First hilite attempt

[Mani Gill]

Hi all,

I managed to get hold off a few studio lights and decided upon taking some hilite pictures of my youngest daughter.

I read up on books and watched endless you tube videos not understanding the set ups, but decided to have a go at it anyway.

Technically I have no idea, I used a light meter which quoted F4, however the pictures were coming out way to overexposed so I increased the aperture a little more to F5.6.









I took the pictures at home in my dining room using an elinchrom Dlite 4 as a back light and a Dlite 2 as the light at the front, both lights were set at 2.8. Again technically I have no grasp of what is best but I just took a few shots to check what settings were looking the best to me.

I am not sure what is the best power to set the lights at or how to check what is best.

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

Mani

 

[Phil V]

She's cute - her eyes are amazing
The hilite's a bit (read a lot) on the hot side (should have spotted that on the screen and dialled down), and the pose / framing is untidy
Keep at it though - you're capturing moments never to be replicated.

 

[cargo]

Keep at it though - you're capturing moments never to be replicated.

I'm no expert but like this advice. I like the fact that you are so honest and have got the gumtion to just give it a go and see how it goes.


Gaz

 

[Livin The Dream]

These are good for a first attempt. The background is too strong though, you can see too much light spill onto your daughter in all but the second one. Rough rule of thumb is 1.5-2 stops above your key. You say both lights set at f2.8? If your key was f5.6 then your background should have been between f8 and f11. If you only have one light on the BG then there's normally a little clean up to do afterwards. I haven't used a highlight, use paper myself, but there will be more coming back out of it than papers etc. You just need to find the balance between the output of the BG and the distance between it and your daughter. Keep at it though, it will be highly rewarding.

 

[Mani Gill]

She's cute - her eyes are amazing
The hilite's a bit (read a lot) on the hot side (should have spotted that on the screen and dialled down), and the pose / framing is untidy
Keep at it though - you're capturing moments never to be replicated.

Thank you Phil,

I have been following your advice for a while on this forum, it is always appreciated. My room is not that big, I will get the kit out tomorrow and go again. The backlight was an elinchrom 135 octabox diffuser and the front light was an elinchrom Dlite with a white umbrella.

I also have a beauty dish and grid lights which I managed to buy as a kit, so will continue to experiment.

The light meter read 4.0, but this was over exposing a little too much.

 

[Mani Gill]

Thank you all.

 

[Phil V]

Thank you Phil,

I have been following your advice for a while on this forum, it is always appreciated. My room is not that big, I will get the kit out tomorrow and go again. The backlight was an elinchrom 135 octabox diffuser and the front light was an elinchrom Dlite with a white umbrella.

I also have a beauty dish and grid lights which I managed to buy as a kit, so will continue to experiment.

The light meter read 4.0, but this was over exposing a little too much.

I don't know how you were measuring it, in fact I'm not 100% sure how I'd recommend measuring it. However a glance at the first image would tell me the lights too bright because it's caused flare and completely burnt out her shoulder. The only image not affected by flare is 2, and that's because of the camera angle (you weren't pointing the camera at the background)

 

[juggler]

I don't know how you were measuring it, in fact I'm not 100% sure how I'd recommend measuring it. However a glance at the first image would tell me the lights too bright because it's caused flare and completely burnt out her shoulder. The only image not affected by flare is 2, and that's because of the camera angle (you weren't pointing the camera at the background)

I'm not saying this is right but it works for me... to get a pure white background I use a _reflective_ reading and aim to get it somewhere between +2 and +3 over the _incident_ reading on the subject. I'll go for higher if the subject is further away and less likely to suffer bleed issues so as to reduce post work.

 

[Phil V]

I'm not saying this is right but it works for me... to get a pure white background I use a _reflective_ reading and aim to get it somewhere between +2 and +3 over the _incident_ reading on the subject. I'll go for higher if the subject is further away and less likely to suffer bleed issues so as to reduce post work.

I've done this a few times, using the histogram to get the background as just a spike on the rhs, then metered the subject lighting to taste.

 

[Morbid]

I've done this a few times, using the histogram to get the background as just a spike on the rhs, then metered the subject lighting to taste.

I don't have a meter but when lighting bg separately I always take test shots for both separately so that you can see what's happening with the lifting.

Use a teddy or something to get the key light correct without the bg light on. This saves having to faff about with the little one there, and you're ready to shoot straight away.

Then turn off the key light and do the background (to get that spike). Then try both together. Spill will be a problem from the bg if you don't have a good distance between that and the subject. You can adjust to not get the spill but you'll have more work in PP to correct the bg (maybe).

You'll get there, these are very much like my early shots.

 

[Mani Gill]

Thank you again,

I had little one directly infront of the bg, I will take the advice and attempt again.

It's a pain having to set up and then put away each day.

Cheers again

Mani

 

[boyfalldown]

It's a pain having to set up and then put away each day.

with practice it gets easier

 

[Morbid]

with practice it gets easier

So true, also keep a note of the settings that work and take a pull back shot even if this is just on your phone. In no time you'll be able to set everything up without thinking about it.