Natural light portrait advice?

[klpurkett]

I just agreed to do some senior pictures for my sister next week. We are planning to head over to our grandparent's farm, since they have a big red barn, several out buildings, and some huge weeping willow trees. Here's the deal. I don't have any kind of flash except what's on my Nikon D3100. We are going to do the pics in the evening, hoping for some of that "golden hour light." I have quite a few poses in mind, we're working on her clothing and prop choices, and she's pretty good with her own make up and hair. What I'm mostly worried about is getting nicely exposed, crisp shots just using the natural evening light. Anybody have advice for a first-timer at this? My equipment consists of a camera, a 55-200mm and a 18-55mm lens, and a tripod. Pretty basic. Is there anything else I need (that's not going to cost me much or take long to learn how to use)?

Thanks in advance for the help... I learn so much every time I get on this forum, and really appreciate you all!

Kristy

[Polar01]

I would suggest that you go over to the farm and wander around the locations looking at how the setting light effects the locations. Some locations will look better in early setting light while other will work better in later setting light. That way you will know exactly where to be and when to be there as there is nothing worse than wrong place, wrong time.

Cheers: Allan

[deetheturk]

Hi Kristy, I'm no portrait shooter, well humans anyway but after watching a few videos on youtube, a reflector seems to be a great choice to bounce some light back in and brighten up the shadow areas, these can be very cheap to very expensive! A large piece of white card will also do the trick

Looking forward to seeing your results!

[Manfred M]

Kirsty - shooting at "golden hour" is a fantastic time for portraiture; the light is just fantastic for this kind of work. I have done some at that time of evening (getting people up at this time of year to catch working in morning "golden hour" is nigh impossible). Most of my portraiture is done under studio lights these days, so digging back in my memory, here are a few things to watch for.

1. Absolutely take a white card shot before every new lighting situation - golden hour gives you very funkly lighting, but in portraiture getting natural skin tones is the priority. If you haven't got a white card or grey card as a target, a piece of white paper does in a pinch. The important thing is you want a neutral colour and some papers have optical bleaches that react with UV light and actually have a blue cast. With the sun down quite low, the UV component of the light will be minimal, so you should be okay. I've done this and gotten away with it. Use the target to set you white balance in post.

If shooting RAW, do this in post. If shooting jpeg; take a picture of the target in the light you will be using for the shot. Make sure the target fills the frame and set your custom white balance that way. When the sun sets, the colour temperature changes quickly as the sun gets close to the horizon, so frequent shots of the target are a must to get your skin tones correct.

2. Be aware of colour "pollution"; standing under a tree will throw a green colour cast (if the leaves are out, not the situation where I am), standing too close to a red barn will reflect red light on the subjects, etc.

3. Play with the direction the light hits your subjects; soft shadows make for interesting portraits.

4. Have fun!

[pnodrog]

A sheet of white polystyrene foam or a silver folding windscreen shade can be useful especially if you have figured out a method of hanging them on a tripod. May look a bit Heath Robinson but can be a cheap and effective reflector.

[Texas Dave]

Are you familiar with your flash settings on your nikon? You're probably going to need your camera's flash to fill light, especially if you get a shot where the sun is behind the subject in order to get a hair glow and you need light on the face. Get familiar with changing your flash's output settings incase you need more light or if your get to hot.

This will help. You can thank Richard, a.k.a. rpcrowe for this link. http://www.slrlounge.com/posing-tips...ale-portraits/

[Manfred M]

Are you familiar with your flash settings on your nikon? You're probably going to need your camera's flash to fill light, especially if you get a shot where the sun is behind the subject in order to get a hair glow and you need light on the face. Get familiar with changing your flash's output settings incase you need more light or if your get to hot.

This will help. You can thank Richard, a.k.a. rpcrowe for this link. http://www.slrlounge.com/posing-tips...ale-portraits/

Golden hour light tends to be so diffuse that fill light is generally not needed. The only way I can see a need for a reflector or a flash is if the scene is back-lit; and that's easy enough to avoid. The built in flash on the D3300 (or any camera for that matter) can be problematic with a longer lens. Shooting with the 55-200 (which I would tend to use for this type of work, as the results will tend to be more flattering) will cast a shadow due to the length of the lens and relative proximity of the flash to the lens itself. As well, when shooting with a longer lens, flash drop-off is going to be an issue, as the photographer will be standing quite far back. These are tiny and hard light sources and cast strange shadows when shooting in vertical (portrait) format. I think you saw a few of those in your recent shots, Dave.

I like shooting with reflectors (I have four different commercial ones + the homemade variety Paul mentions). A large sheet of white foam core or coreplast make great inexpensive reflectors, but you need an assistant to help point it in the right direction. This is probably not the time to learn how to use one... Full body shots something around 3' x 5' would work and for head and chest shots something a lot smaller (3' x 3' or so) would work. I like shooting with reflectors just outside the frame because the quality of light they provide (I sometimes have to retouch to get them out of the image when I shoot a bit too close).

[mrinmoyvk]

This might help you... Also please post some photos once you are done as I might require few hints for poses before 25th. I am going on 25th for my first shoot.

First Pre-Wedding photo Shoot

[IzzieK]

With all the advice already given, I'd be dying to see what you can come up with, Kristy...as well as your progress. Portraiture is not as easy I thought it was...

[klpurkett]

I would suggest that you go over to the farm and wander around the locations looking at how the setting light effects the locations. Some locations will look better in early setting light while other will work better in later setting light. That way you will know exactly where to be and when to be there as there is nothing worse than wrong place, wrong time.

Cheers: Allan

Thanks for the advice, Allan! I am planning to go over there at the same time a couple days in advance and do some serous light scouting. Thanks a great idea. I think it well help put us both at ease if I have a plan for exactly where we want to be and at what time.

[klpurkett]

Hi Kristy, I'm no portrait shooter, well humans anyway but after watching a few videos on youtube, a reflector seems to be a great choice to bounce some light back in and brighten up the shadow areas, these can be very cheap to very expensive! A large piece of white card will also do the trick

Looking forward to seeing your results!

Thanks David. I think I have something that should work as a reflector... I plan to try it out this evening and see how challenging/easy it is to use, and go from there. I agree that it might be useful to have along, especially for the earlier part of the evening when the light is a bit harsher. I'll post some of the results next week... Thanks!

[Manfred M]

Thanks David. I think I have something that should work as a reflector... I plan to try it out this evening and see how challenging/easy it is to use, and go from there. I agree that it might be useful to have along, especially for the earlier part of the evening when the light is a boy harsher.

This sounds like a great plan, Kristy. If you get yourself a subject (obviously a person is best), just watch how the light falls on him or her. Once you understand this, it will be a lot easier to coach your "assistant".

Generally I find that I like to have my reflector fairly close to the subject, and backing off is the only way to reduce the light levels. It should be proportional to the area you are illuminating. My large reflector is 42" x 72", which I use for 3/4 and full body shots. I have a smaller 40" round one the I use for chest and head shots. I find for shooting females, white works best as it gives off a beautiful soft light.

I just hope that the you don't have a lot of wind. Wrestling with a reflector when it is breezy out can be quite challanging.

[klpurkett]

Kirsty - shooting at "golden hour" is a fantastic time for portraiture; the light is just fantastic for this kind of work. I have done some at that time of evening (getting people up at this time of year to catch working in morning "golden hour" is nigh impossible). Most of my portraiture is done under studio lights these days, so digging back in my memory, here are a few things to watch for.

1. Absolutely take a white card shot before every new lighting situation - golden hour gives you very funkly lighting, but in portraiture getting natural skin tones is the priority. If you haven't got a white card or grey card as a target, a piece of white paper does in a pinch. The important thing is you want a neutral colour and some papers have optical bleaches that react with UV light and actually have a blue cast. With the sun down quite low, the UV component of the light will be minimal, so you should be okay. I've done this and gotten away with it. Use the target to set you white balance in post.

If shooting RAW, do this in post. If shooting jpeg; take a picture of the target in the light you will be using for the shot. Make sure the target fills the frame and set your custom white balance that way. When the sun sets, the colour temperature changes quickly as the sun gets close to the horizon, so frequent shots of the target are a must to get your skin tones correct.

2. Be aware of colour "pollution"; standing under a tree will throw a green colour cast (if the leaves are out, not the situation where I am), standing too close to a red barn will reflect red light on the subjects, etc.

3. Play with the direction the light hits your subjects; soft shadows make for interesting portraits.

4. Have fun!

Thanks for your advice, Manfred! I got out a piece of white cardstock yesterday to learn how to set a custom white balance on my camera. That was pretty easy to figure out. I shoot in raw, and then use adobe raw and Photoshop elements for pp. So just to clarify: I should take a shot using my white card and reset my custom white balance each time I move to a different lighting scenario, or during sunset every few minutes, in order to keep skin tones as natural as possible. Is this right? I can understand wanting to save time in post, but I guess I'm not sure if the fact that I'm shooting raw makes a difference in how careful I need to be about white balance while shooting. Thoughts? Thanks so much!

[klpurkett]

A sheet of white polystyrene foam or a silver folding windscreen shade can be useful especially if you have figured out a method of hanging them on a tripod. May look a bit Heath Robinson but can be a cheap and effective reflector.

Thanks for the idea! I had never thought of using a tripod to hold a reflector... I'll give it a try!

[klpurkett]

Are you familiar with your flash settings on your nikon? You're probably going to need your camera's flash to fill light, especially if you get a shot where the sun is behind the subject in order to get a hair glow and you need light on the face. Get familiar with changing your flash's output settings incase you need more light or if your get to hot.

This will help. You can thank Richard, a.k.a. rpcrowe for this link. http://www.slrlounge.com/posing-tips...ale-portraits/

Thanks Dave! I'm not very familiar with my camera's flash yet... I'll admit I'm intimidated! I'll try to play around with it a little bit between now and our shoot and then take a few with flash just for grins and giggles (and for learning), but my plan to shoot in the early evening is to try to avoid NEEDING to use the flash. I know it's something I won't be able to avoid forever, but I have very little confidence my results with flash will be keepers. The barn opens towards the sunset, so we should be able to avoid back lighting pretty easily.

Thanks for the link... I appreciated the advice therein! Thanks Richard (rpcrowe) for putting this together!

[klpurkett]

Golden hour light tends to be so diffuse that fill light is generally not needed. The only way I can see a need for a reflector or a flash is if the scene is back-lit; and that's easy enough to avoid. The built in flash on the D3300 (or any camera for that matter) can be problematic with a longer lens. Shooting with the 55-200 (which I would tend to use for this type of work, as the results will tend to be more flattering) will cast a shadow due to the length of the lens and relative proximity of the flash to the lens itself. As well, when shooting with a longer lens, flash drop-off is going to be an issue, as the photographer will be standing quite far back. These are tiny and hard light sources and cast strange shadows when shooting in vertical (portrait) format. I think you saw a few of those in your recent shots, Dave.

I like shooting with reflectors (I have four different commercial ones + the homemade variety Paul mentions). A large sheet of white foam core or coreplast make great inexpensive reflectors, but you need an assistant to help point it in the right direction. This is probably not the time to learn how to use one... Full body shots something around 3' x 5' would work and for head and chest shots something a lot smaller (3' x 3' or so) would work. I like shooting with reflectors just outside the frame because the quality of light they provide (I sometimes have to retouch to get them out of the image when I shoot a bit too close).

Super helpful information! Thanks for taking the time to explain all this!!! Details are soooooo helpful at this stage in my game!

[Manfred M]

Thanks for your advice, Manfred! I got out a piece of white cardstock yesterday to learn how to set a custom white balance on my camera. That was pretty easy to figure out. I shoot in raw, and then use adobe raw and Photoshop elements for pp. So just to clarify: I should take a shot using my white card and reset my custom white balance each time I move to a different lighting scenario, or during sunset every few minutes, in order to keep skin tones as natural as possible. Is this right? I can understand wanting to save time in post, but I guess I'm not sure if the fact that I'm shooting raw makes a difference in how careful I need to be about white balance while shooting. Thoughts? Thanks so much!

That would be a yes; assuming that your sample for the white balance is actually "neutral"; so a proper gray card is really the best as you know this is neutral. Regardless, when shooting raw, take a shot that includes your target and when you get into your RAW converter, use that as your reference. In ACR, use the eyedropper tool and click on it and instant correct WB. Just make sure that the target is being hit by the same light that is used to illuminate your subject. I use a Lastolite target for my custom white balance CWB (and actually I only do this for video; video cameras don't shoot RAW so you have to get it right at source).

With respect to colour temperature changes as you approach sunset; the sunlight has to cut through a lot more of the atmosphere as the sun gets lower in the sky. This is what gives you the wonderful reds, orange and yellow sky; but as it drops the colour temperature changes (lower colour temperature) during the process. The sky turns quite blue (high colour temperature) and reflects down on your scene. You want to get a good decent read with this mixed lighting; and frankly as long as the skin looks right, the other colours are less important.

The closer the sun is to the horizon, the faster the rate of change of colour temperature will be, so yes, fairly frequent re-sampling, especially as you get further into the shoot will be quite useful. You might get away with 5 or 10 minute intervals at the beginning of golden hour and probably down to every could of minutes just before sunset.

Blue hour (just after sunset) is great for landscape work, but I've never tried outside portraiture during that time of day.

[klpurkett]

This might help you... Also please post some photos once you are done as I might require few hints for poses before 25th. I am going on 25th for my first shoot.

First Pre-Wedding photo Shoot

Thanks Mrinmoy and Izzie! I will post some of the results (and will be asking for editing advice, no doubt)... Oh great, now I'm committed and can't just pretend the whole thing didn't happen if things don't turn out so great! Accountability. They say it's a good thing. No, I know you all are so supportive and encouraging... I'm excited for this learning opportunity and really, really, really appreciate everyone's helpful advice!

With all the advice already given, I'd be dying to see what you can come up with, Kristy...as well as your progress. Portraiture is not as easy I thought it was...

[klpurkett]

That would be a yes; assuming that your sample for the white balance is actually "neutral"; so a proper gray card is really the best as you know this is neutral. Regardless, when shooting raw, take a shot that includes your target and when you get into your RAW converter, use that as your reference. In ACR, use the eyedropper tool and click on it and instant correct WB. Just make sure that the target is being hit by the same light that is used to illuminate your subject. I use a Lastolite target for my custom white balance CWB (and actually I only do this for video; video cameras don't shoot RAW so you have to get it right at source).

With respect to colour temperature changes as you approach sunset; the sunlight has to cut through a lot more of the atmosphere as the sun gets lower in the sky. This is what gives you the wonderful reds, orange and yellow sky; but as it drops the colour temperature changes (lower colour temperature) during the process. The sky turns quite blue (high colour temperature) and reflects down on your scene. You want to get a good decent read with this mixed lighting; and frankly as long as the skin looks right, the other colours are less important.

The closer the sun is to the horizon, the faster the rate of change of colour temperature will be, so yes, fairly frequent re-sampling, especially as you get further into the shoot will be quite useful. You might get away with 5 or 10 minute intervals at the beginning of golden hour and probably down to every could of minutes just before sunset.

Blue hour (just after sunset) is great for landscape work, but I've never tried outside portraiture during that time of day.

Okay, great! Thanks so much for clarifying! This makes sense. I think there's a photography shop about a half hour from where I live... I may try to get out there and get a real gray card this weekend. If not, I'll substitute. But your explanation is really clear and helpful. Thanks again!

[D L]

Kristy, it sounds like you and I are on a similar path in this portraiture thing. I am going to run through some things I learnt from my first couple of shoots (which were only recent). Some, or all, of this may be stuff you already know, but getting the right thought process is my main learning point and I thought I'd share in case it helps.

Pre-shoot
If you aren't already, think about how you want the light to fall on your subject. Do you want her face evenly lit, broad lit or short lit? Does she have a "good" side. Once you know how you want the light to fall on her face, you know which direction she'll be facing.

Given your knowledge of the location, think about what backgrounds you can use, given the orientation of your subject. Think about how that same light will fall on the background and whether it will complement the subject or distract from her. Are you getting a reflector? Do you need a reflector to make her "pop" a little from the background?

I imagine you've photographed your sister before. What camera level looks best? Above nose level or below? Or either? Do you need to bring a step to stand on?

Get some inspiration from Flickr, Pinterest, 500px or the like. Make a list/diagram of basic poses to fall back on. Maybe even give your sis a "heads-up" on the planned poses???

On the day
Set up your tripod early. Even if you shoot hand held the whole time, don't risk the chance of missing some shots at the end of the fading light while you set up your tripod.

As you move through the various locations it might be good to have a planned routine/checklist for quickly setting up. My first couple of shoots have, at some point, wound up with me getting flustered.

It looks like you are going to take a white balance shot for each locale. This might be good as before you take the white balance card shot, you'll have to check you are getting a good exposure at each new set of lighting conditions. I won't comment on how you arrive at the "artistically correct" exposure in the shortest amount of time. Keep bumping up your ISO to give yourself a fast enough shutter speed.

Once you have your exposure and white balance card shot sorted, check your model top to bottom. Hair still in place? Make-up? Clothing sitting nicely? (Is anyone else there to help with this? A second set of eyes helps a lot with this. It would've helped me anyway)

Take lots of photos, but don't get flustered like me. Every photo needs to be focused on the closest eye, otherwise you are possibly just taking another frame for the recycle bin. Consciously think what you want included in the frame. ie. is this a head and shoulders or half body shot? Am I including the hands or cropping them out? What am I including in the background?

With the rapidly changing light, you'll be tempted to rush and miss focus or forget about composition. Don't.

Talk to and encourage your model. I'm sure the talking part comes naturally to most sisters. The encouragement is sometimes overlooked between some . I found it helps to show a couple of early "keepers" on the back of the camera to build their confidence. Your confidence, (or lack-of), will reflect on them too.

Others have commented on posing, another thing I am trying to learn.

I would possibly forget flash for reasons Manfred states. It may put a catchlight in your model's eyes which might be nice. However, if you use aperture priority, using flash may force you to use a certain shutter speed. I think my D3000 defaults to 1/60s under some conditions. I'm not sure exactly when or why so I end up in manual mode whenever using flash. Maybe you can set your exposure without flash, then for the last few shots at a spot, pop up the flash and see what happens. It'll also drain your battery faster. Do you have a spare battery? Possibly another reason not to use flash?

Good luck!

Edit: I just worked out you're the Kristy who started the Lydia thread
You've got a much more comprehensive rundown on thought process from a much better source (William W) in that thread. Hopefully my comparatively amateur musings added something.