Portraits - DPChallenge Forums

12/24/2007 03:00:20 PM · #1

I goofed! I goofed real bad. (well, I consider it real bad)

I took 3 lights up to Idaho with me this past weekend in order to get pictures of my niece. I had promised her some "studio style" portraits for her senior pictures. I had already done some outdoor pictures of her, but I wanted to "control the light" better and that's why I wanted to do some pictures with my studio equipment.

We set up in her garage, which was freezing cold. Turned on a heater and also let the modeling lights warm things up a bit.

I set up a hair light, a fill light (above and behind the camera), and a main light (45 degrees up, 45 degrees over). I individually adjusted the power on each of the lights to what I wanted. And then began shooting.

What I didn't realize, until I was all finished and began taking the studio equipment down ... was that I had TURNED OFF the main light (actually, the PocketWizard that was supposed to fire my main light). And so it never went off. Not even once!!!

My biggest mistake was that, having adjusted all of the lights individually, I should have then turned them all on and gotten one more reading just to double-check my exposure. I didn't do that.

What is sad is that I had many clues that should have made me realize something was wrong:

- I kept wondering why my histogram was saying I was getting less light than I thought I should be getting. I even manually adjusted the power upwards a bit (both the main and fill) hoping to increase the exposure.

- My hair light seemed way too strong (as compared to what it would have been had my main light fired).

- I saw shadows on the backdrop, directly behind her, that should have been softer than they were. And didn't even pay attention that the shadows were behind instead of to the side.

- I didn't see the nice 3-D lighting on her face that a main light would have given me.

I point all these things out because ... I should have been paying attention to the signs! I should have noticed that the lights were not set up correctly. I could have done so much better. So I thought I'd share my mistakes with you and hope they help you to be better prepared.

As for how the shots turned out ... in spite of messing up the lighting and not getting the "studio quality light" that I was hoping for, I still managed to get some nice shots. Check them out:

My niece, Monique:

While waiting for Monique to change, we snapped a few pictures of my daughter and her boyfriend:

smardaz

12/24/2007 03:03:23 PM · #2

i love the guy with the scarf! very sexy LOL

Nikon NIKKOR Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S

12/24/2007 03:07:10 PM · #3

Originally posted by smardaz:

i love the guy with the scarf! very sexy LOL

Lol... then you might get a kick out of these:

tjbel05

Nikon Z9

12/24/2007 03:07:36 PM · #4

Even when "you goof" (caugh, caugh, haha) You take some amazing photos.
Congrats on a great Job!

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM

12/24/2007 03:11:37 PM · #5

Originally posted by tjbel05:

Even when "you goof" (caugh, caugh, haha) You take some amazing photos.

They look better than I expected when I realized what I had done. I mean ... my heart sank ... I felt a knot in my stomach ... I knew I had "blown it" as far as getting what I had wanted. And there really wasn't going to be a "second chance". I mean, asking her to repeat everything, same clothes, same expressions, etc, was just out of the question.

Oh well... live and learn.

By the way, I forgot to mention: all of these are unedited - straight out of Adobe Lightroom. So there are some small adjustments in lighting (very little because studio lighting doesn't change) and some adjustments in cropping, but that is it.

lovethelight

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

12/24/2007 06:14:37 PM · #6

You can probably get them looking really awesome with some photoshop on the lighting, everyone makes mistakes, that is how we learn. Be happy! we all still love you and she does too i bet

:)

TooCool

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

12/24/2007 06:23:51 PM · #7

I wish my screwed up shots looked so good...

12/24/2007 07:22:38 PM · #8

Originally posted by lovethelight:

You can probably get them looking really awesome with some photoshop on the lighting

Yeah, I'll probably cheat with a bit of dodge and burn to fix up the lighting. I'll wait to see what she orders and then do the edits.

By the way, this was one of the images I had shot a couple of months ago for her:

12/24/2007 07:23:55 PM · #9

Originally posted by TooCool:

I wish my screwed up shots looked so good...

Next time I'll show my ISO 3200 studio portraits. ;-)

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

12/24/2007 08:23:06 PM · #10

Updated the camera details on this one:

The comment left suggested it appeared to be 1.4'ish. In reality ... it's all the way down to f/5.6. The DOF is so shallow because I'm at 145mm and a fairly close focus. (I wish the image details here at DPC had a place to put focal length and focus distance, because both of those play into DOF as much as aperture does)

Apple iPhone 5

12/24/2007 08:39:23 PM · #11

The shots look pretty good to me. You can just tell her you were going for the moody 'emo' look... :-)

I dunno what it is about forgetting or overlooking the most basic and obvious things. I do it a lot, but only when I'm 'on the spot'. If I'm at home playing around with the camera and lights and backdrops I know the settings back-to-front. But when I'm out and about my mind just goes blank.

I just came back from Disneyland Paris. On the second day I shot *everything* stuck on ISO800 from the night before without even noticing! Well, I was wondering why some of my shots looked blown-out... But it just didn't occur to me to check the ISO :-/ They were just snapshots, but it's still an annoying mistake to have made.

Canon EF 500mm f/4.0L IS USM

12/24/2007 08:46:57 PM · #12

Originally posted by jhonan:

I dunno what it is about forgetting or overlooking the most basic and obvious things. I do it a lot, but only when I'm 'on the spot'.

I think, for me, it's because I was trying to impress my niece. I mean ... this is the second time I've shot her and I've made mistakes both times. When I'm out on a shoot with actual customers I seem to do fine!

rider

Canon EOS-7D

12/24/2007 08:56:33 PM · #13

looks like everyone had fun with unc even thou there was a slight boo boo---lol

SamDoe1

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

12/24/2007 08:56:52 PM · #14

Just out of curiousity, how did you have the lights set up for this one? And what sort of power ratio do you usually go for?

I have my first ever run of portrait shoots this week! Although they are all friends and none of them are paid shoots, gotta start somewhere right? I hope my screw ups look this good. :) Great work as usual.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM II

12/24/2007 09:01:59 PM · #15

Originally posted by SamDoe1:

Just out of curiousity, how did you have the lights set up for this one? And what sort of power ratio do you usually go for?

I had three lights. A hair light above her head at f/4. The fill light also at f/4. And, what was supposed to be the main light, at f/5.6. When I noticed that I wasn't getting enough light, I bumped up both the main and fill (the main did nothing since the PW was turned off), but the fill probably ended up at f/5.6 since that's what I was shooting at and most of them came out pretty close to the exposure I wanted.

For a guy, I would have gone f/8 on the main with the fill at f/4 for more dramatic lighting.

For group shots, I tend to do f/8 with f/5.6 fill. Or for a larger group, I'll go to f/11 with f/8 fill.

Good luck on your upcoming shoot! :-)

Message edited by author 2007-12-24 21:02:23.

CalamitysMaster00

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

12/24/2007 09:14:53 PM · #16

I would have to agree that even your "Screw ups" look better than most professional studio photographers. Having seen a TON of photos as my little brothers are all at that age now (bringing home roughly 45 small handouts of their friends' senior portriats) daily.

I've seen some that are breath-taking and others that are the, "I hope that person didn't pay for that" photos. :)

Your shots here are good and most importantly, capture how cute your neice is. :)

SamDoe1

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

12/24/2007 09:25:30 PM · #17

Originally posted by dwterry:

Good luck on your upcoming shoot! :-)

Thanks! And thanks for the advice.

robs

Canon EOS R6 Mk II

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

12/25/2007 02:09:50 PM · #18

Originally posted by dwterry:

Thx (that was me).... Your right it would be good to have that info... like it would be nice if it read the EXIF instead of typing it :-/ Interesting it was 5.6.... Makes sense with a longer lens up close.

Mr_Pants

SiPix Blink

12/25/2007 02:20:15 PM · #19

Not a poor shot among them. Nice work.

Valdo

Canon EOS-40D

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

12/25/2007 04:17:33 PM · #20

ern... you are supposed to shoot the guy... WITH A SHOTGUN!!! not kissing your baby ;Â¬) lol

Tnx for sharing, I like your work very much and knowing that even someone like you "goofs" sometimes is great!!!

Bruce_the_Robert

Nikon D7000

Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR

12/25/2007 05:12:34 PM · #21

I know a tiny bit about not paying attention to "the signs" too, I guess. I haven't done a lot of portrait shooting, but awhile back wanted to try models for a challenge. Got in touch with some on Model Mayhem, met them, shot. Things looked wrong. I couldn't get the depth of field I wanted. Just didn't seem to work. Focus was always on the wrong spot.

Finished "my" part of the shoot, fighting with this the whole time, trying AE/AL lock, all sorts of things. Then I started doing some headshots, etc. etc. for the two models. Realized immediately that focusing was now completely off. Stopped and looked at the camera. In fact, I had been on manual focus for my entire shoot, but had been shooting from a range close enough that it almost worked for my shots. I quietly clicked the switch to "autofocus", did their shots, and went home. I was waaayyy too embarrassed to admit to these two guys I'd never met before what I'd done. I got a useful shot out of it (nothing like yours, by the way), but it was pure luck! Their head shots were fine.

Like you, David, I shouldn't have ignored my feelings. I should have stopped and gone through the litany of things that might have been causing the symptoms I was seeing, rather than pressing on in fear of looking silly. If I had, it would have been a much better shoot.

Hopefully a lesson learned for next time! Thanks for sharing your story; it helped me remember to take the time to look in the future.