Bad Portrait Session

[brian_f2.8]

FYI - I actually shot this raw, imported to aperture did my own color correction(the way I wanted it) and exported to a jpg. All I am doing is playing around with balancing the lights for now. I am trying to figure out how to balance the power with a sb900 and a nissin 622. I am learning angles. Im doing the hockey team because I made some really good money. More than I make in one week, so yeah Ill do it. If you have a problem, oh well not going to stop. I actually was able to get more work because of this. Of course I need help and learn but this is part of my learning.

As I mentioned my area of photography is doing sports. You do not use a strobe with PGA, NASCAR, INDY CAR or NBA(only Getty can). So I will continue to do more n more with lighting and learn just as you learned at some point in your life/career. If you were born with these talents awesome, I was not so I am at the learning phase. So I would appreciate some tips on how to make them better as opposed to people just saying that these are awe ful. Explain your self and be clear n precise. When I say I am improving its because the shots were more consistent as opposed to my original shoot. I had all kinds of shadows, and the coloring was way off. My settings are better 1/125th - f7.1 - iso 160.

I am a beginner in this area, I originally posted in the professional gallery for professional CC.

 

[Trever1t]

Exactly and agree. When I shoot in a ever varied environment I use raw too, but in the studio I can't find a reason to.

 

[JAC526]

FYI - I actually shot this raw, imported to aperture did my own color correction(the way I wanted it) and exported to a jpg. All I am doing is playing around with balancing the lights for now. I am trying to figure out how to balance the power with a sb900 and a nissin 622. I am learning angles. Im doing the hockey team because I made some really good money. More than I make in one week, so yeah Ill do it. If you have a problem, oh well not going to stop. I actually was able to get more work because of this. Of course I need help and learn but this is part of my learning.

As I mentioned my area of photography is doing sports. You do not use a strobe with PGA, NASCAR, INDY CAR or NBA(only Getty can). So I will continue to do more n more with lighting and learn just as you learned at some point in your life/career. If you were born with these talents awesome, I was not so I am at the learning phase. So I would appreciate some tips on how to make them better as opposed to people just saying that these are awe ful. Explain your self and be clear n precise. When I say I am improving its because the shots were more consistent as opposed to my original shoot. I had all kinds of shadows, and the coloring was way off. My settings are better 1/125th - f7.1 - iso 160.

I am a beginner in this area, I originally posted in the professional gallery for professional CC.

I would love to be in your market where people pay "really good money" for the "work" you produced.

 

[brian_f2.8]

LOL, yes, they suck. The color is whacked. The compositions aren't up to snuff either. I don't know what you are doing but perhaps starting from the beginning with a single light. Perhaps you are really over-thinking all this.

Now a comment about JPG: If you have everything perfect in studio....give me one reason to shoot raw! None! That is, if you can get light just right, color balance just right, etc. SO blanket statements that shooting in jpg is ameteurish is out of line. I have a good friend, a portrait shooter who's work is top-notch, magazine work....has no idea how to process a raw file.

My grandfather has been a photographer all his life, using SLR camera most of it, and worked semi-professionally (He worked in marketing, and did a lot of his own shoots). He just got his very first DSLR last year and has ditched film. He shoots in JPEG, wouldn't have any idea how to deal with RAW. He has to call me on the phone half the time because he can't remember how to take the pictures off the camera! He takes extraordinary photos, and that's what a t1i with a kit lens...

BUT, I've never seen him take a shoot, look at it, adjust it, and shoot again either. He can look at ANYTHING and INSTANLY tell you what the settings should be. Years of shooting film, even before good metering tools or automatic SLR cameras, will do that for ya. His exposures are spot on because he has the experience to do it! The only exception is white balance, which he has been reading up on. He will look at a shot and say "No that won't work, it'll turn out orange", so he simply won't shoot where Auto White Balance won't work. But, that is the only key difference for him between film and digital, is the ability to manipulate the white balance. When he figures out how to consistently turn on the computer without having a problem, maybe he can teach me a bit about composition and I can teach him to use lightroom and a grey card for white balance!

That said, I shoot in RAW. 100% of the time. Because I am not the experienced shooter, or a professional. I'm a cruddy amateur hobbyist. My grandpa, however, is experienced and can look at a shot and make it beautiful in the camera. I need those couple stops of exposure and infinitely adjustable white balance. I've had many a scenario where it looked good on the camera, but once it hit the calibrated monitor.. YUCK! (Which brings me to another point, Brian, is your monitor calibrated? You can ballpark it pretty easily without any special tools. It occurred to me that, with as orange as your pictures are, perhaps they look okay on your screen and that's why there seems to be a miscommunication between you and everyone else? Another option would be to use a grey card)

RAW is an excellent tool for the amateur, OR for the professional who is not using an extremely sterile, controlled environment. In Brians case, it sounds like he is neither experienced, nor in a sterile controlled environment. I think that RAW is the only choice for someone in his situation.

No monitor is not calibrated.

I rarely do adjustments myself in PP(this time I did for fun). I mess around with the different pic setting N, S, V etc... Then I also mess around with the filter effects, hue, sat, contrast, sharpening and go from there. I agree, I dont like doing PP but I do half to, I have a lot to learn.

 

[brian_f2.8]

FYI - I actually shot this raw, imported to aperture did my own color correction(the way I wanted it) and exported to a jpg. All I am doing is playing around with balancing the lights for now. I am trying to figure out how to balance the power with a sb900 and a nissin 622. I am learning angles. Im doing the hockey team because I made some really good money. More than I make in one week, so yeah Ill do it. If you have a problem, oh well not going to stop. I actually was able to get more work because of this. Of course I need help and learn but this is part of my learning.

As I mentioned my area of photography is doing sports. You do not use a strobe with PGA, NASCAR, INDY CAR or NBA(only Getty can). So I will continue to do more n more with lighting and learn just as you learned at some point in your life/career. If you were born with these talents awesome, I was not so I am at the learning phase. So I would appreciate some tips on how to make them better as opposed to people just saying that these are awe ful. Explain your self and be clear n precise. When I say I am improving its because the shots were more consistent as opposed to my original shoot. I had all kinds of shadows, and the coloring was way off. My settings are better 1/125th - f7.1 - iso 160.

I am a beginner in this area, I originally posted in the professional gallery for professional CC.

I would love to be in your market where people pay "really good money" for the "work" you produced.

Gotta love Fairfield County in Connecticut. But I would love to live in OH, where I could also buy a nice house for 150k or less.

 

[John27]

LOL, yes, they suck. The color is whacked. The compositions aren't up to snuff either. I don't know what you are doing but perhaps starting from the beginning with a single light. Perhaps you are really over-thinking all this.

Now a comment about JPG: If you have everything perfect in studio....give me one reason to shoot raw! None! That is, if you can get light just right, color balance just right, etc. SO blanket statements that shooting in jpg is ameteurish is out of line. I have a good friend, a portrait shooter who's work is top-notch, magazine work....has no idea how to process a raw file.

My grandfather has been a photographer all his life, using SLR camera most of it, and worked semi-professionally (He worked in marketing, and did a lot of his own shoots). He just got his very first DSLR last year and has ditched film. He shoots in JPEG, wouldn't have any idea how to deal with RAW. He has to call me on the phone half the time because he can't remember how to take the pictures off the camera! He takes extraordinary photos, and that's what a t1i with a kit lens...

BUT, I've never seen him take a shoot, look at it, adjust it, and shoot again either. He can look at ANYTHING and INSTANLY tell you what the settings should be. Years of shooting film, even before good metering tools or automatic SLR cameras, will do that for ya. His exposures are spot on because he has the experience to do it! The only exception is white balance, which he has been reading up on. He will look at a shot and say "No that won't work, it'll turn out orange", so he simply won't shoot where Auto White Balance won't work. But, that is the only key difference for him between film and digital, is the ability to manipulate the white balance. When he figures out how to consistently turn on the computer without having a problem, maybe he can teach me a bit about composition and I can teach him to use lightroom and a grey card for white balance!

That said, I shoot in RAW. 100% of the time. Because I am not the experienced shooter, or a professional. I'm a cruddy amateur hobbyist. My grandpa, however, is experienced and can look at a shot and make it beautiful in the camera. I need those couple stops of exposure and infinitely adjustable white balance. I've had many a scenario where it looked good on the camera, but once it hit the calibrated monitor.. YUCK! (Which brings me to another point, Brian, is your monitor calibrated? You can ballpark it pretty easily without any special tools. It occurred to me that, with as orange as your pictures are, perhaps they look okay on your screen and that's why there seems to be a miscommunication between you and everyone else? Another option would be to use a grey card)

RAW is an excellent tool for the amateur, OR for the professional who is not using an extremely sterile, controlled environment. In Brians case, it sounds like he is neither experienced, nor in a sterile controlled environment. I think that RAW is the only choice for someone in his situation.

No monitor is not calibrated.

I rarely do adjustments myself in PP(this time I did for fun). I mess around with the different pic setting N, S, V etc... Then I also mess around with the filter effects, hue, sat, contrast, sharpening and go from there. I agree, I dont like doing PP but I do half to, I have a lot to learn.

It's really easy to ballpark it. What OS do you use? Mac OS and Windows BOTH have built in tools to help you calibrate your monitor. There are also websites with great charts and stuff to help. A cheap monitor with no calibration tool can only go so far, but it'll be miles better than uncalibrated. Shooting RAW, and having a semi-calibrated monitor, can save you a lot of headaches as you can fix a LOT in post in just a few seconds.

Why not order a gray card? I'm not sure about CS4, but I know CS6 has a nice little eye dropper tool for auto white balance. Basically, have the first girl hold the gray card up in front of her face (and any person afterward if the light changes, power/angle, etc.) and take a shot. In Lightroom, Photoshop (CS6 at least) and perhaps aperture, you can then 'select' the gray card, which will then adjust the white balance of that shot, THEN, you can 'apply to all', which will set those white balance features to ALL of the shots in the set. It's super easy, no fumbling around or trying to guess, gray cards are cheap... and in theory, you don't really need a calibrated monitor because the gray card will get the white balance perfect.

 

[JAC526]

FYI - I actually shot this raw, imported to aperture did my own color correction(the way I wanted it) and exported to a jpg. All I am doing is playing around with balancing the lights for now. I am trying to figure out how to balance the power with a sb900 and a nissin 622. I am learning angles. Im doing the hockey team because I made some really good money. More than I make in one week, so yeah Ill do it. If you have a problem, oh well not going to stop. I actually was able to get more work because of this. Of course I need help and learn but this is part of my learning.

As I mentioned my area of photography is doing sports. You do not use a strobe with PGA, NASCAR, INDY CAR or NBA(only Getty can). So I will continue to do more n more with lighting and learn just as you learned at some point in your life/career. If you were born with these talents awesome, I was not so I am at the learning phase. So I would appreciate some tips on how to make them better as opposed to people just saying that these are awe ful. Explain your self and be clear n precise. When I say I am improving its because the shots were more consistent as opposed to my original shoot. I had all kinds of shadows, and the coloring was way off. My settings are better 1/125th - f7.1 - iso 160.

I am a beginner in this area, I originally posted in the professional gallery for professional CC.

I would love to be in your market where people pay "really good money" for the "work" you produced.

Gotta love Fairfield County in Connecticut. But I would love to live in OH, where I could also buy a nice house for 150k or less.

That is indeed true. Cheap cost of living here in the Great Midwest.

 

[brian_f2.8]

Exactly and agree. When I shoot in a ever varied environment I use raw too, but in the studio I can't find a reason to.

Sounds like a logical reason but now to play devils advocate, whats the advantage of shooting jpeg n not raw? You arent bursting frames in sports so why not?

 

[John27]

Exactly and agree. When I shoot in a ever varied environment I use raw too, but in the studio I can't find a reason to.

Sounds like a logical reason but now to play devils advocate, whats the advantage of shooting jpeg n not raw? You arent bursting frames in sports so why not?

If he has everything perfect in-camera, then it's ready to go. JPEG is a usable file, printable anywhere, postable to any website. Also much smaller and takes up less space (that's the difference between RAW and JPEG, RAW has a lot more info) He could theoretically shoot all day in the studio on one decent memory card in JPEG.

Also, though I am not a pro, I imagine for many full-time pro's one big issue is storage. They probably keep the photos for a reasonable amount of time after the shoot and after delivery, and that can pile up! Storage is getting cheaper, but it's still a hassle and an expense. Especially since, I imagine a good professional doesn't keep all of their eggs in one basket, and likely uses RAID setups, off-site backup, or any number of and combination of redundancies for those said files. If he shoots JPEG in the studio, he can cut in half the size of the files he has to store from the studio. Depending on how much in-studio shooting he does, this can really save him a ton of space. But, in the end, it's 'excess fat' if he isn't going to process the image. Kinda like driving a school bus to work. It's big, can haul a lot, can carry a lot of passengers, and do much more than your passenger car, but it's sort of pointless! You don't need it, it uses more fuel, and it takes up a lot of space! But if you are a schoolbus driver, running the route in a Prius seems a little silly, no?

 

[brian_f2.8]

Exactly and agree. When I shoot in a ever varied environment I use raw too, but in the studio I can't find a reason to.

Sounds like a logical reason but now to play devils advocate, whats the advantage of shooting jpeg n not raw? You arent bursting frames in sports so why not?

If he has everything perfect in-camera, then it's ready to go. JPEG is a usable file, printable anywhere, postable to any website. Also much smaller and takes up less space (that's the difference between RAW and JPEG, RAW has a lot more info) He could theoretically shoot all day in the studio on one decent memory card in JPEG.

I know the difference between the two and understand but Im playing devils advocate for conversation purposes, not to be rude.

 

[Trever1t]

Shooting in jpg saves card space. Less time in editing Simple crop, perhaps adjust curve slightly and presto!

 

[brian_f2.8]

just did a calibration - looks a lot darker

 

[fjrabon]

Can you take a picture of your setup? The light in your shot is ultra hard.

Also, you want to put some distance between the hockey players and your background. AT THE VERY MINIMUM you want 3 feet. The wall is a painted wall that is at least going to be partly reflective and has a textured surface. If your subject is really close, that wall will look terrible. Painted cinder blocks (what it looked like the locker room was) are notoriously hard to use as a background, especially if you're close to them.

You also may consider just going to one light, since you're having difficulties getting them balanced. The good news is that with your SB910 and your D7000 by themselves and you're shooting inside, you could probably just shoot full on auto TTL. It's sort of amateur-ish, but it would get the job done, and probably look better than what's going on here. Joe McNally uses TTL, so obviously it can be done...

But as far as balancing the two lights, here's how I usually go about it:

First, leave your 2nd light off. get your main light right. Have it look exactly how you want with test shots. Then, add in your 2nd light. In a case like this I usually get the 2nd light to work double duty as a hair light and fill for the shadow side. It's going to be subtle. usually if I'm running 1/4 power for my main, my 2nd is either 1/8 power or 1/16 power, sometimes even lower than that. Where this is depends on how much of a dramatic one light look you want v. an even two light look.

If you want one piece of advice, bring an assistant with you to the shoot. they will help immensely in helping everything run smoothly, sitting in place for test shots, etc. Do WHATEVER you can to get in to the location early. At least an hour, if not two hours before, so you can quickly get your setup going and have plenty of time to do test shots on your assistant.

Those are MUCH more important than what particular f/stop you're thinking about shooting.

The easiest way to tell somebody who is new to this from somebody who is experienced is that new people worry about settings. They constantly as you "oh, that looks great, what were your settings?" Settings are local. ie what makes a setting work here, might not work there. You can't get married to f/7.1 (or what most photographers call a weak f/8). Sure, I have my general settings that I use a a starting point, that will almost always get me in the ballpark, but after that it's test shot and adjust, rinse, repeat (or if you have a meter, use your light meter, I'm assuming you don't have a light meter and aren't willing to buy a $300 light meter for one job, though maybe you could rent one?) Experienced photographers almost never ask what settings you used, they might ask where you put your lights, and what your lighting ratio was. Every now and again they might ask how much you drug the shutter to let in ambient. I've never had an experienced photographer ask me what ISO or f/stop I used, unless they were implying that I must have accidentally changed them and screwed the shot up (stupid canon scroll wheel on the back controlling aperture).

Also, keep in mind that all these settings on the camera go out the window if you move your light 4 inches.

In a bit I'll draw you a diagram about how I'd approach the locker room, where I'd have my lights, what settings I think would get you in the ballpark.

 

[John27]

just did a calibration - looks a lot darker

It probably will. Most folks set their computers as bright as they can get it. This looks great for browsing web pages, watching videos or even playing games. BUT, it distorts color, and mis-represents exposure. The darker-ness is because your gamma and color settings are now representing accurately, which likely required dimming the backlight to accomplish.

There ARE bright, AND accurate monitors. That's what the pros use. They aren't cheap though! They pretty much start around $1,000. If you are really going to go pro at this, you should really consider a good, high end IPS display. The Apple Cinema Display is a popular choice. Believe it or not, despite it being Apple's offering it's a little more on the affordable side, running at $999 but being 27", very bright, and an excellent choice for accurate colors and exposure. Couple that with a calibration tool ($200~) and a decent PC or Mac (Sounds like you have a Mac, if you have an iMac, you likely already HAVE an IPS display. If you are using a Macbook, those are better than most laptop displays so you are one up there, but the external IPS display will still be better), and you'll have a professional grade post-processing setup.

BUT, like I said, I think investment numero-uno should be a gray card. As a beginner myself (I only give the PP advice because I HAVE been dealing with PS and other stuff much longer than I've been shooting, and marketing/graphics design/post-processing type work kind of runs in the family so I've got SOME experience on that side of things), it's an amazing tool for making things super easy AND correct.

 

[ghache]

if you reshoot, do it the right way....use flash. faster shutter. your d7000 would be able to handle iso 640-1000 perfectly without noise. if you are not equipped to do the job, don't re-schedule to flop it again. refund and forget about it

I shot 4 hockey teams annual portrait last year, i had to use 3 400ws flash heads in 3X4 softbox to do the group shots. a sb-900 is not going to cut it