New to Studio Lighting - Question about reflected light

[JeyM]

Greetings. I just recently purchased my first studio lighting kit to take indoor shots of my 8 months old. (alienbees -B800). I also have a wireless slave flash and my Nikon F100 with an SB50DX flash. Two umbrellas at 45degrees from the subject and the camera positioned between the two, with the mounted master flash.

Now, on a mottled offwhite/yellow background, I place my son, in red pajamas and a santa hat. f5.6 at 1/60, the master set to TTL, the B800 set to 1/4 power. All of the pictures that came back looked as if the red pajamas bled over onto the background. Almost as if there was a red glow around my son. The background looked slightly green and I can't imagine what went wrong.

The same roll of film, I placed him on a red background, nude, on a white furry pillow and those pictures came out beautifully.

Please respond.. I'm very excited about this equipment and this mishap has me stumped. btw, I'm using Kodak High Definition 400 film.

Thanks!
JeyM

 

[voodoocat]

Sounds like he is too close to the background and the red is reflecting onto the backdrop.

 

[seanarmenta]

hi jeym,

voodoocat makes a good point -- though you would get a harsh shadow if you shot your baby too close to the background -- the color of the clothing won't bleed onto it. i just tried shooting a red fabric right in front of my white seamless with the same lighting as yours, and it was fine.

a couple of questions:

on that ruined roll of film, how were the exposures (never mind the weird colors)?

did you change the lighting from the first layout to the next?

is your film expired?

where are you getting your film processed? from what you're saying, it seems as if it was just that one roll that came out funky. could be the lab processed it incorrectly -- you're not using a one hour photo lab, are you?

 

[JeyM]

Thank you all for responding. My son is about 3 ft from the background, which is a 10x16 muslin that falls to the floor. He's about 5 feet or so from the lights/umbrellas as well.
On this one roll, I used half of the frames with a red background and the other half with the offwhite. The red background pics came out fine, skin tones an even the white on the santa hat. And as much as I hate to admit it, I used Meijer 1 hour photo. It was convenient and I had groceries to buy. lol.

I was looking through some other pictures I took, one of which used a stuffed candy cane pillow. The red is very red but the white looks kind of pink. Again, my son is in his red pajamas. Even if he were 10ft. from the wall, there would still be the red glow off his outfit that would reflect onto the floor and other white objects. How would I avoid this? I'll scan a picture tomorrow to give you a better idea. Again, I appreciate the advice.

 

[voodoocat]

My son is about 3 ft from the background, which is a 10x16 muslin that falls to the floor. He's about 5 feet or so from the lights/umbrellas as well.

Well 3' is too close to the background. I would move him out to about 6 or so ft.

When I was shooting pictures of a violin for ebay I had a white foamcore background that was too close to violin. The white was a reddish brown. Plus when it's farther you can blur the background better.

 

[seanarmenta]

jeym,

the distance between subject to background is relative to the size of your subject. normally, it would be 6 feet, if you're shooting an adult. if you're shooting a baby, you can minimize the distance. your lights need only be a foot higher than your subject. also, since you're using strobes, shoot at the max flash sync speed -- which is 1/250 for that camera.

i'd like to see the pictures themselves -- it would help to ascertain what went wrong.

 

[Dew]

i was going to mention try a faster shutter speed 1/200 -1/250 which is what i usually do with my studio kit and white background ... im almost willing to say perhaps your aperture may be a little high for that shutter speed ....

red is a dominat color but shouldnt bleed over the white :? .. here's a few photos i took with the subject wearing red and the background white ... u also mention that the background wasnt "pure" white ... more of an off white/yellow muslin ... i've had nothing but terrible experiences with muslin backgdrops, they werent thick enough ... the Savage seamless paper roll works like a charm for me (B&H photo $30)

i always photoshop my photos whenever necessary, making the whites, whiter and reds bolder.

these are not great shots, just visual aids , i editted these a little but the red did not bleed over the white... my aperture was between f2.8-f3.0, my shutter was 1/250, white balance on 6500k (digital), im guessing on film that would be 650 (but dont quote me on that my film friends )

 

[seanarmenta]

dew, you're shooting at 2.8??? what lights are you using? i rarely shoot larger than 5.6, simply because my lights don't let me, unless i slap some ND filters on them or bounce the lights off a whiteboard if i really want to shoot at 2.8. but usually i shoot between 8 and 16.

WB is essentially the same on digital and film...as it's based on the color temperature of light. it's just that on digital, you're given the ability to fine tune it in 100K increments, whereas it's more of a fixed value on film.

 

[Dew]

i used a softbox (with a cover over it and "half" flash) and one slave flash with an umbrella off to the other side. .. guess it depends on the lighting

my hubby says this is unusual for a camera (im using an Olympus E20) .. i've flashed at 1/450 - 1/500 with an aperture of about f3.0

my camera is a digital SLR but doesnt have a mirror, it has a pentaprism (dont ask me what that means )

 

[seanarmenta]

that is pretty unusual...

and using a sync speed of over 1/250 and still getting a complete image is unusual as well, unless you're using leaf shutter lenses.

hey, whatever works!

 

[metroshane]

Isn't it also unusual to use a combo of color temps that come from a soft box and a flash?

In theory dew's set up doesn't sound like it would work, but she gets beautiful results.

 

[Dew]

my camera is pretty flexible, dont have to worry about sync speeds, the flash synchronizes at any shutter speed.

i was photographing a young lady in the studio, she started dancing and moving ... i wanted to "freeze" her ... so i churned the shutter speed up to between 1/450 - 1/500 aperture about f3.0 ... and flashed her ... came out beautifully ... the manual said it can flash up to 1/640

this is my second camera, my first was an Olympus also .. its pretty normal to me