"School of Portraiture" - Lesson 08 - Taking it to the next level ("The Reunion")

[Colin Southern]

Collin, i know they are pretty cheap to buy umbrellas, for like $15. But i love creating/building things that i personaly want/need/will use. And its evan cheaper since i got umbrellas laying around everywhere, and diffrent sizes too. But i see your point in buying the umbrellas where its not expansive.

No problems if you like building things (I do too) -- was just thinking along the lines of if one spends a few $$$ (I can get them for about $13 NZ, so probably under $10 in Australia) then I can use the time to learn some better photography techniques.

[allenlennon]

So I decided to just go for umbrellas for now. A few questions. What size? And what type, white translucent, white reflector, silver reflector? And I'm still going to
Make my own

[Colin Southern]

So I decided to just go for umbrellas for now. A few questions. What size? And what type, white translucent, white reflector, silver reflector? And I'm still going to
Make my own

Hi Allen,

Size isn't that critical - just "average" size will be fine. Type needs to be translucent; the softness of the light is proportional to the size of the light source relative to the subject - and you can get a shoot-through much closer than you can a reflector type umbrella. Also, reflectors tend to blast light everywhere; great for fill, not so great for directional lighting when you're trying to control it.

The umbrellas are just a light modifier though - you still need a light source (normally portable strobes, or studio heads). Constant light sources can be used (using about 5 compact flourencent bulbs per unit works well); using halogen work lights can be used too, but you end up frying the subject - setting fire to things - and blowing fuses if you're not careful (you need quite a few watts worth, and even then, shutterspeeds are lower and apertures are higher than I'm really comfortable with).

[allenlennon]

Yeah. I'm thinking of making a reflective for fill light and translucent and shoot through for controlled lighting. What I like bout shoot through us that it's basicly a softbox. And what aprature and shutter speed settings is average for portraiture

[Colin Southern]

what aprature and shutter speed settings is average for portraiture

It depends on a number of things; in the studio I have plenty of light, so I can stop-down the aperture to get a "safer" depth of field, and the best isolation from contamination caused by ambient light (we typically shoot with the overhead room lights on) -- so I'm usually shooting at a minimum of F11 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100 - and go down to about F22 for some configurations - but you won't be able to get within a bulls roar of that with continuous lighting (if you try, be sure to call the fire department first!).

With continuous lighting you'll probably be using ISO 400 and be down around F5.6 to get even a reasonable shutterspeed.

[smcrews]

Here are a few new shots. I would love to hear any suggestions. Thanks

[Colin Southern]

Hi Shawn,

All 3 look really good to me -- very well done

If I had to suggest SOMETHING, I'd possibly suggest ...

1. A light vignette to draw the eye towards the young lady in #1,

2. Crop away a little of the headspace in #2 (not sure which of the resulting aspect ratio change or tighter crop would be better though)

3. #2 is a little flat through the midtones on the face (a tap with the burn tool set to midtones would cure that)

4. All 3 don't look like they're had any output sharpening applied - you'd probably benefit from an USM of around 50 to 75% @ 0.3 pixels.

Great compositions and lighting though - definately a professional standard -- all 3 would look great on canvas hung on a wall.

[smcrews]

Hey thanks for the tips Colin. I followed your advice and took another stab at #2. Please let me know what you think.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Shawn,

It's looking much darker for some reason

To be honest, the new crop didn't look as good as I thought it would - not sure if it's still better than the first though. Be interesting to hear what other think.

[speedneeder]

I prefer the color of the first version of #2 but the crop of the second version. I could nitpick and say there seems to be a lack of ... Red... In the photo? Not sure about that. Regardless, either version is a keeper - nicely done!

[Sam Smith]

Colin,

Here is another entry for your dart board. It was shot in a local park with a 580exii and a shoot through umbrella I now have a pair of them. I like the image and it is the best I have submitted so far. Please remember I have very thick skin, so please tear it up.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Sam,

Technically good (to my inexperienced eyes), with the exception that I think it would stand 1/3 to 1/2 stop more exposure. I know without a peak white in shot it is easy to over expose skin tones, but I think this is just a little too cautious - you might need to apply that just to her face and hold back the tree trunk though.

Looking at the shot as a whole, I would have excluded, or cloned out, the tree trunk in top left corner. Also, there's a brighter background patch below that trunk on left that I'd dim down some more.

Also (2) there's a bit of patterned shirt/jacket extending right down to the lower edge of frame that pulls the eye down there and out.

It looks like you were both having fun on the shoot, so well done on getting a good relaxed expression from your model and the balance of flash and ambient is very natural, with no dark shadows either.

Personally, I'd score it 8/10, but I don't do portraits
and I certainly don't have your skill with flash, but I can appreciate the result

Cheers,

[Sam Smith]

Thanks Dave. I will try the suggestions later today. She is a friend that we have known for awhile now she we both were relaxed. The only problem i will have is maybe the blue shirt part.

[speedneeder]

Dave, you have set a new precedent now, offering a 'score'!
Now I will have to submit another so I can see what kind of grade I get
(BTW Sam, I think your photo is pretty darn good. Not perfect, but pretty darn good.)

[Dave Humphries]

Colin, you have set a new precedent now, offering a 'score'!

Nah, Colin wouldn't be so amateur

By all means post and I'll give a score

btw me = Dave (the ugly, balding one)

[speedneeder]

LOL, my apologies to both of you
This is a disadvantage of reading this Forum on my iPod
Sorry for any confusion. I was wondering why Colin was saying weird stuff like that!

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

Here is another entry for your dart board. It was shot in a local park with a 580exii and a shoot through umbrella I now have a pair of them. I like the image and it is the best I have submitted so far. Please remember I have very thick skin, so please tear it up.

Hi Sam,

Looks great - only thing I might tweak is cropping off some slack space above the head.

Don't be afraid to shoot this style in horizontal though (when you don't have anchors like the tree stump) (giving a subject room to look into can do wonders for a shot).

[Colin Southern]

LOL, my apologies to both of you
This is a disadvantage of reading this Forum on my iPod
Sorry for any confusion. I was wondering why Colin was saying weird stuff like that!

No excuses - I'm replying on an iPhone!

[speedneeder]

I'll get the hang of this before I reach 11,000 posts, I promise!

[Maritimer1]

Colin, I just wanted to let you know that the voices of Cambridge in Colour are always in my head when I'm setting up a shot. With no lighting gear except a 430EX II flash (which I am not very adept at using), I've been trying to use available light to my advantage.

This shot is my best colour portrait, I think. It was shot on a bright October morning along a walking trail. This little daughter or a colleague was looking particularly adorable, the light was beautiful on her face, so I hunkered done and just snapped one quick photo before she moved. (No flash.) The background, except for a small spot that I darkened in post, is natural.

Camera was my Canon 40D set at aperture priority (f/1.8 as the trail was dark and I wanted to be ready for candids), the shutter speed set itself at 1/2500 and iso was set at 400.

I like the colours and the light and am happy that I remembered to get down to her 2.5 year old level. Having her hair sort of blend into the background is a favoured style. If I could have had her hold that pose (We know that wasn't going to happen), it would have been nice to have dialed the aperture to, maybe 2.8, and back off the shutter speed for a sharper shot. I didn't nail those eyes at all, even though I "think" I had a focus point on one. I must have done something "off" just as I hit the shutter. I also don't like the shadow on the right side of her lips. I suspect she was just making a cute little smile, but it looks lopsided. PP was done in CS5.

Thank you for any C&C!

Myra


Untitled by M.J. Hencher, on Flickr