1st Serious Portrait Attempt

EXIF:
Nikon D300s on tripod
Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 (@ 140mm)
ISO 1600
1/250 @ f/14

LIGHTING:
Main light - Alien Bees B800 (right) 1/32 power w/ Paul C Buff softbox
Kicker - LumoPro LP160 (left) 1/64 power
Hair - LumoPro LP160 (top) 1/64 power w/ homemade snoot

POST:
Lightroom - WB/Color/Iris Enhance/Teeth Whitening/Blemishes
Photoshop - Soft Focus/Smoothing

I hate doing portrait work. I hope I never have to do it to sustain a living because I'd probably go mad. But, wouldn't you know it...one of this week's assignments for my photography degree was portraits. 15 volunteers showed up at my door (luckily the neighbor kid's band had practice today!) for this project, and this was the best one in my opinion.

Gimme some honest feedback here, guys.

I have a question regarding the image:

1. Why such a high ISO? With that much power available to you (light-wise), I would think that a much lower (i.e. 200) ISO would produce a better result.

You were bumping up against the sync speed limit, but definitely had a nice DOF for the image with your f/14 setting.
As far as post-production, in my opinion, the iris enhance was carried a bit too far. They look like they might glow in the dark.

Overall, I would bring down the ISO, bump up the light power, and perhaps change the color of blouse. Because it's so black it looks like a black hole in the image that extends into the background (left shoulder area).

Overall I love it. Love the bright eyes. I'm on my uncalibrated laptop, but the black shirt and background seem to blend together.

Essence of Imagery said:

1. Why such a high ISO? With that much power available to you (light-wise), I would think that a much lower (i.e. 200) ISO would produce a better result.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not hurting for lighting power. I was only using 1 of my 2 Alien Bees units. I was in a hurry to get this assignment done, and these settings worked LOL. These portraits all went on a Lightroom contact sheet, w/ 15 total shots on a normal 8.5x11" page, so I wasn't really worried about image quality. Even at web resolutions, there's no visible noise.

As for the iris enhancements, I think you're right. It looks overdone here. Looking back through my shots, some of the others look overdone too. Note to self: tone it down for blue-eyed people.

Anthony, good critique from EoI, and a great "1st serious portrait" attempt. Should earn you a good grade!

Except for the eyes and the shirt colour..........nice job, Anthony.

Hi Anthony

I would like to give you my thoughts.

For portraits
- give yourself a little room. It would look better if the shoulders where included
on the frame. Aside from that, composition wise, its good. We should never cut our subjects on joints
(like shoulders, elbows, wrist, knees and ankles) when composing

On camera setting and lighting
- ISO 1600 is too high. Bump up the power of your lights. You have a lot of power at your disposal
ISO 200-400 would be optimum.
- for your kicker light, where was it aimed? I can only see 2 light sources (front and hair)
_ hair light looks good
- by the way, where and how far was the softbox situated?

For over-all tone
- i find the white balance a bit saturated. When you whitened the teeth and eyes, you should also
consider the skin tone.

Over-all, this is a good start. Keep it coming.

Good tips, Ranie...and you're 100% correct. I have here a handy-dandy guide to good portraiture and I broke no less than 5 rules in this shot (and probably most of my others too). This is why I dislike this type of photography. Too many rules! There were literally 9 people lined up for these shots, waiting their turn. The neighbor kid's band (6 of them) were teens, and I just wanted to blast through the shots to get them done. 9 people, 12 shots (had a couple blinkers), all in less than 5 minutes.

My softboxes are enormous...3x5 ft versions. Situated about 45 degrees from subject, about 5 ft away and slightly above. I should've posted one of those cool lighting diagrams. The kicker was aimed at the left side of the face to soften shadows cast by the main light. The kicker was mirrored on the other side, but was just a bare flash (w/ diffuser) snapped on.

I also uploaded a new photo w/ less iris tweaking.

Anthony, its easy to eliminate shadows and soften the light. Bring it closer to your subject. About 2 feet away. Also position it just slightly of center and bring them down a bit, not necessarily 45 degrees. That will eliminate all the shadows and soften the light. Remember, the closer your light source to your subject, the softer the light will be. With that set-up, you will only need 2 lights. Just the main light inside the softbox, and a hair light to detach your subject from the background. No more kicker light for the shadows. For the hair light, i usually just use a snoot or grid to control the spills.

Hi Anthony,
I can see the kicker light in the eyes of your model. When using a softbox, it is almost standard practice to use just a big white reflector to fill in. It creates another big square in the eyes of the model.
The other thing I question is your f 14 opening. Usually for portraits, only the eyes are in focus. For this shot, the sharp texture of her cardigan distracts me. I would have tried a much lower iso with maybe lower flash settings to get more lens created out of focus. It would have saved you some pp time.

Another tip for portraits is to have the subject leaning a little forward towards the camera. She seems to be sitting leaning backwards and this create almost a double chin. I would try to have the chin to hide the neck.
A little more difficult to explain than to do actually. I used to do corporate portraits with a 5x7 "full frame" back in the old days.

Marcel

Anthony, I would like to share this lighting cheat sheet to make it easier for you.

Bare light: All sizes | Portrait Lighting Cheat Sheet Card | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
With light modifiers (umbrella, softbox, snoots, grids, etc): Lighting Modifiers Cheat Sheet | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Hope it would be of help.

This is all great info guys, thanks.

But here's the main reason why I did what I did: the backdrop. While I don't practice portrait photography (I probably should!), I'm familiar with many of the techniques and lighting guidelines. My main concern was keeping the backdrop as black as possible. Wouldn't bringing the lighting in closer and moving up to ISO 200 light the backdrop as well?

Anthony Hereld said:

My main concern was keeping the backdrop as black as possible. ?

Click to expand...

Anthony, if your concerned is keeping the background black, you are correct by using a fast shutter speed. Another one is moving your subject as far as possible from your background. The F stop or opening controls the light on your subject, not the background. But it did help a bit in darkening, including your subject. Maybe thats the reason why you have to bump up the ISO.

Moving the light closer to the subject, wont affect your background as long as you stay with a fast shutter speed. The best way is trial and error.

I didn't have much room to set up my makeshift studio. This was all done at my parent's house, in their basement, with a 7' drop ceiling. Throw in furniture (luckily the sectional couch came apart!) and a 5' tall softbox...needless to say there wasn't a lot of room to move around and position lighting. I do remember starting @ ISO 200 and it was just way too bright on my backdrop.

Anthony, I don't understand something. Was it a typo for the 1600 iso? If not, could you explain why bumping up the iso would make your background darker? to me, it would be quite the contrary. If you brought down the iso to 160, then I would understand.
I also can understand the tight space to do portrait, maybe you would have needed some kind of giant barndoors to mask the light from your softbox from hitting the background.
But, the portrait is a nice one. You seemed to have established a good rapport with the model and we can see through the picture into her persona.
Keep it up.

Marcel

Question about this setup and not critiquing.
Wouldnt a better f/stop have been f/8, as the DOF of the subject would allow for f/8 and allow a lower ISO 400?

Aside from what everyone else said, I think she looks a little orange. Maybe it's my monitor?