New studio monolights

[captlen]

My first attempt on studio portraits. What do you think. Open to CC

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Hi,
Use a little bit of powder on the facial areas, now the shine a little too much if you know what I mean.
Lighting is a bit flat you could experiment with placing the light more to the side and using a reflector on the other side.

[Darryl_Lessere]

Nice job and good first effort! When I look back at my first dozen or so shoots, I cringe. How many lights are you using?
Couple of good books on lighting:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157...Fencoding=UTF8
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158...lance&n=283155

[captlen]

I was using three lights . Key light camers right fill light left both with umbrellas and a bacground light with barndoors. I think I had the Key light too far away making the light harsher than It should have been. I also could have turned down the fill light a bit to makt it less flat. Am I on the right track here with those changes??

Thanks again to all how offer advice.

[JohnC]

Those were the first two suggestions I was going to make. So yes, main light closer to be softer and (possibly) turn down the fill light. Need to check with the main light closer it might be brighter enough to leave the fill as is. Or try with a fill reflector instead of the fill light (as someone already suggested), then try the third light as a hair light to separate them from the background a bit.

If you have room, try moving the subjects further away from the backdrop, too.

[Darryl_Lessere]

Groups can be tricky with people blocking light. Your biggest obstacle is getting light in there. The trick here is just to get everyone well lit. Then you can get funky with ratios and shadows.

If I had to shoot something like this on 2 lights + BG, I may have gone with something similar to butterfly lighting. Popped one flash up high up front and center and down angled at 45 degrees so some more light got over his shoulder and on the model on right who is nearly dark below the neck. Main high up and over shooting down may have helped that a bit.

You have to be careful on placement. Butterfly means you have the light the same distance in front as overhead. If you hang the light 3 feet over his head, it should be 3 feet in front as well. 45 degree down. Then adjust so you can see you are "clearing" his shoulders to get to the ladies behind.

You would need a horizontal boom arm to do it right . I use a beauty dish with a diffuser, but any softbox will do. I find that you get a bit more control with a softbox. You can throw a piece of black fabric over one or both sides of a box with velcro tabs, shape the light and do a lot more than with umbrellas.

Then maybe I would have set my 2nd light on camera right side and feathered across the front of the group and used reflectors very near model lefts face and cropped in closer.

Another option would have been lights over and under camera position with the under powered a stop down and reflectors on both sides.

The over light same as above - 45 degree down.

The under JUST under camera position straight on or maybe with just a little up angle, the idea is to fill in the baggies under the eyes and light up under the jawline.

Another idea using the an overhead light only suggests using the fill light as a rimlight if room allowed toss a reflector in his lap and have him hold it. Another option is to pull a table just *in front of all of them just below and out of sight and toss a white sheet across the top so you get some fill from below.

If you have a shoe mounted flash, you can kick it up a notch and bounce off the side walls to give a little kick Or bounce your shoe flash off the ceiling so it drops right in on them from above to kick up their hair a notch. Specific hair lighting without spill is out with the number of lights available. All you are trying to do is get the top of their heads as bright as their faces. No more than that.

Again, good first effort. Keep at it.

D

[captlen]

JohnC,

thanks for the input. I was glad to see that I was able to pick up some of my mistakes. Nice to know that I am learning what I should be doing.

Derryl,

A lot there ot chew over. Thanks for all the ideas. I guess what I need to do is talk some more Friends into being my Guinea pigs and learn under fire. I will consider adding a soft box to my set up in the future. For now I will work with what I have so I don't make the mistake I often do of trying a buy a solution to the problem ( I am good at that) I wll try to get comfortabgle with my umbrella set up and then move on.


Thanks to all for your help. Got to love this site and the people on it