How would you have lit this?

[Braineack]

this was two 42" diffused bounce umbrellas:

main at ~40°. The other, on the same side, just to the side of the camera, about 10°


DSC_3136 by Braineack, on Flickr

 

[smoke665]

this was two 42" diffused bounce umbrellas:

main at ~40°. The other, on the same side, just to the side of the camera, about 10°

Interesting approach, with two lights same side, I think I'll try this in the future. One thing I noticed is the catch lights in both the man and woman appear lower then I prefer, and there appears to be a difference in the exposure on the woman and the man. Could this be an example of Tirediron's earlier comments on the height of the lights?

 

[Braineack]

It's possible I could have gone higher -- it was in their living room that may have only had 8' ceilings.

 

[Derrel]

View attachment 167240

I generally like this lighting,except that your daughter's face seems overly bright. A bit of burn tool in lightroom, like three passes at Minus 0.4, ought to help. She's got a lighter complexion than Mother has, and I think the light might have been angled downward a bit, so that she was in slightly stronger light than were you two adults.Still, this light imbalance could/can be corrected in post-processing with a bit of selective correction.

As far as the lighting, it's okay! It reveals dimensionality, through shadowing. On this post, I think having the girl stand on an apple box, to bring her head and shoulders up higher, would be considered a good posing adjustment at the time of shooting, since the head heights are not working that well in the horizontal camera framing. The dress, and her shoulders/head, are just too low in relation to the adults heads for this pose. This is a classic type of formal portrait pose, and there are some ways to make the pose look its best. Head heights are one thing; shadows are another. The need for a fill light would have been almost totally eliminated, had the girl been elevated, and brought back, physically closer to the body of Mom and Dad, which would have eliminated the shadow that she caused on Dad's T-shirt and pants. When posing formal groups like this, many times (most) the people have to be very close to one another, as in actually touching, front-to-back. Again, had the child been closer to the parents, the shadow would have been lessened in width, yet still present. Still...the shadow adds a degree of "realness" through dimensionality being revealed. My issue is the daughter's overly bright face, and the way she's riding low in the frame, and is cropped off too much. She has a beautiful lace-type Christmas dress, but not very much of her, or her clothing, is shown.

An on-axis fill light, right next to or behind the camera, used to be standard for this type of shooting...it is what it is...it can make things look flat, and dimension-less (as in the above tutorial Braineack linked to)--especially when the photographer uses large umbrellas or large softboxes, which FLOOD the shooting area with lights. I was actually trained and worked in old-school formal portrait lighting; the biggest problem I see with the linked-to tutorial is that the photographer is using using modern-era, VERY large light sources with a classic, old-fashioned portrait lighting setup, which is often best with SMALL lights, like 16- to 20-inch parabolic metal reflectors with diffusion material. Lights that caused actual, visible, obvious shadows on noses,cheeks,chins,dimples,lips,etc..

 

[R0ck3tm@n]

really didn't want the talent right up against the backdrop, however I didn't make the backdrop and I was asked to "frame the scene" with the 'r' church logo, and trim of garland left, top and right. While this wasn't my preference, it was leadership's preference so I obliged. Next year I plan on suggesting a larger backdrop and that they brand it top-left or top-right so it isn't blocked.

Lighting, posing etc pretty much covered, so a comment on the logo, which you mentioned. It's an orange blob of distraction that is going to be a distraction pretty much anywhere you locate it in the frame. IMO I would seriously try to dissuade them from affixing it to the background. Perhaps incorporate something recognizable from the Church as the background, or if they are determined to have the logo on the print, then place it as a watermark at lower opacity, along with the year.

Yeah I actually left that out, in my post-delivery notes I identified many areas of improvement, the watermark lower-right was one of them. I agree completely, it’s distracting. Thanks for your suggestion!


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[R0ck3tm@n]

this was two 42" diffused bounce umbrellas:

main at ~40°. The other, on the same side, just to the side of the camera, about 10°


DSC_3136 by Braineack, on Flickr

WOW, awesome results. Thank you for posting, super excited for next year and to try all of these suggestions.

Well in the end I’ll have 64” and 82” reflective umbrellas, figure I can pick up one size down for more cramped spaces. For the church, in most cases I have tons of ceiling, but for personal applications I can see the smaller being handy. Plus, they’re cheap.


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[R0ck3tm@n]

View attachment 167240

I generally like this lighting,except that your daughter's face seems overly bright. A bit of burn tool in lightroom, like three passes at Minus 0.4, ought to help. She's got a lighter complexion than Mother has, and I think the light might have been angled downward a bit, so that she was in slightly stronger light than were you two adults.Still, this light imbalance could/can be corrected in post-processing with a bit of selective correction.

As far as the lighting, it's okay! It reveals dimensionality, through shadowing. On this post, I think having the girl stand on an apple box, to bring her head and shoulders up higher, would be considered a good posing adjustment at the time of shooting, since the head heights are not working that well in the horizontal camera framing. The dress, and her shoulders/head, are just too low in relation to the adults heads for this pose. This is a classic type of formal portrait pose, and there are some ways to make the pose look its best. Head heights are one thing; shadows are another. The need for a fill light would have been almost totally eliminated, had the girl been elevated, and brought back, physically closer to the body of Mom and Dad, which would have eliminated the shadow that she caused on Dad's T-shirt and pants. When posing formal groups like this, many times (most) the people have to be very close to one another, as in actually touching, front-to-back. Again, had the child been closer to the parents, the shadow would have been lessened in width, yet still present. Still...the shadow adds a degree of "realness" through dimensionality being revealed. My issue is the daughter's overly bright face, and the way she's riding low in the frame, and is cropped off too much. She has a beautiful lace-type Christmas dress, but not very much of her, or her clothing, is shown.

An on-axis fill light, right next to or behind the camera, used to be standard for this type of shooting...it is what it is...it can make things look flat, and dimension-less (as in the above tutorial Braineack linked to)--especially when the photographer uses large umbrellas or large softboxes, which FLOOD the shooting area with lights. I was actually trained and worked in old-school formal portrait lighting; the biggest problem I see with the linked-to tutorial is that the photographer is using using modern-era, VERY large light sources with a classic, old-fashioned portrait lighting setup, which is often best with SMALL lights, like 16- to 20-inch parabolic metal reflectors with diffusion material. Lights that caused actual, visible, obvious shadows on noses,cheeks,chins,dimples,lips,etc..

Thanks Derrel, I like all of your points and agree, I think what others said, my light being low so my daughter getting blasted with light was a major contributor. In fact that’s why she’s squinting, this is the 2nd shot and is what I found with a lot of the little ones shot that day. The 2nd shots left them hesitating the light so I would capture the shot when they weren’t expecting it to avoid this.

Funny that my family was posted the worst, not to say others weren’t as bad but we had some really good poses. The speed at which this happened (1,000-1,200 people in about 2.5-3 hours, posing, shot(s), quick LR process, print and information harvesting. I’m sure my helpers were just a little on edge so mine was rushed, plus I sort-of rushed it too. My Apple Watch was barking at me all day due to elevated heart rates, ROFL, first time I’ve ever done something like this. Last was about 70 3-6 year olds over 3 days.


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[R0ck3tm@n]

One last question if I may gents, do you agree with my choice in f/5.6? I captured anywhere from 1 person to 14, just not sure at a distance of about 8' what your typical aperture target would be. Given that my subjects were far too close to the backdrop, frankly I know I could've gone higher. Just curious as to your rule of thumb.

 

[tirediron]

My rule of thumb is 5.6 - 8, but any time there's a question I actually drag out a tape measure and check it against a DoF table.