Halloween shoot - C&C please

[Derrel]

Here is a photo of my niece Rebecca back in 2007. The hair and shoulder light came from a speedotron 11.5 in metal reflector fitted with a 20 degree grid and a mylar diffusion disc that was placed over the grid. The main light was from a 24 in by 24 in inexpensive made in China soft box Placed camera right. The background was Thunder gray paper. you can see by using a 24inx 24 inch main light and the 11.5 in circular reflector with a diffusion screen of frosted mylar and a grid, the hair light is extremely soft and is not specular even though it is coming in from around the 11 position behind her from about 5 feet behind. I typically like to use this hair light with a two-way Barn Door set so that I can narrow the beam somewhat. I think you could get about the same effect with a small strip light. the key is that the grid light is not raw but is diffused by the mylar diffusing material.

 

[Derrel]

Here is the same hair light,an 11.5 inch 50 degree metal reflector fitted with a 20° grid and a diffuser disc placed in basically the same exact spot as was as used in the photo above.(The photo of my niece Rebecca .) As you can see, this gives a very subtle light. The main light in this case was a 40 in. umbrella box and the hair light was the same light which I'm talking about throughout this post. As you can see, this is a very subtle light, but it illuminates her dark nearly black hair quite well, and does not scream "hey! I shined a light on her hair!"

 

[smoke665]

Perhaps you play more for a separation light or "kicker", rather than a hot ( specular ) Rim light. Had you used a larger light source, it would be softer

Thanks for the explanation and examples I can see how this setup might be a good choice, especially with a highly mobile subject and a zone approach on lighting. I've filed this away to remember to try in the future. However, in this particular case I'm not sure it is the best choice. In the OP as I understood it, he was going for split lighting. Typically I associate that with a dividing line of light/shadow bisecting the face, where the shadow becomes deeper as it moves away from the line, eventually becoming black. However your comments reminded me of an edge lighting technique by Joel Crimes, that I've adopted on occasion . It follows along the lines of your comments, and can create a lot of drama when used with the right subject.

 

[adamhiram]

Thank you very much, @smoke665 and @Derrel, this community is really a great resource for good feedback and learning.

However your comments reminded me of an edge lighting technique by Joel Crimes, that I've adopted on occasion . It follows along the lines of your comments, and can create a lot of drama when used with the right subject.

This was very helpful! This is very close to the original lighting setup I wanted to use, so perhaps I actually know what I'm doing. I originally wanted to use butterfly lighting for the key light, with 2x strip lights for rim/edge lighting, but I only have 3 lights and 1 strip box, that would have required 4 lights with the background gobo - I can't buy new gear for every shoot (or can I!)

I think you could get about the same effect with a small strip light. the key is that the grid light is not raw but is diffused by the mylar diffusing material.

Thank you for these great examples, they were very helpful. I revised my setup to use a small gridded strip box with double diffusion for the rim light (technically a 32"x32" soft box masked down to 12x32), and the results definitely look better to me. For this shoot I don't mind it looking more specular, but this change makes a big difference over the original setup. I don't have barn doors for my speed lights, but when used bare (or with a grid), I tend to use black foamie things as makeshift flags, which serve the same purpose.

My only minor niggle is the lighting on his face; while these are portraits, I don't think traditional portrait lighting is necessarily optimal; I would like to see less shadow on his face and torso.

I've been struggling to move the light more on-axis without getting too much spill on the background. I think the real solution here is simply more distance between the subject and background if I want a full body shot, but unfortunately I just don't have that. I thought maybe I could move the key light closer to the subject to get much quicker falloff before the background due to the inverse square law, but then I'd also see quicker falloff on the subject. I found that adding a large white reflector camera left adds enough fill that the shadow side is better illuminated, although it's not quite the same as moving the key light. Any suggestions for more on-axis lighting without more spill on the background?

 

[smoke665]

I can't buy new gear for every shoot (or can I!)

WHAT!!!!! Hush your mouth man, some of us have significant others that read over our shoulder. Don't want that idea to get out there! That's how I've got most of the new equipment past DW.

FYI one of the most used modifiers I have is a 22" beauty dish because of its flexibility as a key, fill, or kicker. In the case of the Grimes video it's a 3 light setup with a beauty dish as the key and two soft boxes as edge lights. In lieu of the soft boxes you can use lights bounced off white foam core reflectors on each side, to accomplish the same look. By having the dish on axis, angled down, he's keeping most of the light off the background. By moving the subject closer or farther away from the background you can control the spill.

 

[Derrel]

Spill light hitting your background can be controlled in a number of ways such as by using a grid equipped softbox as your main light. Everyone has his own Studio setup in a certain way. If you work on a narrow background, you will most often find that it is easier to shoot with a fairly long lens length so that you have a narrow angle of acceptance from your lens. There is a difference, a big difference, between working on a 4.5 foot wide backdrop, or a 9-foot white backdrop, or a 12 foot wide backdrop. The Wider the backdrop the easier it is to shoot.

Flags or barn doors are the easiest way to get a light close to the camera axis. I am fairly sure that you will be able to refine your setup so that you get the results you want. I have never been a fan of mixing speed lights with Studio Flash, since we're talking about a tiny speed light and a much larger Studio light the quality of light typically looks dramatically different. For example a Speedlight might have a 1.5 in tall by 3 in or 3 and 1/2 Fresnel lens on its front. That is a very small light. A small Studio light would be a 7 and a medium Studio light would be an 11.5 in Dish,and a big Studio light would be a 16 inch dish, or a 22in. Moving into soft type modifiers we have 30 and 32 in umbrellas as small umbrellas, up to seven foot wide umbrellas at the large end. A lot of people like 60 and 72 in umbrellas these days. I often like 40 or 43 in umbrellas or umbrella boxes. When you use a 12in by 32in strip light as your hair or rim light you have dramatically increased the physical size of your accent light, and have established a much more equal proportional size in relation to your main light, and I think this leads to a better look the quality of light , the light quality, is much more similar than it is different between two Studio modifiers than it is between a Speedlight and a studio modifier.

 

[adamhiram]

WHAT!!!!! Hush your mouth man, some of us have significant others that read over our shoulder. Don't want that idea to get out there! That's how I've got most of the new equipment past DW.

If I'm being honest, that's how I acquired most of my gear as well... I picked up an 86" wide roll of seamless paper for this shoot, which has been on my wishlist for some time (107" would have been nice, I just don't have any place to store it). I kind of want a 2nd large strip box, or possibly a smaller one if this works out as a separation light, but I'll save that for the next project. I'd love more lights as well, but at some point I need to stop collecting speed lights and look into something bigger.

FYI one of the most used modifiers I have is a 22" beauty dish because of its flexibility as a key, fill, or kicker. In the case of the Grimes video it's a 3 light setup with a beauty dish as the key and two soft boxes as edge lights. In lieu of the soft boxes you can use lights bounced off white foam core reflectors on each side, to accomplish the same look. By having the dish on axis, angled down, he's keeping most of the light off the background. By moving the subject closer or farther away from the background you can control the spill.

I sort of have that with my octobox with grid - I know it's not the same as a beauty dish, but it can be made directional and feathered away from the background easily enough. My issue is that with a full body shot the falloff on the lower half of the subject is quite noticeable. Then again, with a 40" tall subject, I suppose I have room to raise the key light much higher.

 

[adamhiram]

Spill light hitting your background can be controlled in a number of ways such as by using a grid equipped softbox as your main light. Everyone has his own Studio setup in a certain way. If you work on a narrow background, you will most often find that it is easier to shoot with a fairly long lens length so that you have a narrow angle of acceptance from your lens. There is a difference, a big difference, between working on a 4.5 foot wide backdrop, or a 9-foot white backdrop, or a 12 foot wide backdrop. The Wider the backdrop the easier it is to shoot. Flags or barn doors are the easiest way to get a light close to the camera axis. I am fairly sure that you will be able to refine your setup so that you get the results you want.

That's really the issue with light spill here - I'm shooting a full body shot on a wider background, which makes controlling light spill more difficult when I can't just crop in tighter or use a longer lens to get less background in the shot. I think my next step will be trying to flag the key light (already gridded) to see if I can effectively control the spill. Fortunately I have a 53" wide roll of black seamless that I can cut a strip of to use as a flag, so we'll see if that works. One of these days I'm going to have to just build some v-flats.

 

[smoke665]

My issue is that with a full body shot the falloff on the lower half of the subject is quite noticeable. Then again, with a 40" tall subject, I suppose I have room to raise the key light much higher.

I tried to find an another article from Grimes on sports photography, but I can't seem to locate it now. In that he talks about the falloff toward the feet with using the beauty dish on axis, high and angled down. His approach was to add a reflector if needed down low, but overall he preferred the gradual transition of light to dark from head to feet, keeping the emphasis on the head and upper body. Different strokes for different folks.

Just another random thought but are you sure the "spill" on the background is from your flash and not ambient? In my garage, I can get the 4 stops difference necessary to turn a white background black but only if I cover the garage door windows with blackout paper.

 

[adamhiram]

I tried to find an another article from Grimes on sports photography, but I can't seem to locate it now. In that he talks about the falloff toward the feet with using the beauty dish on axis, high and angled down. His approach was to add a reflector if needed down low, but overall he preferred the gradual transition of light to dark from head to feet, keeping the emphasis on the head and upper body. Different strokes for different folks.

Now we're talking! With the background light/gobo being brighter at the bottom, the contrast of the falloff on the subject's lower body might make for an interesting look. For more even lighting, it would be very easy to throw a large white reflector (sheet of styrofoam) on the ground in front of the subject, which would be out of frame. Now I just have the issue of needing a 2nd edge light and strip box!

Just another random thought but are you sure the "spill" on the background is from your flash and not ambient? In my garage, I can get the 4 stops difference necessary to turn a white background black but only if I cover the garage door windows with blackout paper.

Good catch, but I am positive. Even during bright daylight, I can block out all ambient at these settings with the blinds closed. However I have been doing all of my shooting after dark with one dim light in the room, so definitely not an issue.

 

[adamhiram]

I had a chance to make some changes to my lighting setup and reshoot this week, and I wanted to share the results.

I took @tirediron's advice and got rid of the deep shadows on the shadow side by adding a large white reflector camera left of the subject, rather than moving the light more on-axis. Per @Derrel's recommendation I swapped out a gridded bare strobe with a small gridded strip box for the edge/rim light. The result is a better lit subject without such deep shadows, and a more subtle edge light that is far less specular. The differences are subtle, but I think are quite significant.

I was tempted to try an alternate setup with butterfly lighting for the key light, per @smoke665's suggestion, but low ceilings and a fidgety subject made that problematic. Accounting for ceiling height, soft box depth, and the subject standing on a platform, there ends up being only 22" light-to-subject distance. Not only does that mean a lot of falloff on the lower half of the subject, which I may be able to offset a little with a reflector on the ground, but if he bends or squats down, as he did for many of the shots, it effectively cuts the amount of light on his face in half per the inverse square law. I may still give it a shot, time permitting, but it sounds like I just don't have the ceiling height to pull it off.


20191008-DSC_4935a by adamhiram, on Flickr

 

[Braineack]

i like the rim and fill on this.

 

[smoke665]

I think this is far superior to the first ones. The kicker, camera left is much more subtle and the light is more believable, almost looking like a reflection from the background. As with all lighting it's a matter of achieving the look you want, for the subject at hand. Sometimes the look isn't conducive to the shot, and you have to back up, go another way. Had the background been different the hard edge specular light might have worked better, but in this case I think the current approach works better.

With a beauty dish there's a sweet spot you'll see when adjusting, but typically I'm at 1-1.5 x the diameter of the dish. IE: a 22" dish would be 22-33", the further away the faster the fall off. The higher the center of the dish above the eyes, the more shaping and sculpting it will do. I've used it both with a grid and without, depending on the look, and generally use a diffuser sock to soften the highlights.

 

[Derrel]

This is the best shot in the series that you have shown here. This looks really quite good to me. I really like the way the background is lighted with the fall off at the top of the frame providing a natural sort of vignette or edge darkening. I think this lighting looks really good for this type of shot.

I think a "movie poster" type of text overlay might look good on this.