Did I get the lighting right?

[jwbryson1]

I am trying to learn lighting techniques and took these photos this past weekend with my new SB-700. I tried to bounce the light off of different surfaces and from different angles to avoid "flat lighting" and to get some shadows and 3-D effect to these.

Are these any good from a lighting standpoint, composition aside? There may be some clutter but if that can be put aside, are these still considered to be "flat" lighting? How can I improve them? Thanks.

1. I believe I turned the flash 90 degrees or more to the left and I am not certain if I elevated it at all.

2. I think this was 90 degrees to the left and no elevation.

3. Rotated 45+ degrees to the right and elevated 45+ degrees upward.

 

[ababysean]

are you using on camera flash or ??? I think I see some lights in the eyes but is it a lamp?

 

[jwbryson1]

I think I may have turned on some overhead lights but there are no lamps in the room. I used my new SB-700 on my Nikon D90, but I never shot straight on. These were shot at various angles up to the left and to the right away from the subject.

 

[Big Mike]

There is some side lighting on the (cute) subject, so in those terms, you'd doing well. However, all of the shots look underexposed and you have some serious White Balance issues.

The underexposure part should be easy to fix. Either let in more ambient light or turn up the FEC (flash exposure compensation).

The white balance issue might be easy as well. The EXIF data shows that you had it set to cloudy, but you are shooting with flash and have indoor lighting affecting the scene as well. If the white balance had been set for the flash, the light from the flash would likely have given you good skin tones, but the ambient light would still have given you a color cast. If you had set for the indoor lighting, then the flash's exposure would be off. That's the problem, you can only be set to a single WB setting (even if it's a custom WB setting), so it's best to avoid situations where you have such different light sources.

Of course, people use flash indoors all the time. So in that situation it's best to pick one light to be your main source and use the other sparingly. For example, if you had made the shutter speed faster (and/or used a smaller aperture lower ISO), you could cut down on the amount of indoor/ambient light in the photo. The flash will pick up the slack and give you more (especially if you dial in the FEC). This could allows the flash exposure to 'overpower' the ambient...and so you can use flash (or auto) WB, and probably get nice skin tones.

 

[jwbryson1]

Thanks Mike for the comments. Again, I keep making the same mistake of not checking what WB I'm using before taking shots. I see how orange her skin tones are but it didn't jump out at me until you pointed it out.

I shot these in RAW so maybe there is room to correct the WB issues still.

 

[jwbryson1]

I've adjusted the color in the second shot. Does this look better? Thanks.

In the picture above her skin tone was too red. I've increased the contrast and decreased the level of red.

 

[Big Mike]

It's better, but it still look a little to red/yellow (on my screen). The flashed side of her face, looks especially yellow.

That's the problem with multiple light sources, you try to correct for one color/source, but then the others will be out of whack.

In a case like this, just convert it to black & white and call it 'artistic'...

In the future, try to avoid mixed light situations.

 

[jwbryson1]

Yeah, I can see that now. I am going to try some other shots tonight and see how they come out. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[shootermcgavin]

Shot 2 rocks that's a wall hanger, all the problems can be fixed easily in post editing. I like shot 3 kind of too, are you going for the senior portrait look? ha ha

 

[jwbryson1]

Thanks Shooter. I am going to try and adjust the yellow tint today and hopefully get that resolved. She was just playing happily in her bouncer chair and my camera and new flash just happened to be sitting there so I thought I'd take a few shots. I jumped right in without checking my WB, etc. which is why the colors need adjusting on these.

Still learning...

 

[bazooka]

Don't forget you can easily put a gel on your flash and match whatever ambient color light you are working under, assuming you only have one ambient color temperature. Gels are cheap.

 

[DiskoJoe]

they are a bit yellow. Inside I usually have to use the tungsten filter to get the white balance right. You can easily fix this in post processing.

 

[Big Mike]

Very good point by bazooka, that I completely forgot to mention.

The 'proper' way to shoot with flash when you have to shoot in a mixed lighting situation, is to change the color of your flash to match that of the ambient lighting. The way to do that, is with 'gels'. They are basically just sheets of colored cellophane that you tape over your flash. Rosco Canada : Film/Video : Strobist Kit

 

[Big Mike]

You can easily fix this in post processing.

It's not so 'easy' to fix a photo that has been lit with two or more difference color temps. If you correct for one, the other(s) will be off. You can try to selectively change the color of part of the photo, but when the subject does not have clearly defined areas/edges, it's very hard to make it look right.