For portraits do you use a flash in daylight also?

[paigew]

I prefer Valium. It's so much easier and a lot less stressful.

You forgot one "trade secret" though....Duct tape photo - Google Search

It also works for older children as well Duct_tape_wall.jpg

Derrel! That dog pic is SO sad! Grrrr :*(

 

[Gavjenks]

A whole huge set of scrims and 20 reflectors can look good, but I wouldn't say "natural" usually. Light doesn't just magically diffuse onto the subject but not anything else in nature, or bounce in weird tight beams right where you need it.
Just because the light itself is literally from a natural source doesn't make the lighting look natural.

The more junk you use, the more inherently unnatural is looks, because the only reason for having the junk is to CHANGE what is naturally there. Which again might be a necessary convenience, but still has almost all the same drawbacks a ton of lights would.

 

[paigew]

A whole huge set of scrims and 20 reflectors can look good, but I wouldn't say "natural" usually. Light doesn't just magically diffuse onto the subject but not anything else in nature, or bounce in weird tight beams right where you need it.
Just because the light itself is literally from a natural source doesn't make the lighting look natural.

The more junk you use, the more inherently unnatural is looks, because the only reason for having the junk is to CHANGE what is naturally there. Which again might be a necessary convenience, but still has almost all the same drawbacks a ton of lights would.

Yes, this is why I probably won't ever use flash outside. Unless I HAVE to, but I can usually make natural light work.

 

[tirediron]

I am constantly moving too. I used to use umbrella and one speedlite. Now I use an alienbee and umbrella.

I've got a couple of sizes of Ezybox, and for portability and 'subjects on the run', I find this rig VERY useful.

How have I never seen that before!! THat looks awesome I love how small it is and that you can HOLD it.

This is a great little toy if you shoot with an assistant!

 

[tirediron]

At this point, I have to ask: WHY is it so important that an image look "natural" just the act of creating the image implies that it's inherently un-natural; after all, it's not like you can run across naturally occurring images in photo-sensitive moss on mountainsides. At the end of the day, producing an image which has the look and feel that the photographer (and if applicable, the client) desires is all that matters. If you do that completely with ambient light, great. If you need a scrim or reflector, equally fine, and if you like lights galore, finer still!

 

[Derrel]

Most non-trained photographers, and most "normal, regular people" are not very adept at spotting bad lighting, nor identifying the source of bad lighting as being either flash, or daylight. It takes some training to be able to readily identify lighting "issues". As one poster commented on earlier, even people who are learning photographic lighting often (all too often, unfortunately) make the mistake of using electronic flash that DIRECTLY OPPOSES "the sun", and looks utterly craptastic to a trained eye. I'm not referring to any photos in this thread, or to any person in this thread, but a few weeks back we had a poster who was using flash and compositing images in which the foreground people were lighted by flash, but the backgrounds were composited in and had strong, DIRECT shadows that went in the OPPOSITE direction as the shadows from the background. While other people let it slide, I felt compelled to mention it because...that looks really poor.

Most normal, regular, everyday people do not look at photos with any degree of knowledge of how they were lighted; they look at the images based on who is in the photos, and their own personal, emotional attachment to the people in the photos. Just because a client likes a photo or photo set does not in ANY WAY, mean that the photographic technique is "good", "great", or "fabulous"; it means that the PEOPLE in the photos evoke a positive reaction, for them, the viewer.

If flash will help the photos look a bit better, use flash. If you cannot hold the highlights and the shadows are pretty dark...you'll probably wanna use some kind of fill lighting...reflector fill or flash fill...or move...or use a scrim to diffuse the light and lower the lighting ratio so the images look,well, "better". How good the images look really depends more on the skill of the shooter than on which method is used. I've seen really fabulous fill-flash work and also reallyt bad fill-flash. Same with reflector fill--I've seen it look fabulous, as well as really drecky.

[note: I wrote this post before seeing Tirediron's post above; my post had nothing to do with the question he asked...]

 

[Gavjenks]

the act of creating the image implies that it's inherently un-natural

I'd say my cornea, lens, and retina are pretty natural things that creates images just fine.
Natural looks good all other things equal because it is what we are used to seeing ourselves.

 

[tirediron]

the act of creating the image implies that it's inherently un-natural

I'd say my cornea, lens, and retina are pretty natural things that creates images just fine.
Natural looks good all other things equal because it is what we are used to seeing ourselves.

They don't actually create anything; they allow your brain to process reflected light but it's not recorded. Perhaps I should have said the act of recording...

 

[Gavjenks]

1) Making an image doesn't require recording. The image is just the projected shaped light on a surface. Which nature does constantly in all sorts of other places, as well. Every dapple of light through the leaves is a blurry image of the sun (as becomes obvious during an eclipse)
2) If images on my retina aren't recorded, then how do I remember what anything looks like that I've seen in the past? Of course they are recorded. In an extraordinarily similar way to how my DSLR records them, in fact. There are essentially biological pixels (the same number and kind as in a sensor! 3x color, 1x lightness), that meter for the light and respond progressively to more photons, and then they pass through some sharpening and contrast filters in an almost deterministic fashion, and then store it away in your temporal lobe / SD card at varying levels of resolution depending on how important it is.

they allow your brain to process reflected light but it's not recorded.

More succinctly: the whole point of the "processing" mentioned above IS recording.

 

[bribrius]

At this point, I have to ask: WHY is it so important that an image look "natural" just the act of creating the image implies that it's inherently un-natural; after all, it's not like you can run across naturally occurring images in photo-sensitive moss on mountainsides. At the end of the day, producing an image which has the look and feel that the photographer (and if applicable, the client) desires is all that matters. If you do that completely with ambient light, great. If you need a scrim or reflector, equally fine, and if you like lights galore, finer still!

it is important because you are capturing the moment not trying to change it. A record. if you on the other hand trying to make something better looking for a showpiece that is another story. Having it look natural usually IS what people desire isn't it? Hasn't that been the bar for camera manufacturers especially in terms of color? Having it look as natural as possible?

 

[tirediron]

...More succinctly: the whole point of the "processing" mentioned above IS recording.

Okay... show me what you recorded this morning while you were in the kitchen having breakfast.

it is important because you are capturing the moment not trying to change it. A record. if you on the other hand trying to make something better looking for a showpiece that is another story. Having it look natural usually IS what people desire isn't it? Hasn't that been the bar for camera manufacturers especially in terms of color? Having it look as natural as possible?

Putting aside things such as photo-journalism in its purest form, don't most of us "un-naturalize" our images to a greater or lesser degree in the pixel room. What I think of as a 'natural looking' image is one that could have been, not necessarily one that was.

 

[bribrius]

...More succinctly: the whole point of the "processing" mentioned above IS recording.

Okay... show me what you recorded this morning while you were in the kitchen having breakfast.

it is important because you are capturing the moment not trying to change it. A record. if you on the other hand trying to make something better looking for a showpiece that is another story. Having it look natural usually IS what people desire isn't it? Hasn't that been the bar for camera manufacturers especially in terms of color? Having it look as natural as possible?

Putting aside things such as photo-journalism in its purest form, don't most of us "un-naturalize" our images to a greater or lesser degree in the pixel room. What I think of as a 'natural looking' image is one that could have been, not necessarily one that was.

well of course. Im not a pro, but I would say if im making a bw image im making a impression or giving impression of what I actually saw. Or if I attempt something artistic im attempting to change something I saw to more of artwork. There are attempts to make something more flattering. If I don't like a certain photo, may do some mild processing to it for appeal sake. These are all secondary though aren't they? Icing? Isnt the same fundamental principle the same, capture the record of what you see as the priority, the rest of it "play time"?
Put in order of what is important to most (family images or children images). The natural might be more valuable than the processed, bw images I have of my children, the doctored photos. Thrown all in a fire, what do you think im going to reach for first to pull out? The real one.
if you photo standard family portraiture, do a wedding, I think you will find a limit in how much your customer accepts or enjoys your use of artistic vision. And even the staged, excellent done family portraiture would probably be pulled from a fire after all the candid snapshots.

I venture to say the standard for artistic photography, and the fundamental purpose the average majority have or use photography in, are drastically different.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Just curious derrel, why would you not want to put the flash opposite the sun? The subject will have a nice rim light from the sun, the trees in the background will have the shadow face facing you, the subject will not squint looking at the sun. If I turn off the flash, this set up will yield a nice photo too. I want that dark background.

 

[Derrel]

Just curious derrel, why would you not want to put the flash opposite the sun? The subject will have a nice rim light from the sun, the trees in the background will have the shadow face facing you, the subject will not squint looking at the sun. If I turn off the flash, this set up will yield a nice photo too. I want that dark background.

I think you're totally mis-reading what I wrote. I specifically discussed a situation in which there are shadows cast one way in the background, and then shadows cast by a flash that lights the foreground from the opposite direction; when there are background shadows going in "one direction", and then foreground shadows go in the opposite direction, it looks like a noob shot it because the lights are in direct conflict with one another. That looks amateurish, at best, and ridiculous at worst.

I know what you mean; you're talking about today's fairly standard outdoor portraiture shooter's method of using the sun as a rim-light/back light/side-light source, and then using flash as a way to fill-in the shadows: position family at X spot, with sun behind or off to the side: fill in shadowed side with flash to create basic light source for faces,which are in shadow, allow the over-exposed edges of the people to create a bright, separation light; bonus points if background has a dark area so that family stands out more.

Two totally different situations.

Another example of a lighting mess: Joe Photog lights background with light blasting in from one side; lights subject with light coming in strongly from opposite side. Hair light appears from opposite side of main light. Photo looks like a confused mess. Light blasting in from three directions. It just looks contrived, or faked...

 

[Gavjenks]

Okay... show me what you recorded this morning while you were in the kitchen having breakfast.

;-)

Just because I don't own a printer that accepts brain-formatted image files, doesn't mean they don't matter. >>I<< can still visualize my recorded images in my own mind, and I can still easily compare them to prints from a camera, and compare the lighting. Thus, the importance and relevance of natural looking lighting in photograph prints.

The way that you know whether they match up in my head is via language. I can just tell you if they do.