First Attempt with OCF - C&C

ryan_caldero · Jul 26, 2011

Super bored at the casa, so I grabbed my son and made him stand still while I attempted to use my speedlite off the camera. Speedlite was about 12 feet to the right of the camera. Not sure what I think about it. I know I could have used another speedlite to the left of the camera as a fill, but I was out of batteries for the 2nd speedlite. No umbrella, just stright bare stright on. About 2 stops down on the power of the speedlite...I thinking I could have also came down on the ISO speed.
Settings:
f7.1
ISO 800
1/200 sec
80MM

IMG_0760 by ryan_caldero, on Flickr

tirediron · Jul 26, 2011

Definitely needed a second light source; don't forget about reflectors. Anything white/shiny will help. In this case I think it would have worked well here. The focus is a bit soft as well.

joealcantar · Jul 26, 2011

Looks like the light needed to be a little higher, if you look at the shadow on the nose it should be going down towards the corner of the mouth not across.
A fill light would have helped, maybe even a hair light to separate him from the background. A different color shirt so he does not blend into the background may have helped as well. Punch in your data to the DOF calculator chart , believe you could have done what you were thinking. Lowering the ISO would have let you open up the lens and may have thrown the background out of focus. Moving him away from it may have helped in that as well.
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Shoot well, Joe

kundalini · Jul 26, 2011

A couple of other thoughts.

Having the light 12' away (and probably at a higher output than necessary) is contributing to the harshness of the shadows. Even with a bare flash, you can help reduce this by moving the light closer to your subject, just out of frame, and lowering the output.

A Fill light would definitely be a benefit, but I would suggest to have it on lens axis or little on the same side as your main. You (or rather "I") still want a ratio from lit to shadow sides. Having the Fill on the left side would essentially cancel any modeling the main light is creating.

As mentioned, raise your main light vertically. A reasonable starting point is the Rembrandt lighting pattern... ~45° from your PoV and angled ~45° down on your subject. The idea is to have the nose shadow leading to, but not crossing, the upper lip.