Best of a bad situation?

[IronMaskDuval]

Here's one I did outside. I suppose I could have put it on a solid background, and it would have worked for a badge.

 

[fjrabon]

I think you would have done better to have shot outside at low sun. I've been doing head shots outside lately and have had better results. Most of Hess new hippy companies do not like the solid background anyway. Not enough swank, I guess.

Yeah, true, though low sun outdoor wasn't an option. It had to be at lunch time. Also not sure that outdoor portraits would work for ID badges at a conference.

If it is to be on a badge, it doesn't matter how well you shot it, no badge printer will print it well enough.

oh sure, just saying that it had to serve three purposes simultaneously (program, poster and badge). But regardless it was during lunch, so outdoor were out of the question anyway with hard 1 PM shadows.

 

[fjrabon]

maybe its just me and my personal taste but...I like it.
I personally might have gone with a tad more DOF to get the rest of her hair in focus, but otherwise i think this is a nice shot.

One other point of note is that I was already kind of riding the edge on that shot, that was ISO 1000, f/5.6 and SS 1/100. Shooting handheld with a 90mm (thought I'd have studio strobes, so didn't worry about lugging a tripod on the train, ugh), I was basically fighting all three of those settings. I'd ideally liked to have shot ISO 400, f/8 and 1/250 with studio strobes, haha.

Thanks, you guys made me feel a lot better, I think my tendency with work (as opposed to personal) photography is to find every single miniscule problem and really flip out over it.

 

[pgriz]

Remember the objective. This isn't going into the central display at the Met. So... you did very well.

 

[fjrabon]

and if you want to know how bad those lights were, my final white balance setting was 3100. Like what?!

 

[Derrel]

3100 degrees Kelvin sounds perfectly fine to me...right in that old-school "tungsten" color temperature range...imagine having to shoot this with Ektachrome 64T, or for an extra $1.25 per roll, maybe springing for high-speed Ektachrome 160T...woo-hoo! ASA 160! The freedom!

So, what kind of Phottix lights were these? Were they those small, rectangular $75 LED panels they sell, with the frosted diffusion plastic on the front? I think it might be interesting/instructive for people to see what kind of lights you had to work with. I just looked on B&H for Phottix video lights, and saw a couple types.

 

[fjrabon]

3100 degrees Kelvin sounds perfectly fine to me...right in that old-school "tungsten" color temperature range...imagine having to shoot this with Ektachrome 64T, or for an extra $1.25 per roll, maybe springing for high-speed Ektachrome 160T...woo-hoo! ASA 160! The freedom!

So, what kind of Phottix lights were these? Were they those small, rectangular $75 LED panels they sell, with the frosted diffusion plastic on the front? I think it might be interesting/instructive for people to see what kind of lights you had to work with. I just looked on B&H for Phottix video lights, and saw a couple types.

after getting there, I honestly didn't spend much time looking at the type, I mostly played around with the dimmer switch as much as possible to see what I was working with.

They were a bulb. The bulb changed temperatures as you turned the power up and down (3100 was actually on the cooler range of the spectrum, as I turned them almost as high as they'd go). I don't think the actual mounted lights were even phottix, I think that was my friend reading the maker of the softbox. The lights were inside small (maybe a a foot by a foot) softboxes. I took one of the softboxes off, and left the other on. With both softboxes on the light was super flat, and was forcing me into setting ranges I wasn't comfortable with. Leaving one on and one off, I was able to get a bit of shadow for depth plus get another stop or so of light, where I could go 1/100, f/5.6 and ISO 1000. I raised the "unsoftboxed" light as high as it would go, and then lowered the softboxed one to below eye level, to give a bit of clamshell lighting and to take shadows out of the eye sockets.

edit: also the lights gradually turned cooler as the shoot went on. The early shots were 2900, by the end the proper WB was 3200. -4 green/magenta tint was fairly consistent.

 

[Derrel]

I raised the "unsoftboxed" light as high as it would go, and then lowered the softboxed one to below eye level, to give a bit of clamshell lighting and to take shadows out of the eye sockets.

That worked out pretty well. The harder, crisper light up high gave a nice, defining shadow to her dimples, and the lapels of the jacket,and the folds in the blouse--and that shadow creates the depth and dimensionality, while the lower elevation, softer, softbox-fitted light gave plenty of soft, diffused fill light. I think you struck a good mix of the two light modifiers. As was mentioned earlier, you took lemons and made lemonade!

 

[Gary A.]

For a badge, that photo is absolutely fine. Working under surprise conditions that image is absolutely fine. The nose, forehead and upper hair is darker than the chin, neck and chest ... you could even that out a bit in PS.

 

[sashbar]

I envy you. You shoot people who are willing to be shot.