first studio shoot of a band - help

Si Micklewright

Si Micklewright

Messages
145
Name
Si Micklewright
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all,

Just had my first shoot in a studio with some really bad lights, 4 500w spots and an sb600 off camera, there is a shadow on the girls face at the back due to me not having access to ant diffusers, ive tried to get rid of this shadow in photoshop using clone tool but it looks terrible any sugestions please.
Thank you
you can view the rest here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sivoodoo/sets/

1793662203_a81a649f69.jpg
 
I dunno anything about studio work so my comments probably don't mean very much.

I love the compsition and the way the guitar leads you into the shot.

The things which jumps out at me are the shadows being cast onto the band members by themselves and there seems to be a dramatic change in the backdrop colours.

As you said it was poorly lit, so I'd imagine better lighting and positioning will make a big difference.

Good effort tho(y)
 
Si Micklewright said:
Tricky this photography game isnt it!
If only light didnt cast shadows!
Click to expand...


Sure is, as I sad my kowledge of this type of subject aint good. I took some family group pics at the weekend there and spent hours cloning out shadows I didn't even see when I took the shots. Yours are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than mine.

Keep it up.(y)
 
To be honest its probably the speedlight which caused the shadows. Where did you place the modelling lamps? Plus the guy in the back appears to be squinting quite badly.
 
I placed 4 500w spots to the far right of the camera and the sb600 to the left, yes its the flash causing the shadow on the girl in the rear.
Cant wait to get some propper lights.soft boxes. I tried bouncing the flash form the ceiling in the some of the other shots.
The problem is when it comes to experimenting, people get bored when your messing about, think ill try and find some showroom dummies and get the technique right, its amazing what you miss when your under pressure!
 
The main reason for your shadows here is not the lack of defusers, but the lack of directional light. Light that is not aimed will go in all kinds of directions, and cause large shadows.

To focus light, you can use things like grids, barn doors, waffer softboxes, and the like. If worse comes to worse you can hang up large thick sheets of material (white) to use as your defuser.

The other mistake you made is using both a speed light and hot lights. They have differant colour temperatures so what are you going to white ballence for? (I am assuming you did not use a gel on your speedlight).

If you can't reshoot and need to correct after the fact, then you might go to luminous-landscape and do a search for masking by numbers and work from there.
 
Thanks for that i will have a look at luminous-landscape. The shots will be used in a small local music mag and will be in black and white, acording to the editor they will pass.
Yes i thought mixing the ligt sources would be a problem, what kind of gel would you recomend when using hot lights?
I have so much to learn!
Thank you for your constuctive comments, this is what I need.
Si
 
Si Micklewright said:
Thanks for that i will have a look at luminous-landscape. The shots will be used in a small local music mag and will be in black and white, acording to the editor they will pass.
Yes i thought mixing the ligt sources would be a problem, what kind of gel would you recomend when using hot lights?
I have so much to learn!
Thank you for your constuctive comments, this is what I need.
Si
Click to expand...

From reading your previous post, the biggest mistake you made on the day is to place all the hot lights on the same side. Why would you do this? You have enough lights to light each member of the band individially, so have two lights on each side, and light each member with a light on the side they are facing. This way, even if you have shadows, there will be at least enough light to fill in the face.

As far as gels are concirned, since you have 4 hot lights, and if you insist on using the flash (I don't know why you would want to do this), the easiest way to get correct white ballance is to use a gel with your flash to make it tunston ballanced (hopefully about the same temperature as the hot lights).
 
Had a little play, only so much you can do with a small image, but it is retrievable. Loving the set up of the shot though(y).
Hope you dont mind, i will remove if you want.
Dean:)
1793662203_a81a649f69.jpg
 
If its gonna be BW then it will do I think, but if you do have PS or similar, make a selection around the 'shadowed' part of her face only, no hair. Then either fiddle with your curves/levels until you pull it back to the same colour or use you dodge tool and work on it till you lose the shadow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top