Subtle Lighting Practice

One problem in my work is that I sometimes overlight the scene, completely obliterating the existing light. This is fine in some situations, but I also want to be able to recreate more natural lighting, and avoid the "CG" look (computer generated). To try this, I used my excellent model, Agust, and setup around him while he was working on the computer. This way I could try many different setups without having to worry about the model becoming bored or wanting to leave.

First, I wanted to capture the existing lighting as best as possible. This was hard to do with the low light in the room. It required ISO 1600, 1/60 shutter speed, and f/1.8 Those settings are toeing the line of what my camera can do. Any slower shutter and I'd get blur, the lens can't open up wider, and the ISO doesn't go higher.



There is a very bright lamp to the left and behind the subject, creating the strong rim light. The laptop is throwing a bit of blue on his face, and the lamp is bouncing around the room off the white walls for the fill. It's an ok portrait, but I wanted a bit more control over the colors of the light, so that the main portion of the face could be more neutral, and I wanted to bring the camera settings up. I wanted a lower ISO for less noise, faster shutter to kill ambient and avoid any blur at all, and a slighly higher f-stop for a bit more of the face in focus.

Here's the setup shot. Click through to see notes on the flashes.



Settings:
2 Vivitar 285hv and one Morris slave
main flash at 1/16 power,
at telephoto zoom,
bounced off the wall and ceiling,
light stand was at 1.5 meters height,
2 meters to right of subject and even with camera,
rim light was at 1/1024 power,
through 3/4 CTOrange gel
at telephoto zoom,
.3 meters to subject left, and slightly behind,
at 1 meters in height,
Morris slave at 1/2 power,
through 1/2 CTBlue gel,
sitting on laptop and aimed at screen to bounce.

The first shot of the post has the morris slave turned off, which results in a more contrasty shadow of the face. However I wanted to try also with a bit of "blue glow" to emulate the screen. I was operating way too high above screen brightness for it to show up, which meant I needed to break out my slave flash. It's quite dim, and only has full and half power, but it worked great for this purpose. I put it on the laptop palm rest and aimed at the screen to get it to bounce. An unforseen, but added benefit, is the nice bright marks on his glasses, which is the flash bouncing off the icons of the screen. This final shot shows the same setup, but with the morris flash turned on.

Triple light!

A friend of mine asked me to take some portraits out near Gróto, here in Iceland. I had an idea for a lighting setup right away, but I would need to borrow a third light for it. Luckily a friend of mine has the same setup as I do (vivitar 285hv with skyports) so I asked him if I could borrow it.

Here is the setup diagram (this is the same 3D view, twice. Top version is from the front, bottom version is from above):


Settings:
3 Vivitar 285hv
2 rim lights at 1/4 power,
at telephoto zoom setting,
through 1/2 CTBlue gels,
1 main light at 1/16 power,
at telephoto zoom setting,
through 1/4 CTOrange gel,
through Lumiquest softbox II,
rim light stands were at 1.5 meters height,
light was slightly behind subject, and 3 meters to the sides of the subject, just outside of the frame,
aimed a bit up to feather downward,
main light on boom arm held by assistant,
1 meter above face and in the front.

I wanted an extremely wide view, with rim light on either side. I knew this would make the subject pop, but I didn't want to take it too extreme. I started at 1/16 power on the rim lights, but it didn't show up quite enough, so I popped them to 1/4 (I've only hacked one of them, so I only have 1/8 on a single flash, out of the box, 285hvs don't have 1/8 power). The blue is to unify with the coldish color of the background.

The main was a bit harder, as it needed to be held. Without an assistant, this would have been near impossible. There would have been a light stand in the scene, and it was far too windy for a large C-stand. I put the lumiquest softbox so the light wouldn't be too harsh, and a 1/4 CTOrange gel. Not only is warmer light more flattering for portraits, but it would contrast well with the coldness of the rest of the scene, showing exactly where the focus point is. I left this main flash at 1/16 as I knew that since it was much closer, it would be strong enough. This was also my hacked flash, so I could have gone as low as 1/1024 if I needed to. In hindsight, I wish I would have tried a shot or two at 1/32 or 1/64.

For post processing on the above shot, I made a custom mask for the clouds and adjusted the curves to get a bit more funky sky color and definition.

This was a lot of fun having access to a third flash, and I might have to add a third flash to my kit soon. There are several other photos from this shoot, but they will be in tomorrow's post.