a good job of evening out the lighting, which is tough.

Good work, and worth some time to write a bit about each. I'll take these on one at a time:

1) Great expression. You bounced this on-camera flash off a reflector, right? Whatever you did here, do it more...this is top-notch for on-camera light. Pose and cropping need a little work. I'd prefer to see her looking into the key light camera right, instead of broad-lighting it looking camera left. Doing this would slim her face and remove the highlight on the her nose by the ambient light (on nose camera left). Cropping: you cropped off fingers, arms, and hands. Leaving just a sliver of arm off makes it look wider than normal...get it all in or crop it all off. Also, I dislike the rod passing through her head...a tight crop w/o that bar would look good.

2) Really good, best of the set. She's stunning, and her hair looks good, except for that one sliver hanging btwn her eyes...get rid of that. Lighting: again, top notch with on-camera light. Pose: really good, but keep in mind for next shoot: rotate her head ever so slightly toward the camera to get a sliver of skin on the far side of her far eye. Her eye dissapearing into her hair is less than perfect, but only by a little bit. Great job here.

3) Coming down in quality from the other two. Big chunk of hair on side of face, don't like it. Eyes are glowing with PP'd look. If it wasn't you, you should darken them in PP. This is looking pretty flashed from on-camera. Whatever you did in #2 isn't working so well here. The problem is your on-camera light is no longer a fill light, it's now a main light. There's no other light to work with on her face. On-camera flash as fill light: tolerable. On-camera flash as main light: un-good.

4) this is pretty good, but again with the on-camera main light problem. I like the pose here alot...but again with the far eye comment.

5) This is a great shot murdered by the on-camera main light. If you got a $1 piece of white foam-core, held to the right of the camera and slightly above her eye-line, bounce the flash with it using TTL, you'd have a MUCH better picture. Again, fill-light isn't fill light anymore if there's no brighter light hitting her face. Other notes: pose is static, I'd probably tilt this a little, but that's just my taste. Eyes are really glowing here, off-camera light would probably help if you didn't do that on purpose. Model is stunning.

6) same comments on lighting. Call this girl back and re-shoot, she's really good in front of the camera! Lose the stray hairs on her forehead and in her eyes.

Good work. My advice: get that flash (or at least the light from it) off camera! It'll bring you up from pretty good to great!

Dave

--



'Now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb' - Dark Helmet

David Sammonds
LentoLux Photography
http://www.lentoluxphotography.com
Baton Rouge, LA
http://www.myspace.com/lentoluxphotography

Awesome feedback Dave.
Thanks so much for taking the time for such an indepth response. Very helpful.
I am going to print your reply off and implement your tips.

I really like the idea of the white board.

Do you think that would work better than a reflector? I have seen people using the reflectors but the light looks so strong off them and the subjects seem to be suffering under it.

Yes I was very bummed the blond girl could not shoot later in the day.
She is very pretty and the midday light did not do her justice.

zoomn said:

Thanks Peter,
If anybody has a better way to do that bright background subject in
the shade shot I am all ears.
I expose manually for the background and then use ttl flash at -1 or
-2 for the subject. Then try to even the two exposures out further in
editing.
Of course often it looks like the subject was pasted into the
background if you don't do a good job of evening out the lighting,
which is tough.

Click to expand...

You're using the 'built in camera flash', right? You might to invest in a mounted flash head, with a diffuser or bounce card on it. These do make a huge difference in these genre of photos.

zoomn said:

Awesome feedback Dave.
Thanks so much for taking the time for such an indepth response. Very
helpful.
I am going to print your reply off and implement your tips.

Click to expand...

Same here, nice tips from Dave!

zoomn said:

I really like the idea of the white board.
Do you think that would work better than a reflector? I have seen
people using the reflectors but the light looks so strong off them
and the subjects seem to be suffering under it.

Click to expand...

Go to an artys store and find some 'foam core' boards.. basically two sheets of white bristol board (thick paper) with a thin foam layer sandwiched in between for rigidity. Very inexpensive and easy to cut to size if need be, and light to carry. Though perhaps fragile, the cost justify the abuse. I use these to light up a scene and bounce light all over the place.

Hi Peter,
No I have a camera mounted sb800 Nikon flash.

Wow, some very nice work here. The girl in the first two (Takara) is a real beauty. Since there's a conventional mindset on this forum that all or nearly all can and should be achieved at the shoot, let me put in a word for some serious post-processing. There are some things (many things, actually) that are a) worth the trouble to do and b) simply cannot be done during the shoot. As distressing as that fact might be to gearheads, it is nontheless a fact.

One illustration of what I mean. In #1 the brightness values of things surrounding the face are high enough to compete with the face. Result: the face gets a bit lost in the surrounding brightness. Dim the background and the arms, and adjust levels on the face, and ta-da, a mesmerizing face emerges. Also, remove the bar merging with the head. You don't need a tight crop to do that. Just clone it out.



--
~ Peano
http://www.radiantpics.com