Casual-Executive Portrait- FINAL RESULTS (5pic).

AKUK · Dec 23, 2015

Are there any power output controls on the Impact Flash? If not, I would advise against it as the only way you can control its exposure is using the inverse square law, or having to adjust the power of the juice coming out of the key lighting flashes and stopping down your aperture. It does not afford much flexibility at all. For a few bucks more I would suggest just going with a Yongnuo flash, like a YN-560 III. It's a manual flash but has the 2.4Ghz trigger inbuilt.

PropilotBW · Dec 23, 2015

AKUK said:
Are there any power output controls on the Impact Flash? If not, I would advise against it as the only way you can control its exposure is using the inverse square law, or having to adjust the power of the juice coming out of the key lighting flashes and stopping down your aperture. It does not afford much flexibility at all. For a few bucks more I would suggest just going with a Yongnuo flash, like a YN-560 III. It's a manual flash but has the 2.4Ghz trigger inbuilt.

That's a good point, I don't think there is a way to control power output.

AKUK · Dec 23, 2015

Yeah, I think I'd give it a miss. When you're working with multiple light sources, keeping them all independently adjustable will save you a lot of headaches. Also you'll be limited by the lack of light modifiers too. At least with flashes you can use umbrellas, or a bowens adapter to use softboxes, 7" reflectors with barn doors, grids, beauty dishes, etc.

PropilotBW · Dec 24, 2015

This is the result I am hoping to achieve.
How would you go about setting up the flash for this shot? It looks like the light is at a 45*, just wondering how the photographer also lit up the backdrop with only one light?

Portrait 2010: One Light Assignment

desertrattm2r12 · Dec 24, 2015

Try to keep the gear simple but have everything you need. And backups. Some piece of gear goes on the fritz and you're in the soup. Good luck.

AKUK · Dec 24, 2015

PropilotBW said:
This is the result I am hoping to achieve.
How would you go about setting up the flash for this shot? It looks like the light is at a 45*, just wondering how the photographer also lit up the backdrop with only one light?

Portrait 2010: One Light Assignment

The flash is roughly in that direction as the key light. I would suggest placing it in that vicinity and then fine tune its position relative to the angle of your subjects head/face. I have a guide on my site which gives a brief introduction to traditional lighting styles that shows the difference between them. I you want a Rembrant style you'll be looking for the triangle on the opposite cheek. The contrast will/fall off will depend on the size of the modifier and the distance to the subject, as Derrel mentioned earlier.

The backdrop can either be lit from the front or behind. If you light from the front, you'll need a grid over the flash to contain the spill. Just be sure that your subject doesn't move and block it. I prefer to place the strobe behind the model and fire it at the backdrop. This contains the spill automatically and means you can use a lower power since you aren't throwing the light very far. So long as you have the space between your subject and the backdrop it's the better option IMO. Just take care that the flash unit remains hidden by their body. Experiment with direct distances to control the spill size.

Cheap flash modifiers can be had on eBay that slip over the flash to give you a round light source for a more even shape. If the flash is on the floor being fired up, just be aware that the lower portion will be brighter than the top. Normally I place it around chest height and fire it straight at the backdrop. If you have a dual bracket and an additional strobe you can point the second one at the shoulders/back of the head. This gives a nice kicker/rim/hair light without the need for extra stands. Maybe a little more advanced for now but something to consider for the future to kick your lighting up a notch.

I would also recommend setting the power/exposure of each flash independently. That way you aren't distracted or confused as to what light is causing effect. Start with the background light first and get a brightness you're happy with. Then do the key light on your model. If the key light is spilling onto the backdrop move your model forward and the flash, if you're happy with the fall off on their face/body. Even moving a meter can have a big impact because of the inverse square law. For example moving from 1m to 2m away from the backdrop will cut the light to only 1/4. From 1m to 3m the power of the light hitting the backdrop would be 1/9th as bright, and so on.

Another tip is to kill all ambient light use your lowest native ISO and max shutter sync (making sure you don't get a black bar across the bottom of the image). If using the 75-300, f/8 to f/11 should definitely kill the ambient light indoors. The reason for this is so that continuous light doesn't get recorded, creating exposure issues or unwanted shadows/highlights. F/11 will also be around optimum sharpness for that lens and also give a decent enough depth of field to ensure facial features are in focus of the head is at an angle. Personally I don't like to have the head too far from centre as too much of the eye whites become visible.

Letting the camera kill ambient light will mean you don't have to darken the room. If the room is reasonably bright the iris of the eye will be small, revealing more of it, rather than a big, black, dialated pupil.

JerryPH · Dec 25, 2015

PropilotBW said:
This is the result I am hoping to achieve.
How would you go about setting up the flash for this shot?
Portrait 2010: One Light Assignment

That looks like a basic 2 light setup that I use now and then.

1 light 45 degrees up and to one side and in front of subject using an umbrella
1 light on the background.

Derrel · Dec 25, 2015

Something AKUK mentioned above is very important: if the background light is positioned aiming upwardly, the bottom of the backdrop will be brighter than the higher parts of the background. The closer the flash is to the backdrop screen, the stronger the degree of falloff,and the more obvious that falloff is to the eye.

With undiffused flash fired at the backdrop screen, if it is seamless paper or wrinkly fabric, aiming the background light at a steep angle causes the lighting to become texture-revealing! So keep in mind that if the background light rakes across the backdrop screen and causes highlighted areas, and then shadowed areas, it in effect makes the background turn into an actual, lighted object, with a definable plane in space--rather than the featureless "blobby thing" many of us expect it to be.

As AKUK mentioned, placing the light behind the subject, at around the mid-back to chest height is the traditional way to do this, with the light firing STRAIGHT back toward the paper,canvas,muslin, or wall.Sometimes people will light the backdrop from off to one side, striving to create a gradient...again, if the light is firing and raking directly across the surface, it can act as side-lighting and create a LOT of (unwanted) texture; if the light is moved forward, more toward the sitter, and then aimed more "at" rather than raking across the backdrop, there will be less of a side-lighted, texture-revealing issue.

I mention this for one reason: with APS-C or smaller camera formats, at typical flash f/stops of f/6.3 to f/11, due to the typical subject coverages (full-length, 3/4 body,half-body, bust) in formal portraiture, as the distances required to frame such pictures, the small sensor and the small f/stop mean that the depth of field is such that the background in most situations will be very recognizable. THis is one of the MAIN differences between medium format rollfilm studio work, and 35mm or 25x36 or FX digital portraiture; the sophisticated viewer will easily see the background's in-focus nature with the smaller cameras like APS-C or m4/3, unless the background is lighted to create extremely low texture. On full-body shots, with an APS-C camera and short tele lens, your camera will be afar enough away that the background paper or muslin will be almost in focus, so it's important to light the background properly, with attention to details that make a difference.

PropilotBW · Dec 27, 2015

AKUK said:
Are there any power output controls on the Impact Flash? If not, I would advise against it as the only way you can control its exposure is using the inverse square law, or having to adjust the power of the juice coming out of the key lighting flashes and stopping down your aperture. It does not afford much flexibility at all. For a few bucks more I would suggest just going with a Yongnuo flash, like a YN-560 III. It's a manual flash but has the 2.4Ghz trigger inbuilt.

Thank you very much AKUK for all your tips, they have been very helpful. I have to admit, this is starting to get a little over my head. :confused-55:

I'm most worried about getting the flash power settings just right in a very unfamiliar indoor environment.

I was looking at adding the Yonguno 560 IV. Since it's only a few dollars more, I thought I'd try a newer model. My other concern is buying a 3rd party flash. There wouldn't be any compatibility issues with my Olympis FL600? I would just use the flash in manual, as a TTL trigger from the Olympus flash (which would also be TTL triggered from my camera flash, angled away from the subject).
This would give my setup 3 total flashes, but the one on-camera would really only be a trigger since I don't have any hot-shoe or corded triggers.

PropilotBW · Dec 27, 2015

Derrel said:
Something AKUK mentioned above is very important: if the background light is positioned aiming upwardly, the bottom of the backdrop will be brighter than the higher parts of the background. The closer the flash is to the backdrop screen, the stronger the degree of falloff,and the more obvious that falloff is to the eye.

With undiffused flash fired at the backdrop screen, if it is seamless paper or wrinkly fabric, aiming the background light at a steep angle causes the lighting to become texture-revealing! So keep in mind that if the background light rakes across the backdrop screen and causes highlighted areas, and then shadowed areas, it in effect makes the background turn into an actual, lighted object, with a definable plane in space--rather than the featureless "blobby thing" many of us expect it to be.

As AKUK mentioned, placing the light behind the subject, at around the mid-back to chest height is the traditional way to do this, with the light firing STRAIGHT back toward the paper,canvas,muslin, or wall.Sometimes people will light the backdrop from off to one side, striving to create a gradient...again, if the light is firing and raking directly across the surface, it can act as side-lighting and create a LOT of (unwanted) texture; if the light is moved forward, more toward the sitter, and then aimed more "at" rather than raking across the backdrop, there will be less of a side-lighted, texture-revealing issue.

I mention this for one reason: with APS-C or smaller camera formats, at typical flash f/stops of f/6.3 to f/11, due to the typical subject coverages (full-length, 3/4 body,half-body, bust) in formal portraiture, as the distances required to frame such pictures, the small sensor and the small f/stop mean that the depth of field is such that the background in most situations will be very recognizable. THis is one of the MAIN differences between medium format rollfilm studio work, and 35mm or 25x36 or FX digital portraiture; the sophisticated viewer will easily see the background's in-focus nature with the smaller cameras like APS-C or m4/3, unless the background is lighted to create extremely low texture. On full-body shots, with an APS-C camera and short tele lens, your camera will be afar enough away that the background paper or muslin will be almost in focus, so it's important to light the background properly, with attention to details that make a difference.

Thanks Derrel for taking the time to type this, it's helpful!

For the moment, I have only 1 flash to light the subject. It would be mounted at the 45* in a shoot-through umbrella. I would also utilize a reflector on the opposing side of the model to fill shadows.
I was then asking about how to make the background appear lighted with this setup, which I'm not sure I have the skills to make that happen without adding (buying) a 2nd TTL flash for aiming at the background.
Now I'm wondering, if I buy a 2nd flash, should I just put it in a 2nd umbrella rather than worry about lighting the background?
I could buy a 2 umbrella kit from BH for $99, and the Yonguno 560IV for $70.
Again, all these flashes would be Synced by the on-camera "flash". I have no hot-shoe triggers.

PropilotBW · Dec 27, 2015

I found an extremely helpful link by Tony Northrup for almost exactly what I'm trying to do.
Using all tips on here, plus some flash positioning help from the video, I feel SLIGHTLY more confident about taking on this project. :laughing:

Here's the link.

Derrel · Dec 27, 2015

Watch the Northrup video and notice how close to the lens axis he has the main light; it's nowhere near as far as 45 degrees off-axis in the indoor session. Plus...when the subject turns his or her head, the placement of the light changes in relation to the face. If the camera is moved off to the side, then relationship changes yet again. He was working on "full face" subject positioning, with both ears visible...that's not the only way the subject might be presented to the camera, so keep in mind that rote light placements at say 20,30,45 degrees to the "camera" might not be the same "to the face". (Chuck Gardner has an on-line tutorial describing his system of inter-relating subject and light placement relationships).

In the one colored-background, one-light tutorial linked to above, I think they might have simply burned down the background in post, to get the lighter colored paper in the center.

If you want the background lighted, you can light it with a second flash, either bare, or gridded, or with an umbrella or softbox on it; it just depends what effect you want. However as you can see from Tony's video, if there is any ambient light present, one can light the background by slowing the shutter down, and raising the ISO level, so that there **is** some ambient light making an image. Recall how at the start of his video, Tony shot at 1/200 second at ISO 100 and around the 2:47 mark, he shows the NO FLASH image made that way--it's totally BLACK. However, had he raised the ISO to say 400 to 800, and slowed the shutter down to 1/60, the faint room light will show some background. At genuinely slow speeds, like say 1/15 second, you can pick up a LOT of ambient light at times.

As Tony shows, using the camera's pop up flash in Manual mode at 1/128 power, it's easily possible to trigger a remote slave flash via its optical slave function in an indoor setting, and he does it outdoors as well. So...if the Yonguo has an optical slave setting, you ought to be okay to trigger two separate flashes, a main light, and a background flash, right from the camera's pop-up flash.

DON'T be afraid of this...if you can successfully make a ham and cheese sandwich from a whole ham and a whole brick of cheese, using a knife, and some mayo, and maybe a bit of a nice mild onion, you can shoot a one- or two-umbrella flash portrait.

PropilotBW · Jan 2, 2016

Well folks, the umbrella stand has arrived! Now off to practice flash photography!

Here is a test shot of exactly what I want to do. Comments and Critiques please on what I am missing.

ISO 200
f/5.6
1/125
Flash at 1/2 power, around 3 feet
Reflector screen is about 24" from subject @ "Camera Right"

tirediron · Jan 2, 2016

Nicely done! Lighting-wise, the only thing I would do is drop the highlights ever so slightly in post. As far as the rest goes, make sure you deal with those background wrinkles, as that doesn't look good. If you have another light, you might consider gelling it and using it as a background light for some added interest; medium grey, while versatile is a bit bland.