Single Flashgun Portraits

[Winnie]

Hi,

I have landed myself with the task of taking some pre-school kids portraits for a playgroup that my wife works at. It won't be a paying job as I am doing it to help them out and gain some experience.

My question is though, how do I get the most out of my single Nikon SB800 with regards to lighting? The room has a window so I can use some natural light. Should I bounce the flash? Use TTL/BL to justadd some fill? Is the SB800 best mounted on the camera or elsewhere? I am a bit worried about shadows behind the subject, how far from the background should they be?

With regards to backgrounds, what sort of materials work best? And what colours?

What about lenses? I have a Nikkor 18-70mm, Nikkor 50mm or Tamron 90mm? What sort of F number should I be looking at?

I need some help if you can spare me a few minutes. I have 4 weeks before the shoot and want to be fully prepared.

Hope you can offer some tips.

Thanks

Alex

[FocusingOnFlorida]

OK, It's hard to tell what the area you will be shooting in will look like. If the flash will be directly attached to the top of the camera (not using a flash bracket), do not shoot in portrait style (camera sideways). You will most likely get a pretty pronounced shadow. Shoot with the camera in the normal or landscape position. You can always do a quick crop later. If the ceiling is low enough and white, it should work well for bouncing. I would get there early and try a few shots with the flash at different angles to see where the light works best.

If you really want to have some fun and you can afford to try it, see if there is a rental facility near to you that you can rent some inexpensive lighting, a backdrop stand, and a muslin backdrop from. I realize that you will not be getting paid, but it is a good opportunity to get a taste for it.

Let me know if this helps. Good luck and most of all have fun and learn.

[Winnie]

Thanks for the tips.

I will be visiting the location this weekend to try out the lighting and see what sort of natural light I can get in there. Not sure if we have any hire shops locally but I will look into that. If not, would some halogen lamps be any use?

Cheers

Alex

[FocusingOnFlorida]

I have seen some set up and give decent results. The trick is to diffuse the light. I have seen people create a softbox that will mount around the light, but you would need to be careful as they can get really hot and fast. That is another consideration for photographing the children as well. It may not be so much of an issue, because they won't be sitting there for an hour or more as in a model shoot.

Another way would be to aim the lighting away from the subject and bounce it off a wall or a piece of plywood painted white and shored up in some manner. The next thing would be to check your white balance because you probably don't want to spend too much time correcting it in post-processing. Then again, if you have Photoshop or some other image editing program, you could create an action and bulk process.

Maybe you can post some pictures of the setup you try and some of your results if the parents don't mind you posting them on the web. If they do, put your camera on a tripod and set the 10 second timer. You can then sit where you will have the child sitting. This will give you something to post for critique and give you a chance to see what the result will be through your viewfinder or a computer monitor, preferably.

[Winnie]

Thanks, I will try to get some test shots using my brats as models.

Cheers

Alex

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Try to bring something large and white, best is a translucent screen.
Place this in front of the window, it will make the light almost like a softbox.

Use your SB800 for fill in flash.
It can be bounced from the ceiling or from the wall on the other side of the window.
Try to figure out a ratio that's nice.
For kids I would use something between 1:1 or 1:2 not more.

[Winnie]

Ok, so I visited the room today that I am going to use for the playgroup portrait session that I am doing soon and unfortunately the ceiling is 4.5m high! I used my lad as a subject but he was getting pretty hacked off and I ended up panicking a bit, like a rabbit in the headlamps of a car. The whole job is making me panick that I will fail horribly.

I am still struggling to avoid a shadow behind the subject. Here are a couple of the shots that looked half decent. Nikon D70, 50mm f/1.8, SB800 on camera and bounced of the very high ceiling. I was using the horrid yellow wall as a background but will probably use something more neutral on the day. The subject was about 5ft from the wall, camera was in landscape position and these have been cropped afterwards.

Still a slight shadow in this one.



Nikon D70 1/60s f/8.0 at 50.0mm iso200

Bit better in this one.



Nikon D70 1/60s f/8.0 at 50.0mm iso200


So, I think I need help to find the best results in this environment. This was my setup :-






Which way should I have the subject facing? Sideways to the window light, facing the light?

Should I put all the lights on in the room? They are florescent lights.

Any help would be good.

Thanks in advance.

Alex

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Ok.
Let's hope there is some light from the window that day.
When shooting single portraits bouncing of the ceiling is a good idea but bring ALOT of spare batteries it WILL drain your flash quickly.

What you also can do is use a tripod and use natural light only, move the subjects very close to the window and use a LARGE white board on the opposite side of the subject. This will give the best results.

DONT USE the lights in the room when using natural light they will infect the pictures with nasty colorcasts.
So try to use natural light.

When in panic because the light is not good, don't be
You can make you're own light very easy.
Take a white reflector and build a stand make sure the white reflector hangs above your subject and in between you and the subject let's say 60-70 cm above the subject. Now aim your flash at the reflector (in fact you are lowering your ceiling).

When this is not possible, use some sort of diffuser material which is fireproof (for example the stuff they use in kitchens to filter the air from the stoves) and place this in front of your flash, it will act like a small softbox and you can aim directly at your subject and use flash, make sure in that case you use a long lens like a 90mm to take the portraits.

Above all don't ever panic and above all don't ever mix lights in portrait sessions unless you want B&W shots

[FocusingOnFlorida]

To add to what was said above: also use a darker backgroud. If there is some soft shadow, it will be hidden much better. I agree on creating a smaller "false ceiling." This will be even better if you can find a stand that will allow you to try different angles. If you have a Home Depot near you, see if they have something or maybe they will have an idea on how you might construct it.

[Winnie]

Thanks for the info fellas, much appreciated.

I managed to work some stuff out and practised a bit at home. I have the flash with a diffuser fitted bounced off the ceiling but at 45* to the subject. Then had a reflector to the left of the subject to add some fill. Seems to work better and I am now more confident.





Just need to find a background and I will be sorted. I will also have another go at the location to ensure my setup produces good results.

Cheers
Alex