Last weekends studio shoot

[Ellekes]

Last weekend I rented the studio from my photoclub. Armed with three hyperactive kids, it was time to give studio shooting a first try.

These are a few results. They're not bad, but not great either. It was the first time, so I'm not all disappointed, but I would love some C&C to liven things up next time.

 

[tiler65]

The first thing that I notice is the uneven background lighting. It is hard to get right but if it is not done correct it looks poor.

The exposures on the kids are good if not a tiny bit underexposed but not bad.

Eye contact is always good when shooting kids.

The first one is pretty good, just the background needs a little work.

 

[maddop]

I prefer the last image... nice catch light in their eyes. Genuine smiles and the background is a little more even.

 

[Ellekes]

Still not clear on how I should get the background even?

 

[tiler65]

Still not clear on how I should get the background even?

Practice with the settings & placement of your lights. How many and what are using to light the background?

Do a search for Garry Edwards ( Member) and he is pretty much the lighting guru on here (& HoppyUK).

They have tons of info to help you understand it better.

 

[Ellekes]

Don't know the names etc, but two rather big ones on the background and two softboxes on the girls?

 

[tiler65]

You need to learn/practice how to control the spread of the lights for an even exposure on the background. You could also nuke (turn them up high) the backgound but this is not advisable as you will then possibly get unwanted spill on to your subjects.

Here is an example of Garry Edwards.

This is his site linky

[YOUTUBE]
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He is using a flash metre but if you haven't got one just get your subject exposed correctly and the just set the background lights to expose more.

 

[TG.]

Really like No4, just a shame about the girl on the left not making eye contact with the camera, the others are also nice but as mentioned just the light drop off spoils them slightly, maybe this could be fixed in Photoshop though

You need to learn/practice how to control the spread of the lights for an even exposure on the background. You could also nuke (turn them up high) the backgound but this is not advisable as you will then possibly get unwanted spill on to your subjects.

Here is an example of Garry Edwards.

This is his site linky

[YOUTUBE]
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/O1F2GJpIQdo&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/O1F2GJpIQdo&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

He is using a flash metre but if you haven't got one just get your subject exposed correctly and the just set the background lights to expose more.

Tom i've watched that video before, the one thing i get confused about is when Garry takes his metering from the background, and then from the girls face, is the overall metering he uses of F/9 or F/10 for both background and the subject ? daft question i guess and one i should probably know, but i'm asking anyway

 

[AliB]

Tom i've watched that video before, the one thing i get confused about is when Garry takes his metering from the background, and then from the girls face, is the overall metering he uses of F/9 or F/10 for both background and the subject ? daft question i guess and one i should probably know, but i'm asking anyway

Hi Tel, I'm taking a chance here because I've not watched the vid but for a clean white background you need to meter the background so it's somewhere around 1 1/2 -2 stops over exposed (That's my preference anyway ) So you meter the subject to say f5.6 and adjust the lights to around f10ish. (It's not an exact science the way I do it lol You then set the camera at your synch speed at the level you metered the subject so for my example it would be f5.6.

Hope that explains the double metering.

 

[TG.]

Hi Tel, I'm taking a chance here because I've not watched the vid but for a clean white background you need to meter the background so it's somewhere around 1 1/2 -2 stops over exposed (That's my preference anyway ) So you meter the subject to say f5.6 and adjust the lights to around f10ish. (It's not an exact science the way I do it lol You then set the camera at your synch speed at the level you metered the subject so for my example it would be f5.6.

Hope that explains the double metering.

Thanks for the explanation AliB, although i'm still not clear on it, i think it's the "set your camera at sync speed" bit i'm getting confused with, or maybe quite a bit more :bonk:, i think i need some serious tuition in studio photography.

 

[AliB]

I normally shoot at 1/125 sec Tel because I know I'm not going to have any issues synching at that speed. If you go too fast you start to get a black line on the image where the shutter is still in the frame as the lights go off so you need to keep a sensible speed to allow it all to work together and you can't really go wrong with about 1/100 1/125

So with the shutter speed already determined (I chose it!) and the ISO at 100/200 Canon/Nikon then the only other variable is the aperture which is why studio togs talk in apertures. You put the shutter and ISO into the meter and adjust the power/position of the lights till you get the apertures you want. Usually for this kind of shot it's around f8 subject and up to f11 background. So the background lights will be ramped up to give more exposure to the background and hence it appears all white

 

[tiler65]

Well done Ali, forgot about this thread, had an early start today.

 

[Ellekes]

I normally shoot at 1/125 sec Tel because I know I'm not going to have any issues synching at that speed. If you go too fast you start to get a black line on the image where the shutter is still in the frame as the lights go off so you need to keep a sensible speed to allow it all to work together and you can't really go wrong with about 1/100 1/125

So with the shutter speed already determined (I chose it!) and the ISO at 100/200 Canon/Nikon then the only other variable is the aperture which is why studio togs talk in apertures. You put the shutter and ISO into the meter and adjust the power/position of the lights till you get the apertures you want. Usually for this kind of shot it's around f8 subject and up to f11 background. So the background lights will be ramped up to give more exposure to the background and hence it appears all white

Huh?????

I'm not completely following. I had shutter speed at 125, f at 8 and 100 ISO. So what would have been my next step?

My own fault for getting into the studio without even havin a clue how to get the lights to work. It took me close to 45 mins before I figured out to work the flash trigger. I did play a bit with the power of the lights and adjusted the position to kids size, but that was as far as I got ..

 

[Garry Edwards]

Tom i've watched that video before, the one thing i get confused about is when Garry takes his metering from the background, and then from the girls face, is the overall metering he uses of F/9 or F/10 for both background and the subject ? daft question i guess and one i should probably know, but i'm asking anyway [/QUOTe

The meter reading from the girl's face was f/10 so that is what I set on the camera. The meter reading on the background was around f/13, which means that the background was overexposed enough to make it white (because the aperture on the camera was set to f/10) but not sufficiently overexposed to cause the problems in these example photos (which have very nice expressions BTW).

As others have said, the trick is to light the background as evenly as possible (which is why I used background reflectors designed for the job) and to then overexpose it by the minimum possible amount that will get it white. If the lighting on the background is not even then the exposure needed to get the darkest parts white will create significant overexposure on the brightest parts, the light reflected from the background then lights the back of the subjects, causing the very common fault of the fine detail (hair etc) being eaten away. The only cure for this, other than getting the background lighting right, is to move the subject as far away from the background as possible so that the light reflected from the background has lost most of its power before it hits the subject.

If you don't have background reflectors you can improve things by crossing the background lights over - the one on the right is lighting the left hand side of the background and vice versa - this helps to get the lighting even.

 

[TG.]

I normally shoot at 1/125 sec Tel because I know I'm not going to have any issues synching at that speed. If you go too fast you start to get a black line on the image where the shutter is still in the frame as the lights go off so you need to keep a sensible speed to allow it all to work together and you can't really go wrong with about 1/100 1/125

So with the shutter speed already determined (I chose it!) and the ISO at 100/200 Canon/Nikon then the only other variable is the aperture which is why studio togs talk in apertures. You put the shutter and ISO into the meter and adjust the power/position of the lights till you get the apertures you want. Usually for this kind of shot it's around f8 subject and up to f11 background. So the background lights will be ramped up to give more exposure to the background and hence it appears all white

Thanks Ali, it's beginning to make more sense to me now

 

[TG.]

Tom i've watched that video before, the one thing i get confused about is when Garry takes his metering from the background, and then from the girls face, is the overall metering he uses of F/9 or F/10 for both background and the subject ? daft question i guess and one i should probably know, but i'm asking anyway [/QUOTe

The meter reading from the girl's face was f/10 so that is what I set on the camera. The meter reading on the background was around f/13, which means that the background was overexposed enough to make it white (because the aperture on the camera was set to f/10) but not sufficiently overexposed to cause the problems in these example photos (which have very nice expressions BTW).

As others have said, the trick is to light the background as evenly as possible (which is why I used background reflectors designed for the job) and to then overexpose it by the minimum possible amount that will get it white. If the lighting on the background is not even then the exposure needed to get the darkest parts white will create significant overexposure on the brightest parts, the light reflected from the background then lights the back of the subjects, causing the very common fault of the fine detail (hair etc) being eaten away. The only cure for this, other than getting the background lighting right, is to move the subject as far away from the background as possible so that the light reflected from the background has lost most of its power before it hits the subject.

If you don't have background reflectors you can improve things by crossing the background lights over - the one on the right is lighting the left hand side of the background and vice versa - this helps to get the lighting even.

Many thanks for the explanation Garry, and thanks for the tip if not having background reflectors, i guess my main problem is not having a big enough room to move the subject forward from the white background, my room is only about 15x13ft so not much to play with, just something i have to live with for now i guess

 

[mickd300]

I am just starting out with studio lights and the answers here have been most helpful in sorting out my similar problems.
Mick