April Challenge

bluewanders

TPF Noob!
Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Messages
63
Reaction score
23
Can others edit my Photos
Photos OK to edit
I only just started actively using the forum, so I'm not eligible to participate in the April Challenge. But since I don't play around with high key very much I nabbed the lady of the house and made her model for me so that I could play along.

Parameters:
I wanted to make sure this was difficult for me so these were taken in a small half bathroom (no shower/bathtub just a toilet and sink in a little closet type space) with white walls. In that space I had enough room for 2 background speedlights sitting on the counter (there was no room to mount them up a little higher on stands) so I could play with the background gradient , a softbox in the doorway camera right, and a round reflector camera left.

Only retouching done was taking care of some acne in photoshop, and general exposure tasks in lightroom. I like uneven skin tones, skin texture etc... it feels more human to me. So in this case I raised the iso up to ~1200 to create a little grain in the image and possibly help make the edges of any blotchy skin a little less defined, the idea was an in-camera gaussian blur of sorts.

1. Ok This Might Be Fun
_DSC3240-1.jpg

2. Have you taken enough yet?
_DSC3252-1.jpg

3. Did you really need to adjust that light again?
_DSC3276-1.jpg

4. Please, God, release me from this madman. (Obviously not high key, this one I turned one of the background flashes off to play with gradient a little more and get moody)
_DSC3218-1.jpg

5. That's it, if I start making weird faces I know you'll let me go. (Also this is the weakest photo in the set, being forced to put my background speedlight so low and in such a cramped space made it really easy to create ghoulish shadows like the gaunt looking cheek in the hotspot, which also ends up making her face look wider on the left than the right)
_DSC3264-1.jpg
 
I love that you used your camera settings to "retouch" (ie the gaussian blur effect with the high ISO setting). The best retouching begins in camera, not in post, at least in my opinion. Did you use a reflector? You can blend skin tones a bit by using a white reflector for some fill from below as well. Not saying the photos need the reflector, just saying for the point of discussion.

The photos are good. The fourth is great though, in my opinion. It's not high key, but I personally prefer the moody look of portraits that really utilize shadows to create dramatic lighting. My only critique isn't a major one; I would only suggest that you shoot some of these in vertical orientation rather than horizontal. When it comes to portraits and composition, in many cases I believe a vertical orientation utilizes the lines and shape of the head, neck and shoulders to better create a harmonizing composition.
 
I love that you used your camera settings to "retouch" (ie the gaussian blur effect with the high ISO setting). The best retouching begins in camera, not in post, at least in my opinion. Did you use a reflector? You can blend skin tones a bit by using a white reflector for some fill from below as well. Not saying the photos need the reflector, just saying for the point of discussion.

The photos are good. The fourth is great though, in my opinion. It's not high key, but I personally prefer the moody look of portraits that really utilize shadows to create dramatic lighting. My only critique isn't a major one; I would only suggest that you shoot some of these in vertical orientation rather than horizontal. When it comes to portraits and composition, in many cases I believe a vertical orientation utilizes the lines and shape of the head, neck and shoulders to better create a harmonizing composition.
#4 Is my favorite from the set too. If you look closely at the shadows in the corner you can see the seperate cells of the grid on the softbox. That was a fun frame.

I did use a reflector. I was working in a space roughly 6 feet deep from my butt to the wall behind her. Calling it a wash closet might be a stretch, I had to straddle the toilet and she had to lean on the edge of the sink counter 2.5 feet from the lens at most I would think. Cramped quarters, but that was part of the challenge I set myself. I tried using the reflector at a couple different angles, there wasn't enough room to have it flat... I finally settled with filling in all the shadows from the side. There was roughly a 4 inch space between the edge of the reflector and the softbox. Thanks for the tip though!

It's sort of the same case with vertical. I actually did get a few vertical frames, but the bathroom light was on the wall just above her head and the sink was just below the level of her armpits. I didn't care for the way it all framed up vertically or the strength of the light below her upper chest. And framing tighter in vertical forced me to get closer which caused me to put the front of my lens past the edge of both the softbox and reflector... which caused problems even with a lens hood. Normally my own advice would be "so move somewhere else" but that would have failed at the challenge I set for myself.

I think I actually like headshots in horizontal more than vertical, actually. Now that I think about it I think they have 2 really different feels to me. The vertical sort of looks like someone on display and somewhat speaks of a "look" to me which feels really different than a horizontal which feels more like a view into a person in a place which speaks of a "mood" to me... I can create tension between the person I'm photographing and their environment in horizontal because the environment takes up more of the frame even tight in. I never really thought about that before, thanks for the comment! I think I'll do another challenge for myself soon where I work on creating more mood in a tight vertical shot.
 
The vertical sort of looks like someone on display and somewhat speaks of a "look" to me which feels really different than a horizontal which feels more like a view into a person in a place which speaks of a "mood" to me... I can create tension between the person I'm photographing and their environment in horizontal because the environment takes up more of the frame even tight in
I've never thought of it or seen it this way, but when you explain it like that it really makes sense. I love the discussion aspect of this forum; there is always so much to learn from our peers, thank you.

I have one example of my own, where I think it proves your point to be very correct. I did some portraits a while back for an agency's new model, and my favorite shot was done in horizontal orientation. When I turned it in to the agency, they decided to crop it vertically. It definitely didn't ruin or detract from the image in my opinion, but it certainly changed the feeling and the purpose of the photo. Like you said, the horizontal orientation captured more than just his beauty, it told a story by utilizing the environment and and giving it a view that we would normally see something from our own perspective, even more so because it was shot at 50mm.

Horizontal: http://orig05.deviantart.net/3c74/f/2017/117/8/2/img_4544_1_by_danostergren-db7blnm.jpg

The vertical crop really put the subject on display rather than tell any sort of story, as you described: http://orig09.deviantart.net/7ed5/f/2017/117/c/0/img_4544_1crop_by_danostergren-db7bllt.jpg
 
Not bad at all.
Before you go further, do note that high ISO = noise and not grain (for digital)
There is a difference.
If you want to get grain, add it in post and not depend on High ISO for the grain effect.
 
Enter the May challenge. I don't know what the theme will be, yet - maybe wabi-sabi.:D
 
Not bad at all.
Before you go further, do note that high ISO = noise and not grain (for digital)
There is a difference.
If you want to get grain, add it in post and not depend on High ISO for the grain effect.
Technically I agree with you, that's why there are two words... however, I'm going to take a moment to explain what I know about the two before I actually defend the choice, that way I can be corrected for anything wrong that I think I know, and so that you can see where my thinking lies in my disagreement:

I think the largest difference comes from the patterns formed in the noise. Film grain, as far as I know, is caused by grains of silver in the film and doesn't form any patterns for the most part. It also only has a luma component. That's probably why they decided to call it grain... but it is, in fact, noise in the photograph and wasn't an intentional feature of analog photography.

High ISO digital noise is created in the digital sensor and is pixel based, and that means patterns can emerge. Digital noise generally has both a luma and chroma component as well. Which is probably what makes it so much less desirable for so many photographers.

Some feel that film grain is more pleasing because of the inconsistent way in which the noise occurs. But... modern cameras have come a long way from the horrible banding and super noisy blue channels of the past. My a7rII can produce some very pleasing noise, I think it produces noise that is significantly different than the noise produced by my canon equipment. Partly because of that new super special backlit sensor with it's stupid high megapixel count they put in the camera... it produces a really interesting noise that is a pleasure to play with.

I'm going to choose to defend the choice to create it in camera versus in post. Know that I am not arguing with you, or meaning any disrespect. I simply disagree that one should never intentionally seek to create digital noise when they can apply digitally created film grain in post.

I knew I was going to process these in blue and white... which is why I made the choice to shoot in color instead of switching my camera to black and white... this also meant that most other color frequencies were going to get desaturated and the chroma component of the digital noise (what little there is in a high key shot with few shadows) was effectively going to be nullified and basically be added as luma noise. Leaving the most noisy channel (the blue one) alone basically meant that I was trying to incorporate noise in the same color frequencies instead of the standard generic looking luma noise created in software. I've shot around 35000 frames with this camera, most in low light so I'm really familiar with the grain it produces... and I knew that the high megapixel count along with the way this sensor takes in light would produce really fine almost blur-like grain in the shadows only. That's why I decided to light her face the way I did too, I wanted a little more shadow than a straight flat lighting would provide.

Film grain wasn't a "feature" of analog until photographers decided they liked it and started intentionally looking for ways to use it as part of their visual exploration... before that it was simply the limitation of how film looked and many photographers actually complained about wanting less noise.

What I'm basically saying is that I'm not afraid of my digital camera... and I don't want the images it produces to look like analog photos. When I want a film grain look, I pick up a film camera. I want to see what I can make my camera do. I want to do as little as possible in post, especially if the effect I'm driving for is perfectly plausible with a camera I know and have experimented with. I feel like these photos could obviously have been better if I had chosen to abandon the challenge I set for myself and shot somewhere with more room, would have been nice to have some correction gels to match the color of the flash to the window next to her (you can see the yellow cast in the color photo) and I might have managed to get better skin tone if I had had a reflector small enough to put in a more useful position... but the effect that I achieved with blue channel noise is really pleasant looking to me... and I'm going to visit it again. Probably multiple times. I may experiment with other frequencies as well... and probably push way up into much higher ISO, 1200 isn't exactly high in the range for the a7rII. To me it isn't any different than choosing a lens for a particular kind of bokeh it produces.

This is also, by the way, exactly why I usually just lurk on forums instead of post. I have a tendency to write books no one wants to read in my effort to explain my thinking... and photography as a passion has a tendency to make me even more loquacious.

TL;DR I agree that film grain and digital noise are aesthetically and technically different things, but I am referring to intentional noise as grain to differentiate it from an unwanted element in a photo.

Edited to add: Also, thanks for the compliment! I've liked quite a few of your photos as I've lurked, so it's a pleasure to have the sentiment mirrored.
 
Last edited:
What I'm basically saying is that I'm not afraid of my digital camera... and I don't want the images it produces to look like analog photos. When I want a film grain look, I pick up a film camera. I want to see what I can make my camera do. I want to do as little as possible in post, especially if the effect I'm driving for is perfectly plausible with a camera I know and have experimented with. I feel like these photos could obviously have been better if I had chosen to abandon the challenge I set for myself and shot somewhere with more room, would have been nice to have some correction gels to match the color of the flash to the window next to her (you can see the yellow cast in the color photo) and I might have managed to get better skin tone if I had had a reflector small enough to put in a more useful position... but the effect that I achieved with blue channel noise is really pleasant looking to me... and I'm going to visit it again. Probably multiple times. I may experiment with other frequencies as well... and probably push way up into much higher ISO, 1200 isn't exactly high in the range for the a7rII. To me it isn't any different than choosing a lens for a particular kind of bokeh it produces.
I used to try very hard to avoid digital noise, and in doing so I was setting limitations for shooting. When I finally decided to just stop caring so much about noise and start boosting my ISO, I removed an aspect of shooting that I felt was limiting me, and I began to learn what exactly my camera is capable of. I shoot 99% of my work on an old 5D Classic, and I'm constantly surprised by what I can achieve with it considering that it's quite a few years out of date in digital years. When I stopped limiting myself and stopped thinking so much about noise, I found that I was able to focus more on mastering lighting and polishing other details of the photo set while I was shooting. Honestly I don't think noise should really be much of a concern to photographers; those who focus so much on things like that should be putting that focus towards achieving perfect lighting in my opinion, as I feel that it is so much more important to creating a beautiful photograph.

Also I enjoyed reading what you wrote. You shouldn't feel like no one is interested, because most of us here are very passionate about this art form and can relate in many ways.
 
First and foremost, I quite like this set, and given the constraints of your studio, they are really well done. But... (there's always a 'but', isn't there?) None of them are high key. High-key exposure is characterized by an overall bright/white appearance and by being shadow-free or nearly so. I think if you'd had a bit more room, you could have achieved a high-key image, but the physical limitations simply didn't allow it.
 
First and foremost, I quite like this set, and given the constraints of your studio, they are really well done. But... (there's always a 'but', isn't there?) None of them are high key. High-key exposure is characterized by an overall bright/white appearance and by being shadow-free or nearly so. I think if you'd had a bit more room, you could have achieved a high-key image, but the physical limitations simply didn't allow it.
That's totally fair, I did choose to angle the light to create a little more shadow!

Thanks for the compliment, I appreciate your opinion.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top