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Portrait help.

Started by Jediboy, August 17, 2013, 05:44:41 PM

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Jediboy

Hi,

My new studio lighting kit arrived the other day and I had a very quick play.
These photos are of my son (not a willing subject) and taken with one soft box.

I'm totally new to this type of photography so would welcome any critique.

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Thanks


Chris
May the Force be with you.

Chris

Jediboy

May the Force be with you.

Chris

Mick

Chris, you seem to be having a few issues with embedding pics from the gallery to the forum.  A tip for you.

I'm guessing you're grabbing the full size embed code from below the images in the gallery?  If that's the case, all you need to do is paste it straight in to the post, no need to add it between image tags.  ;)

Hope this helps.  :tup:
Thank You, "Guest" For Reading This Post.

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OpenSea

Jediboy

Thanks Mick.
I have been having a few issues.  I'm not very good with computers! :doh:
I'll give that a go.
Cheers

Chris
May the Force be with you.

Chris

jinky

Hi Jediboy. A few comments from me but only my humble opinion.
Nicely lit and you have the background nice but for me:

1. The angles of the shots do nothing for me. For a young child I`d prefer a straight shot  or placed to one side of the frame.
2. I don`t really like selective colour but it`s reasonably done though such a small part of the overall image I feel impact is lost.
3. Why did you shoot on such a high iso - 640 on the colour one. I`d have kept it right down at your base iso as there is no need to introduce potential noise and higher shutter speeds in a studio shoot situation.
4. The skin tones are very red on the colour one and need to be adjusted.

Just keep playing with your lights and angles though - looks like you use one off left for this one. Losing a bit of light and using a reflector on the other side can give a bit of depth to a portrait.

Jediboy

Thanks Jinky.
Appreciate the comment. I intend to keep playing around so hopefully get better results.
With regard to the ISO, this was not intentional. I just grabbed the camera and didn't check the setting that I used last. I've to previous for doing this.  :doh: :doh:
Thanks again.
Chris
May the Force be with you.

Chris

Hinfrance

#6
We all have previous for not checking previous settings :)

All I would add to jinky's comments is that there is no 'right' way to do portraits. That said,

1) you might find that adding a prop that has relevance to the subject can bring out the personality more
2) use natural light where possible, it's almost always quite flattering
3) failing that just add a touch of strobe, unless you are working in a bunker (like I usually do, well, my garage) when mucking about with more than one strobe is often rewarding

Here is one of my favourites shot I took using all three of the above:


Portrait of a Young Lady with Camera by Hinfrance (preoccupied), on Flickr

Basically, just muck about a lot until you get what you want, just don't forget that light travels in straight lines  :tup:

PS jinky re skin tone - it's cross processed  :legit:
Howard  My CC Gallery
My Flickr
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

Oldboy

Quote from: Hinfrance on August 18, 2013, 01:32:40 PM

Basically, just muck about a lot until you get what you want, just don't forget that light travels in straight lines  :tup:


Light doesn't travel in a straight line in the vicinity of a black hole.  :P

Don't you know your physics?  :doh: :legit:

Hinfrance

Light always travels in straight lines - it's space that is curved. Luckily most portrait subjects lack sufficient mass to measurably warp the space around them, and thus make light appear to bend. As there is gravity everywhere, technically light, if measured sufficiently accurately by the observer would never appear to travel in a straight line, but luckily for us there are no bodies of such gigantic mass locally, not even Americans, so that for all intents and purposes light does appear to us to travel in a straight line.

Of course, no-one knows what happens at and beyond the event horizon . . . or do you? Dah dah daaaaaah!  :D
Howard  My CC Gallery
My Flickr
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

Oldboy

Quote from: Hinfrance on August 18, 2013, 06:41:30 PM
Light always travels in straight lines - it's space that is curved. Luckily most portrait subjects lack sufficient mass to measurably warp the space around them, and thus make light appear to bend. As there is gravity everywhere, technically light, if measured sufficiently accurately by the observer would never appear to travel in a straight line, but luckily for us there are no bodies of such gigantic mass locally, not even Americans, so that for all intents and purposes light does appear to us to travel in a straight line.

Of course, no-one knows what happens at and beyond the event horizon . . . or do you? Dah dah daaaaaah!  :D

What about metamaterials making an object invisible by bending light waves so that they curve around the object and then reconnect, seemingly unaltered, on the other side—similar to the way water flows around a boulder.

Also, gravitational lenses refers to a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant source (a background galaxy) and an observer, that is capable of bending (lensing) the light from the source, as it travels towards the observer. This effect is known as gravitational lensing and is one of the predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Also, Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its transmission medium, so a light wave passing from water to air will be bent.

As to beyond the event horizon it's just a questions of infinities of which some are bigger than others.  :P

Hinfrance

And what about lenses, eh?  :D

Way off topic now, time to get back to portrait stuff.  ;)
Howard  My CC Gallery
My Flickr
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

Jediboy

Quote from: Hinfrance on August 18, 2013, 01:32:40 PM
We all have previous for not checking previous settings :)

All I would add to jinky's comments is that there is no 'right' way to do portraits. That said,

1) you might find that adding a prop that has relevance to the subject can bring out the personality more
2) use natural light where possible, it's almost always quite flattering
3) failing that just add a touch of strobe, unless you are working in a bunker (like I usually do, well, my garage) when mucking about with more than one strobe is often rewarding

Here is one of my favourites shot I took using all three of the above:


Portrait of a Young Lady with Camera by Hinfrance (preoccupied), on Flickr

Basically, just muck about a lot until you get what you want, just don't forget that light travels in straight lines  :tup:

PS jinky re skin tone - it's cross processed  :legit:

Thanks.
Some good tips there, and I intend to try these out next time. Love your photo by the way.

With regard to all the other comments about bending light, I'm afraid that's a bit beyond me.  :-\
This portrait photography is clearly more confusing than I first thought.

Thanks again, appreciate the advice.
Chris
May the Force be with you.

Chris

DigiDiva

I like the shots, very good for a first attempt. Wish I could comment more but I have only been in a studio twice and both times, we were tolf what to set our cameras at for the lighting.
Please visit my website @ www.sunderlandwallart.com

Jediboy

Thanks Chris. Appreciate it.

It's a good point that people say use natural light for portraits, and one I've read in many places and clearly a valid point.
So I can't work out why 'pro' studios have no natural light and use only artificial light??!! :-\
May the Force be with you.

Chris

ABERS

#14
Quote from: Jediboy on August 19, 2013, 09:40:35 PM


So I can't work out why 'pro' studios have no natural light and use only artificial light??!! :-\

I would hazard a guess that it's the ability to control light. If you only have natural light available to you, you are somewhat restricted as to the type of shot you can take.

Rim lighting, the Karsh type portrait, true high key lighting are all difficult, if not nigh impossible, with just available light.

Still life and product advertising shots and the Ideal Home type interior shot would be almost beyond the necessary quality and clarity such images require.

Since a professional is usually working to a brief, he/she can't afford to wait around for the light to get just right, they arrange for it to be right.  :tup:

So controlability, if there is such a word, is perhaps the reason.

I'm sure you will have looked into the possibilities of different lighting set ups, but just to get an idea of just how many there are take a look at

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=photographic+lighting+setups&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BBITUtHAJaWi0QXb7YH4BA&ved=0CFAQsAQ&biw=1118&bih=605

:o

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