Christmas set up with lights and help with AF

[CherylL]

I was inspired by Smoke665 and his Christmas scene. The lights and sheet are hanging from an old projector screen. White blanket and fake snow for the base. I purchased a trigger, light stand, and umbrella about a year ago and haven't done much with them so all new to me. Light stand to the left and a white board to the right for bounce.

After much trial and error I did get this set with the pups. The LED lights wouldn't show up and googled that the shutter needs to be at 60. The other settings ISO200, f2.8 and the speed light at 1/8 power. Canon 5Dmarkiii, 50 1.4, 430EXii.

Normally I shoot with spot AF point, but using a tripod and shutter cable I used zone AF and One Shot. With the pups individually it worked. I will be taking photos of the 3 grands next together and with moving subjects and 2.8 concerns me. If I go with a greater DOF then the wires are visible.

Any suggestions on AF points or focus modes? Any tips would be appreciated thanks.

Grumpy Puppy Christmas 2017 by Cheryl, on Flickr

 

[waday]

 

[Braineack]

youre going to have a heck of a time getting three kids all in focus at 2.8 with your 50mm.

maybe try using your 85mm backed up and stopped a bit, and then you can rearrange the lights further since you have the extra compression to work with.

 

[pixmedic]

try stopping down the lens a bit and upping the flash. for something like that background, DOF wont just be about what aperture you are at, but also where you place your focus plane. you can stop down the lens to get more in focus, but back up to where the rear of the focus plane is juuuuust behind what you want in focus. with a DOF calculator you can figure out the size of your focus plane and set up the subjects accordingly. you should be able to get what you want in focus while still rendering the background OOF.

 

[CherylL]

I was using the 50 to get closer. The 85 1/8 seemed to far away. The subject was placed about 5 feet from the background and cropped and I had to photoshop the right sides since the BG isn't that wide. Should I move the blanket on the floor away a few more feet? I can place a white sheet to meet up with the BG. And move the tripod further back too?

The set up:
The set up by Cheryl, on Flickr

 

[tirediron]

Pup-dog looks more than a little irritated at being used as a model!

If you have room to move further back, and use your 85 (or longer) than do it. As Pixmedic explained, where you put your point of focus is as, if not more critical than how great your DoF is.

 

[CherylL]

I plugged in the numbers using the 85 and f4.5 and I will then have 1.1ft in focus. Makes sense now using the DOF calculator. I do have room to back up the tripod. Thanks for all of the replies!

The pup was super annoyed. I had to chase him around a few times. But no worries, he got lots of treats and a belly rub.

 

[Braineack]

btw, if you think the dogs are hard, wait till you try the kids. ROFL.

 

[smoke665]

Any suggestions on AF points or focus modes? Any tips would be appreciated thanks.

1. Drop the background LED lights and add back post - will save you a ton of effort.
2. All of the Christmas shots I posted were shot with a 50 mm prime, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/100. I was about 15' back. That gave me a total DOF of about 9 1/2 feet. Just over 3 feet in front and 6 feet behind. The "set" was staged so that the background sheet was at about 7' behind the "eyes" of the model (taking it out of focus). The fence and other items were stacked behind as well to utilize the DOF. You'd need to calculate the DOF for your camera but should be similar.
3. Frankly your biggest problem appears to be lack of light. You're under powered with just one speedlight, and then shooting through an umbrella is causing you to lose even more. If you want to use speedlight you really need to use a black "reflecting" umbrella, drop it down and move it closer, then power it up to get to an f/8 exposure on the key side. Then adjust your reflectors (plural) to put the fill where you need it. Or else change your shooting location so you can bring in ambient light and use the speedlight for fill.
4. It's gonna be HARD to shoot either the pooches or grandkids (especially little ones) by yourself. You really need a helping hand. Set your camera to AF spot, sit your derriere on the floor and hold the camera so you can adjust as needed. Put that spot on the eyes, and your DOF will do the rest.

 

[CherylL]

btw, if you think the dogs are hard, wait till you try the kids. ROFL.

Yes, the pups will sit and stay! With the grandgirls, the soon to be 8yo now thinks smiling is over-rated, the 4yo has spontaneous meltdowns and the 17 month baby is everywhere.

 

[CherylL]

Any suggestions on AF points or focus modes? Any tips would be appreciated thanks.

1. Drop the background LED lights and add back post - will save you a ton of effort.
2. All of the Christmas shots I posted were shot with a 50 mm prime, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/100. I was about 15' back. That gave me a total DOF of about 9 1/2 feet. Just over 3 feet in front and 6 feet behind. The "set" was staged so that the background sheet was at about 7' behind the "eyes" of the model (taking it out of focus). The fence and other items were stacked behind as well to utilize the DOF. You'd need to calculate the DOF for your camera but should be similar.
3. Frankly your biggest problem appears to be lack of light. You're under powered with just one speedlight, and then shooting through an umbrella is causing you to lose even more. If you want to use speedlight you really need to use a black "reflecting" umbrella, drop it down and move it closer, then power it up to get to an f/8 exposure on the key side. Then adjust your reflectors (plural) to put the fill where you need it. Or else change your shooting location so you can bring in ambient light and use the speedlight for fill.
4. It's gonna be HARD to shoot either the pooches or grandkids (especially little ones) by yourself. You really need a helping hand. Set your camera to AF spot, sit your derriere on the floor and hold the camera so you can adjust as needed. Put that spot on the eyes, and your DOF will do the rest.

Thanks for sharing your details! I do have a black umbrella with silver lining. The adding the BG lights in post did cross my mind and then I wouldn't have to worry about a slow shutter speed on a tripod. I was trying to challenge myself. Just to get the pups set up it took a week of trial and error and user error. My daughter will be helping with the kids. I call her the cat wrangler. It was very difficult by myself with the pups. They do not like flash.

 

[smoke665]

I do have a black umbrella with silver lining. The adding the BG lights in post did cross my mind and then I wouldn't have to worry about a slow shutter speed on a tripod.

I can't remember where I saw it now, but if memory serves me right I think I read where you lose almost 60% of your light when you use a shoot through umbrella. As to the background lights, it can be done in one shot, though I'm not sure you can do it with one speedlight, which is why I suggested adding them post.

 

[Derrel]

I would immediately hang the background so it is "wide", not "tall". The issue with a narrow background is that it can be difficult to get the background to fill the width of a horizontal camera shot. Making the lighted background W_I_D_E_R will immediately give you a much easier set to work with, and will allow you to use different lens focal lengths with much more ease and fluidity.

The lens focal length determines the angle of view behind the subject; a 24mm lens could fill the frame with the dog and sled, but the entire back wall would show! A 50mm to 100mm lens.

ADDING more light by upping the flash power is the wrong approach, I think.

Shutter speed and ISO are the easiest ways to regulate how bright the LED lights will be shown; the FLASH is regulated by the ISO used, and the f/stop, but the shutter speed has zero effect on the flash exposure. You can make the background lights as dim or as bright as you want, by changing the shutter's "open time duration"; adding more flash can actually be counterproductive.

If you ADD flash lighting on the subject, it will tend to make the background LED's register as dimmer...

Shutter speeds of from 1/40 to 1/8 second could be useful, for getting the LED lights to register at different brightness levels, when using say one speedlight, ISO 200, and f/8-ish. Thse LED's do NOT look all that bright to me, based on your f/2.8 exposure setting.

Lens aperture size, in both f/stop (focal ratio number) AND the actual, physical width of the hole in the lens (which determines background blur, and also, depth of field. Ergo...with a small lens, like a 50mm lens at f/2.8 you get smallish bokeh balls; with a 200mm lens at f/2.8 (same focal ratio), the p_h_y_s_i_c_a_l_l_y w_i_d_e_r hole in the lens will create LARGER bokeh balls.

So...if you want larger out of focus bokeh balls on the background LED's, you will want to use a larger f/stop with a physically longer lens.

Moving the tripod as far back as you can, and using the absolute longest focal length lens you have (135mm,180mm,200mm,300mm) will make the background blur circles (the bokeh balls) BIGGER. This is physics...depth of field is discussed a lot, but not so the topic of background blur.

The issue with longer focal lengths is that you can get the dog to be say 1/3 the width of the entire frame, but the longer the focal length used, the narrower the angle of view _behind_ the subject. So...it's always a balancing act....camera-to-subject distance, and focal length used, and the amount of physical background width shown in the picture. Wide-angles will show lots of backdrop width; extreme telephotos will show a narrow slice of the backdrop.
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Looking at the basic exposure info you gave: ISO 200, f2.8 and the speedlight at 1/8 power. Whatever the shutter speed you used, it looks GOOD. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the speedlight at 1/8 power for f/2.8 and ISO 200 and your shutter speed: you have a VERY nice balance of the exposure triangle!!!

But, you could get bigger bokeh balls with a longer lens, at f/2.8 or even f/4 or f/5.6, from much,much farther back than with the 50mm lens.

 

[smoke665]

@Derrel I agree with most everything you say with some slight differences. In the OP's first post the DOF is so shallow that when you look it enlarged the point of focus appears to be at or just past the nose, the eyes are not sharp and the ears are going OOF. Given the length of the dogs nose, I'm guessing she was less than 7-8 feet from the subject. In looking at her setup, and the room, it appears she may not have much room to backup, putting a longer focal length out of the equation for anything other than a head shot.

As of late I've logged a few toddlers, and the first thing that comes to mind is they don't stand still, and the second thing is they move around (alot). While her exposure may be correct, it's not necessarily the right one for the subjects. By raising the aperture up to f/8 you increase the DOF sufficiently that you don't have to worry about a slight miss on focal point. I've been taught (and use from experience) that the key should be slightly above eye level. In the OP's post her setup has the key way up high, then she reduced the power level. I've had better success with adjusting the light to cover a zone (allowing some movement), adjusting the power to give me the aperture required, and moving the lights in closer or increasing the size of the light to give a softer light that will wrap around (again within the zone). What shutter speed or ISO to me is a matter of preference, I'm just more comfortable with ISO 100 and 1/100 or 1/125.

I agree with you on the bokeh, except that given the subjects, I would eliminate a needless problem, by coming back and shooting the background sans subject and props, to get the look I wanted, then add back to the image post.

 

[Derrel]

I would shoot is all in-camera, and not add anything in post.

ISO and shutter speed when combining an actual ambient light source is more than preference; it's a matter of requirements, because the flash-to-ambient ratio is set, and the flash is one exposure, the ambient is another.

The height of the key is not too critical on the dog, since the floor's white rug gives huge fill bounce. But it does determine catchlights.

Wish I had more time, gotta run.