Even in a snapshot, you want to;
If you do all that, your pictures will be better than Uncle Fred’s.
We appear to have an issue: clicking through to blog post links gets you to an empty page. Problem at WordPress.com I presume – if so, it’s one I hope they will fix soon!
Back to the standard “small studio” setup I described earlier. This time I shall talk a bit not about how it works – I assume light sensitive slave cells and Pocketwizards and cables are all old hat to you now – but instead, I will talk about how to use it.
As a reminder, here is such a four-light setup, again:
Four lights; and after the click, more about how you use them.
Have some fun with your photography.
This is trial and error, but you will succeed in the end, with shots like this one, fo a student who recently kindly volunteered:
The flash “freezes” the subject, but your background shows the zooming effect.
Mainly because it breaks the photographer’s back.
Here is part of what I am bringing to a multiple corporate headshots session tomorrow:
This kit consists of:
Not pictured:
I am now going to bed early, so that I can build strength!
The serious point, of course, is that when a photographer visits with a portable setup, he really carries with him a full studio and everything that includes.
The book is progressing well. The only thing that is slowing down is all this work!
But it is delightful work. Last weekend, birthday shoots. This week, spot news. Thursday to Sunday: teaching. Tomorrow, a series of on-location executive portraits. Great and varied work.
On a forum recently, I asked some other pros what they would use in a given lighting situation. One of them wrote back: “You do this for a living so you shouldn’t have to ask. Do you want your clients to google you and find that you are asking questions”?
This person misunderstands the Internet and misunderstands the collaborative world we live in today. Of course I ask, share, debate, weight: the moment you think you know it all, you stop developing.
So if you have questions here, please ask and let’s kick some ideas around. Whether you are just starting to develop as a photographer or whether you are a pro: never be afraid to ask.
A word about shooting in fluorescent light.
Unlike Tungsten light, which stays on and glows in between cycles, Fluorescent flashes on and off 60 times a second or more.
This means two things to photographers:
The second is most obvious.
Look at these images, shot at 1/320th second just now:
See what’s happening? They vary and from top to bottom the brightness is different in both. This is because the (vertical!) shutter is not all open when the brief flash happens.
So when shooting fluorescent,
If you do not know what “discrete multiple” means (how would you – you’re not an engineer!) then just stay at 1/30th second (and often 1/60th will work as well). and you are safe in both cases!
Shooting hockey? Well then just shoot a lot, and you’ll get lucky for some images. Fortunately, hockey lights flash at a higher frequency, so the problem is much less common.
Backgrounds and sharpness and white balance: oh my!
I thought I would chat about some of the things that go through my mind when doing a portrait, like this one last night:
Questions like:
That’s all there is to a quick snap like this, which took a few minutes – if that.
You shoot RAW, perhaps (at least I hope you do). That means you need not worry about setting white balance while shooting.
So how do you set white balance in post-production?
Ideally, you include a grey card and use the dropper tool in Lightroom (if that is what you are using) to take a neutral reading off this. But if you do not have a grey card in the photo?
Look at a student who kindly agreed to be the subject of a test picture. One: the original photo
Two: after I take a white balance off the eyeballs:
Three: as a personal preference, since I like warmer light I then always drag the colour temperature slider to a slightly higher temperature (a slightly warmer light):
And hey presto – done.
This is quicker than doing it on the camera, and more accurate, and you do not waste your subject’s time.
Here’s a snapshot (of a student the other day, who kindly let me take this image to demonstrate how not to do it):
Not bad.. but look at all the distraction. This person has doorhandles growing out of his head. A chair growing out of his neck. This is a typical “Uncle Fred” snapshot.
The solution?
And then you get this:
Rather better, no?