Help with digital portrait photography?

[creatives]

Hi,

I want to learn more about taking portrait photographs in the style of the photo attached. I have a Canon 400D, which is 10.1mp, however, when I took a portrait without direct flash, the camera obviously compensated and opened the shutter speed. But the photos are just too blurred. I then used a tripod with self timer to avoid camera shake, but yet again the photo looked just too blurred and out of focus. I used both auto focus and Manual and adjusted the appature and shutterspeed manually.

I used continuous light from two light stands with diffuser umbrellas, but did not use the slave flashes on them.

I used ISO 100 to avoid grainyness too.

So my main question is, how can I obtain crystal clear clairty of the photos yet not use flash, whilst keeping the lighting like the portrait photo attached.

Any advice??

Thanks in advance.

click here
http://www.edge9.com/artwork/photo.jpg

*edited to show link rather than image*

 

[markc]

You probably didn't notice, but the forum rules say that you shouldn't post images to other people's work. You can link to them, but don't paste them into threads.

To answer your question: a lot of light.

100 ISO is a good choice. A medium to wide aperture is good to both blur the background and let more light in. A slight telephoto, like an 85mm on 35mm film or a 50mm on the 400D, would be a good focal length.

My guess is that you are working with weaker lights, and the umbrellas are going to cut it down even more. Posting examples of what you did will help us give better advice, too.

 

[bitteraspects]

im guessing you used the kit lense for the portrait you attempted?
you may want to invest in some better glass if you want images like the one you posted. also im pretty sure that picture was not using natural light.

 

[Big Mike]

yet not use flash

You can use flash...but not on-camera flash. I think Mark is right, continuous light are not nearly as power full as strobes...so you are not getting fast enough shutter speeds.

 

[creatives]

Thanks guys, so sorry about posting the photo, I had no idea! Lesson learned

Thanks for the advice though. One silly question I would like to ask is, how do I turn off the camera flash and get the strobes to go off? Because the strobes seem to activate only when the flash goes off on the camera.

Do I need to buy some kind of a connector lead? Any advice on that would be great!

What apperture bracketing would you suggest I use to keep clarity without any blurring, and any suggestions on shutter speed.

Any advice would be great

Thanks

 

[Big Mike]

I'm not sure if the 400D has a PC socket or not...if so, that's where you would plug in a wire to connect to the remote flash. If not, you can get a 'hot-shoe to PC' adaptor.

The photo you showed us...looks to be a professional shot, with several lights. While I agree that...trying to emulate shots you like, is a great way to learn...you may be getting ahead of yourself here.

If your problem is blurriness...lets deal with that first. Provided that your focus is correct and your DOF is sufficient...you can get blurriness from a couple of things...camera movement or subject movement. When using continuous lights or ambient light...you will need a fast shutter to freeze any movement. When using flash/strobes...the burst of light is very short, much quicker than the shutter...so the shutter speed doesn't matter much (only for the ambient exposure...background etc.) So when using flash/strobes, you shouldn't have a problem getting sharp shots...given that the focus is OK and there there isn't an overpowering ambient exposure.

Using continuous lights...it may be hard to get a fast enough exposure...the lights would have to be quite powerful.

There are some other issues...sharpening of the digital image, for example...and that shot may also have so other post processing things like skin smoothing etc.

 

[creatives]

Yeah, I am probably getting ahead of myself here!

I have borrowed two 400w lights here, one a bowens and one a prolinca. I am a bit unsure what you meant when you said PC? do you mean pc as in computer? lol sorry for the ignorance!

And when you said remote flash, do you mean the lamps (the two strobe flashes)? or a separate flash for the camera that can be taken on or off the camera?

Also, to get a nice backlit image as she is in the photo against a black background, what positions would you suggest I put the lights? Are there any good website where I can learn all this? As you can see I am a total beginner, learning as I go

Thanks so much for your help, really appreciated!

 

[woodsac]

I used continuous light from two light stands with diffuser umbrellas, but did not use the slave flashes on them.

So if they are actually 'slaves', sounds like maybe you were using the modeling lights? Modeling lights usually don't exceed standard 150W bulbs. You'll need 10X that without flash.

I'm pretty sure the 400D does not have a PC socket. Most slaves use a special cord to connect lights to cameras. Like Mike said, you'll need to buy a hot shoe to pc adaptor. Something like this
I'm not sure if this is the right one...just giving you an idea.

Here are some links that might help. If you take the time, the amount of knowledge in these links regarding lighting is priceless! Just start at the top and work your way down :mrgreen:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

http://studiolighting.net/

http://www.photo.net/tv/

http://www.lightingmagic.com/topics.htm

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BjHh

http://www.photoflexlightingschool.com/

 

[craig]

I would like to learn more about this style as well. Primarily where can I get the model.

The photo you posted is shot with high powered strobes. Continuos lighting is equally as beautiful. Light on the subject is your journey. A lot of great models are shot with hot lights. Key is to shape the models features and fill in the rest. Also consider that hot lights require the model to be perfectly still. Not sure how Cannon handles fill flash. Worse comes to worse you can always hold it down with duct tape.

 

[vandecarr]

That photo has a lot of Photoshop work done to it. I recently put together a small manual on this kind of stuff, its really for my own use in case I forget some steps on different re-touch techniques.

I don't use a very high end camera, Im just really good with my photoshop abilities and can recreate almost anything with it.

If you already have a great camera and lighting you are in good shape. If you don't but you have photoshop 7, cs or cs2 again, you are in very good shape.

The manual I use is not for sale but, I can tell you of a few books that can help you quickly to create this stuff.

There are 2 books by Jack Davis called Wow or something like that I can't find mine right now and a magazine you can find in book stores called focus guide photoshop repair and restore your photos.

the last one is written by a great guy out of the u.k named Matthew Henry.

You can contact him on his website www.matthewhenry.net and he will usually take the time to answer your questions and help he is really a great guy.

Anyway, in a nutshell, if I were to create the kind of picture you are interested in I would do it all in photoshop.


Cheers,
Mike V

 

[markc]

I don't mean this to be antagonistic, but I don't agree with that. Photoshop won't help you if you don't have the light right to begin with. From my experience, you can't "do it all" in software any more than you can in the darkroom.

 

[AprilRamone]

I have to agree with Mark. I've seen photoshop turn some mediocre pictures into great ones...but I don't think photoshop can do a ton if you don't already have decent lighting and a good eye for composition. Plus, why do a TON of work in PS instead of just doing it right the first time and then spending just a few minutes tweaking?

 

[creatives]

Well, I suppose I agree a bit with both sides of this discussion.

I have PS CS2. which is brilliant for touching up skin tones, and adjusting colour, tone, brightness and all kinds of stuff, but getting a great photo to start with would really help. For eg, as stated in my first post, I took a couple of test shots and they came out either blurry due to long shutter, or higher ISO, so what can I do in PS for that? there is only so much sharpening I can do. Also, one photo came out too light on one side, dark on the other, was hard to sort that in ps.

Getting back to the lighting discussion, am I best buying an off-camera flash unit then? instead of the big stand up lamps (they are a bit bulky). But I was confused in the tutorials posted about using umbrellas on them (the flash units) because I didnt think you could use an off camera flash with an umbrella, where woudl I fit/slide the umbrella? What is fairly affordalbe flash unit, compatible with Canon 400d? Any recommendations?

Basically, your guys professional opinion, how many lights were used in the photo I posted and what position do you think they were in?

What about reflectors, do you think they were used. I really like this guys work, all his photos seem to be like this, he must have a knack! Any thoughts?

 

[markc]

A flash isn't going to give you the light output of a larger strobe. They both use the same kind of tech, but the bigger units really make a difference. And yeah, on-camera flash is really only good for fill, not a main light. Flash units are good for when you have to keep mobile, like a wedding reception. Monolights are good for when you have a stationary set-up.

 

[Big Mike]

You can use 'hot-shot' flash units off camera with umbrellas...but as Mark said, they don't have the power that an actual studio light does....but if you want to travel light and use batteries rather than a plug in...then maybe flash units could work. Check this site, for info on using flash units off camera.

Reflectors can be very handy...a lot of studio set ups will have multiple lights, reflectors and gobos (Go between, to block light)...all sorts of stuff.

I watched a series of videos about studio lighting and stuff like that...on this site. It might give you an idea of what it takes.