First Outdoor Shoot Questions

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Hi Guys,

A really good friend of mine's daughter is having her junior prom tonight and he thought it would be a good idea and good practice for me to take those pictures of her and her date as well as two other other couples that will be at her house.

Anyway, the shoot will take place outside in a backyard and I have a pretty good idea of how and where to place the subjects; angle of the sun and all good stuff. I am taking my monolights which are pretty portable to use as needed, but are there any other caveats I should be aware of?

Thanks,
Danny
 
When you shoot toward the sun or other bright light sources with a mostly dark background, lens flares can be a problem--they show up badly when the field is dark. So, make sure the lens has its lens hood on, and make sure the front and rear elements of the lens are clean, and free of any film or haze caused by cooking oil, cigarette smoke, or environmental air pollution, as well as by out-gassing from various houselhold products, or even from the foam inside your camera bag! Clean your lens!
 
^ +1 if u shoot into the sun, u may get lens flare. The camers might also meter the scene a bit too dark. Use a fill flash
 
When you shoot toward the sun or other bright light sources with a mostly dark background, lens flares can be a problem--they show up badly when the field is dark. So, make sure the lens has its lens hood on, and make sure the front and rear elements of the lens are clean, and free of any film or haze caused by cooking oil, cigarette smoke, or environmental air pollution, as well as by out-gassing from various houselhold products, or even from the foam inside your camera bag! Clean your lens!

Thanks Derrel. I got into the habit early on of always cleaning my lenses before and after shoots. As far as the hood, I've seen that this definitely help reduce flare.

The shoot is going to take place around 3 PM. The sun should be pretty high in the sky at that time. I plan to use the monolights (and possibly a reflector) to fill in any harsh shadows that might be cast. It's definitely going to be trial and error. I'm not really nervous about it; definitely excited.

Danny
 
This is a total different ball game than shooting indoors with your lights because know you have 2 exposures shutter speed gives you your ambient exposure and aperture give you your flash exposure
 
I've got the same problems. I'm just a beginner yet so thanks for your advices.
 
This is a total different ball game than shooting indoors with your lights because know you have 2 exposures shutter speed gives you your ambient exposure and aperture give you your flash exposure

Today will definitely be a learning experience!
 
If you don't have a flash meter, expose for the sky but keep you shutter speed below 1/200 and set your light on low and just add light untill it looks nice
If you want to darken the background you can up your shutter speed but not above your sinc speed, if you want to blow the background reduce your shutter speed
 
Ok Guys,

So as I mentioned before I had an outdoor shoot for a junior prom. This is the mom and dad of one of the couples that were attending this prom. I did some minor retouching and sharpening but not much more. As far as metering, I just played it by ear with what I thought looked good. As far as lights, I had one monolight bouncing into an umbrella, camera right and a silver reflector camera left right next to the subjects. I've also uploaded a diagram of the setup.

I decided to go with a "super black" paper background. I thought it added some elegance to the shots.

mmtw2c.jpg


Diagram of setup:

nvzbzt.jpg


Danny
 
Well-done. Good posing fundamentals form a very casual couple shot, with the father broad-shouldered to the camera, the woman turned at an angle. I might have liked to have seen his left hand in his front pocket, but hey...the lighting looks okay, and the background is good. I know you've had these lights only a very short time, and already, you're getting acceptable results. As far as exposure goes, this looks to be about right, and the lighting looks adequate for a half-body, but it does appear to be losing light intensity pretty rapidly toward the bottom of the frame.
 
Well-done. Good posing fundamentals form a very casual couple shot, with the father broad-shouldered to the camera, the woman turned at an angle. I might have liked to have seen his left hand in his front pocket, but hey...the lighting looks okay, and the background is good. I know you've had these lights only a very short time, and already, you're getting acceptable results. As far as exposure goes, this looks to be about right, and the lighting looks adequate for a half-body, but it does appear to be losing light intensity pretty rapidly toward the bottom of the frame.

Thanks Derrel. The shoot turned out to be bigger than I thought it would be. It was 12 kids and most of their parents. It was a lot of fun.

As far as the lighting in the lower half of the frame, how could I have evened this out better? I had the umbrella about eye level with dad. Could I have used a 20x20 soft box for the lower half? Honestly, I didn't even consider the lighting in the lower part of the frame until I saw your response.

Danny
 
Well, this lighting setup is fine for half-body couples, standing. A little bit of natural fall-off at the bottom of the frame keeps the viewer's eye up, and on the brighter faces. Ig you were to photograph standing couples using the same light, in the same exact location in relation to them, there would likely be some fall-off of the light due to the edges of the umbrella having natural fall-off at the periphery of its swath of light. So, if you want more-even lighting on standing full-length couples, moving the umbrella back, farther, and increasing the flash power, will give a more-even spread of light. Using a much bigger umbrella is another option. Obviously, I have not seen the rest of the shots; if the feet and pants and legs are a bit darker than the faces of the kids, that's not necessarily a deal-breaker...it depends on how it looks. I just wanted to mention this because it's pretty common to light the tops of standing couples, and forget about the bottom half of their outfits.
 
I just wanted to mention this because it's pretty common to light the tops of standing couples, and forget about the bottom half of their outfits.

This is exactly what I did, forget about the lower half. I took a lot of full body shots of the girls in their dresses. I'll look out for that and post a couple more after I'm done with PP.

Danny
 
So here is a full body shot under the same conditions and light setup. Is there a light fall off here?

icn48x.jpg
 

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