First attempt at portraiture. Help and advice please

[niccas9]

I am pretty new to the whole DSLR thing even though I took a few college courses on photography (pretty much a joke). I have the basics and decided to set up a makeshift diy studio to do a "photo shoot" with my two daughters. I don't even have an external flash yet and am trying to make due with what I have. Any advice or suggestions would be nice. As far as my equipment (if you want to call it that). I have a halogen flood light and two clamp on lights along with a white shower curtain as a diffuser. The one of my older daughter seems like boring composition wise, but I wanted to try and get the light dialed in before I even started messing around with poses etc. I did monochrome because my lights suck and the colors don't match exactly Here are the only ones that I liked at all. Don't mind the snot either.


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_tNcICn5lwXk/TXWAvIGvtZI/AAAAAAAAAG8/DyjWXaZL3r8/s512/IMG_1237.JPG

 

[reedshots]

#3 is nice but you cut some of her arm off

 

[tirediron]

I would say given your equipment, the lighting on these is excellent. Don't forget to consider the use of reflectors; white coroplast or cardstock works well.

 

[Davor]

The subject seems underexposed considerably compared to the background.

 

[PASM]

I just took a look at the histogram of #2 and it looks pretty good to me. The tonal contrast can come up a bit but otherwise nice shots, Niccas.

 

[niccas9]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I am definitely in the experimenting stage and will continue to play around with the setup to see what I can get out of it. I think I am going to go with a darker background tomorrow and see if I can get my girlfriend to be my subject. Kids are fun to shoot but they move so much and it is hard doing it solo and trying to adjust everything to get decent light.

 

[Christie Photo]

I feel these are pretty OK all things considered.

The most important thing you can do to improve is move the main light up a bit... to at around a 40 degree angle to the face.

-Pete

BTW... with such cute models, your job should be pretty easy.

 

[niccas9]

Thanks Pete. I am a complete noob when it comes to studio style portraits so there is going to be a long learning curve. I wanted to get an understanding of light, exposure etc before I start spending lots of $$$ on lighting equipment. I know that an external flash is the next thing on my list as well as a photo editing program. Thanks again everyone for the feedback.