C&C needed please.

[Nubbs]

A couple of weeks ago I asked for some advise on a shoot I had coming up.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/people-photography/249606-advise-need-photoshoot.html



So the shoot went really well. The client seems happy with the pics. Thats great and all but I on the other hand am not super happy with them.


I was so worried about the shadows on the back ground that I put the people to far from it and ended up having parts of them off the paper. Not a big deal because they are cutting out the background to make the people into stand up cut outs. That would also mean that it wouldn't have mattered if there were shadows or not.


Also all of the pics seem a little soft to me.


What else could I have done better?


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Thank you!

 

[kundalini]

The background is a different color in each photo. I would think that should stay consistent.

 

[Nubbs]

Good point.

Not to take away from the fact that I didn't get the background correct. However these photos are being used to make full size cutouts of the person. So the backgrounds are getting removed all together.

 

[kundalini]

That inconsistency will transfer to your subjects whether it is an issue with metering, WB, exposure, etc.

There is little to non-existent detail in the dark clothing.

Each person is holding the card differently with their right hand. This may not be a problem, but seeing only the tips of the fingers (both women) looks odd.

 

[Nubbs]

Very good point about the holding of the card. I didn't even think about that during the shoot.

What could I have done to get more detail in the dark clothing?

 

[DiskoJoe]

for this particular project i would suggest getting the wrinkles out of the sleeves before the shot. This would make cut outs of the people out much easier and give you clean lines. As is there will be lots of ruff edges except for the one lady not wearing a jacket. The guys had better hand placement on the sign too. With the ladies all you see is just a bit of finger tips of their right hands. Might look funny on the cut outs.

 

[Nubbs]

Thank you everybody for the advise and help.

 

[OrionsByte]

Hey just a small off-topic comment, but thank you for linking to your previous post for those of us that didn't necessarily remember that particular question. So often people come on here with follow-up questions or photos, start a new thread, and expect everyone to remember them or figure it out themselves. I appreciate the extra effort.

Since your lighting setup was identical for every shot, you should be able to set the white balance for one and apply the same settings to all of them - no need to white balance them separately. As Kundalini said, the difference in white balance will be apparent even once the background is removed.

If the guy with the glasses had lowered his chin just a teensy bit, you could have avoided that glare on his glasses over his right eye.

I think you could have afforded to increase the exposure quite a bit on all of these. It looks like the paper they're holding is properly exposed (meaning the camera tried to make it 18% gray), but that's the least important part of the photo, and it caused everything else to end up underexposed. If you'd dialed in +1 or +1.3 of exposure, you might have blown out the paper and parts of the background, but you'd have more detail in the darker clothing and the faces of the people.

 

[Nubbs]

Ok. Thats great advise. I will keep that in mind. I might even try to set everything up again soon and shoot my wife.

The lighting did change half way through the shoot. In the morning I wa sin a board room with a big window the camera left. than in the afternoon I was in a basement and had completely different lighting.

 

[gsgary]

Did it have to be a white background ? because you don't have enough flash power to turn it white, you can turn the white background grey by not lighting it or you could get a grey background