Portraits in the dark

[Lautermilch]

I've been asked to do portraits at a goth gathering. I visit the location and found there will be be any lights. It will be the corner of the back yard against a fence.

For gear, I will have a D7000, 35 & 50mm F/1.8 and twin Godox speedlights TT600s on stands.

I've never used the focus assist and see it has some limitations in the manual.

Any suggestions?

 

[Clovishound]

Perhaps a small LED light ring for focus assist? The kind made for vloggers.

Something like this:

Amazon

 

[Lautermilch]

I've been playing with it for an hour and see the answer is using my settings for sharp images which is AF-C / 3D (cannot use focus assist)

I have some extra stands that have a click for reflector boards so getting a portable light source that would be enough for focusing and have the flash/camera settings high enough to override.

 

[BF Hammer]

I never had Godox speedlights, but when I had a D7000 I used Nikon SB-600 and SB-400 speedlights. The SB-600 had it's own AF assist light that projected red lines on a subject and it worked quite well. The SB-400 would use the camera body AF assist illuminator which is a white LED. That worked less-good and has a more limited range. It can be blocked by a large lens too.

I am a little curious about the Godox and AF assist. Do they have their own red line illuminator like the better Nikon lights? I ask because Nikon is clearly getting out of the speedlight business and passing that aspect to the aftermarket world. My SB-600 won't last forever.

 

[Lautermilch]

I don't want to go down the AF assist route. In experimenting with my D7000 and all the focus mode combos I found AF-A/3D got the best results. I do newbie models often and most of them can't stand still but rather act like they had too much caffeine. So the solution is to being list. I just got back from Walmart and got a small wearable 100LM light which I will attach to a stand that has a clip for holding reflectors. I will turn off the lights at my studio and see about placing the light for the camera to normally focus and then see about what settings I need to make sure the flash covers the light that will be used for focusing.

 

[Fred Kingston]

We always just use one of those high lumen torch lights when we do very low light night shoots... Someone shines the light on the subject, we focus, they turn the torch OFF, and we shoot. It's like the focus assist light on the camera except 10,000X brighter. The focus assist light on the camera doesn't work because the light is so puny... After all, all you're doing is lighting the subject sufficiently enough to gauge the distance... Once the distance has been calculated/achieved, you lock focus and you're good to go. We even do the same thing while shooting and paint the subject with light for different effects... use colored lights too... I'm sure the Goth kids would get excited with green light painted portraits...

 

[Lautermilch]

I tried it out just now and it worked well but one thing. The focus was fine in the dark with the 100LM light but I am seeing shadows. I have my two strobes at 4&8 o'clock and did not get shadows on white. On these test images I am seeing the shadows of the bar stool that the two dolls are sitting on. Both flashes are on 1/32 power. What do I need to adjust to get rid of the shadows?

 

[Fred Kingston]

First, move the stool further away from the wall... giving you some depth behind the subject... you'll understand why in a moment... There's this rule about light and how if falls off exponentially... you want to turn your light's power down to their lowest, FASTEST setting... so the light falls off... Same with your lights, move the lights further back... You should be able to find the sweet spot between lowering power and moving everything back away from the background...

 

[Lautermilch]

Yes, that got it, thanks. I was compensating for using a shorter 'model'. I moved everything to where it would be if shooting a real person with my strobes. Attached is 'Tiger' who came from a Salvation Army store and is still waiting to be washed. I also took a shot of the headband light I got for $5 at Walmart in a clip I use for holding reflectors.