Filter Guidance for this shot

[Shaun Liddy]

I recently bought a Yongnuo 50mm 1.8 to play with, my first fixed length lens. Decided I would try to get the first shot of my two girls on a chair together. I feel Annalise (2.9 year old) is good to hold Yvonne now (.6 year old), Yvonne is also strong enough to sit up etc. making it easier. Here is the set up:

7dMKII + Yongnuo 50mm 1.8
1.8
1/250
Spot metering
ISO-400 (set to auto)
Shot in Kelvin
Two Yongnuo flashes aprox 15’ away pointed straight up for bounce with white reflectors (6” x 12”) facing the girls – Set at their lowest power level


Would a polarizer be the right choice of filter to help take the natural light glare off Yvonne’s head so I can see her soft thin baby hair?

 

[astroNikon]

Without checking it looks like all the highlights are blown, meaning all the pure white spots have no data to recover to show any detail.
You can see the window is blown as are the the tops of the chairs. I assume with such a bright backlight that the kids faces were in dark shadows.

You may want to use a faster shutter speed and bring the lights much closer than 15 feet at minimal setting. you'll have to balance out the flash light with background light much better. Pull the door shades. do something to try and control that bright sunlight.

I assume this was taken at high noon since the chair shadow is a nice curve in front of the kids chair.
So if you duplicate it on such a bright day you'll have to balance out your artificial light with your ambient light.

you could also make sure the sun if facing them rather than at their backs. Or some other angle other than bright sun right behind them. use a diffuser to control the sun light too.

 

[Shaun Liddy]

Picture was taken between 4-5pm and the girls are facing west. Being in the coastal region of CA, or summer days are consumed by overcast foggy days.

The flashes were set up to create fill flash to bring some light to the girls faces.

I wanted the bright background to basically make it as though the chair and girls were the only things seen. Next time the doors will be open so you can't see the sliding doors dark alum frames.

With so much bright ambient light, adding more fill flash i feel will just increase the blown out highlights of the girls.


I am looking for a way to tone down the blown highlights on the girls and perhaps the arms of the chair.

 

[dennybeall]

IMHO - too much natural light and not enough fill flash. I'd have reset the flashes to more direct light or even one down at the floor and the other up a tad then backed off the exposure time to get more of a balance. Great pose with super perfect "models".

 

[Braineack]

There's no need for any filters in this shot. Set the camera, in manual, so a shot taken without flashes would perfectly expose the window scene behind. Then add flash.

 

[Shaun Liddy]

So I was playing around with this shot again today with one of the girls doll's sitting the the chair while they were napping. Biggest difference is there is no fog today, well, at least not yet. Sun is still more to the west.

I always shoot in M but I have been using the auto ISO a lot lately. I decided to put that in M as well.

I quickly found that with the flash transmitter mounted on the camera and Fstop of 1.8 - ISO 100, I can not get the arms of the chair to be anything but washed out as the camera will not let me go >1/250 on shutter. Remove the transmitter and I have full control of the shutter.

At 1/250 I need to stop down to f/5 with ISO 100 to get the arms of the chair to come around, but now I am loosing the depth of field I was hoping to have at 1.8. I understand that at 1.8 there is a good chance the picture is going to be soft which may result in lack of hair detail I was hoping to gain once Yvonne's head was not washed out.

The other issue stopping down to f/5 - 1/250 - ISO 100 creates is my current flash setup now causes a lot more shadowing because I need to bring it up from -3 on both flashed to 0. I took Dennybeall's advise pointing one flash up with not white reflector and one down again with no reflector and unless I hit them HARD at full power (+3) I don't have enough light to bring the doll out of the shadow. And even that isn't enough.

Since I do not have a CPL for this lens (52mm), I took one from another lens (72mm) and held in in place for a few test shots. This helped tremendously with regards to taking the washed out arms to almost even to the rest of the chair at 1.8 - 1/250 / ISO 100. Only real issue with this is with my existing flash configuration (two of them, 15' out on a 45* facing the chair with white reflectors) I have to turn them up to 0 and I am seeing more shadowing than I would like in the holes. But I can probably live with this unless someone has a suggestion to flash arangement that might help.

I'll take some pics when the girls are up of the existing "best so far" set up.

 

[Shaun Liddy]

I really need to take about 2 steps backwards, but here is the best so far setting.

 

[Shaun Liddy]

One more..

BTW this is:
72mm CPL held in front of lens
1.8
1/250
ISO 100
Flashes at 0 and 15' back about 6' from center of the chair turned inwards toward the chair with a 45ish degree angle.

 

[Braineack]

You completely changed the shot now by moving them to a new location in different lighting conditions.


why are you shooting at f/1.8? The DOF is so narrow that none of your children's faces are even in focus in these new shots.

On the first, the penguin on her shirt is in focus, and on the second you focused on on the threshold between the carpet and wood floor.

There's NO reason you should be shooting this shot at f/1.8.

You lighting setup is also causing some distracting shadows. the main light it too far angled and casting shadows across the picture, and the fill light is not doing enough to soften the shadows created by the main/key.


and im going to repeat: the CPL is NOT doing anything for you here, forget the CPL. Forget ALL filters right now.

 

[Shaun Liddy]

Barineack,

There is a saying I like a lot, "seek to understand before being understood" I realize it is modified version of a religious saying, but hey, this is what I try to do.

Now with out trying to insult you, did you even read my posts? I felt I was clear on the changes I made and the ones that I had no control of, so I will recap in summary:

Same:
Location - same room, in front of the same door - chair in the same spot facing the same direction
Time of day - the new shots were with in 30 minutes of the first shot I posted (all shots between 4:30-5pm)
Flashes - were set up in the same locations with the same white reflectors facing the same direction
Shutter was 1/250
F/stop was 1.8

Changes:
Overcast fog on the first shot - bright sunny day on the second shot
ISO 400 on the first shot - ISO 100 on the second shot
Both flashes at -3 on first shot - both flashes at 0 on the new shots
Slidding glass doors were open so I did not have the door frame in the picture
Added CPL


The fog by us can turn to drizzle. If the outside bench in the picture had any moisture on it in the fist shot, it would likely be reflecting the bright grey overcast sky adding more back light to the girls in that first shot.

Yes I noticed the penguin on Annalise's shirt was in focus but she was not. In the later two shots, my focus was on Yvonne's left eye which from a 3d stand point, lines up with the penguin on Annalise's shirt.

The CPL made a noticeable different on the arms of the chair. Correct me if I am wrong, but a CPL will remove glare from all kinds of objects. Being the time these were shot, the sun would be 120* from the flat plane of my lens. Meaning 30* behind me to the right.

The best way I can describe the look I am really trying to go for in the shot "heavenly" meaning everything behind the girls is overexposed, bright light to where you can't really see anything behind them.

 

[fmw]

You definitely improved it with the second shot. It is all about the light.

 

[Cnschmidt]

I had some similar struggles as you are having here when I first got my 50mm. And I know people have recommended stopping down and you keep saying you need f/1.8, but have you considered moving the whole chair forward, putting more space between the girls and the background and then trying the shot around f/4 or f/5? Depth of Field is a lot more in depth than just how wide your aperture is. The distance between you and the subject, between the subject and the background, those can be used to get the same soft, beautiful bokeh as shooting wide open. I would pull the chair forward and stop down and try the shot, see what it looks like. (Assuming you have the room.)

 

[Cnschmidt]

So, I think I read your post wrong the first time. I thought you were wanting a soft, blurry background with backlight, I didn't realize you wanted a blown background. Sorry! lol