Opinions?

[jubbin2001]

So I attended a lighting class tonight and I think learned a bunch, but I wanted to share an image with you guys and ask what you thought because it is bothering me. We were supposed to be using (I think) 1/125th @ f/13 ISO 200 for this particular setup. I some how got lost and ended up 1/60th @ F/13 ISO 200 +1 EV (because I forgot to turn exposure comp off :banghead. I use Vivid+ for colors because I really like saturated colors. This is sooc just converted to .jpg using ViewNX2. Does it look underexposed? I guess the other possibility is I misheard and we were supposed to be using F/11, but I also wonder if the Vivid+ program underexposes a bit, and so I have to adjust for that? To me it seems like it should be about 1 stop brighter, but I am not really sure. Thanks for the help!!

Shot with a Nikon D80 with a 50mm f1.8

 

[tirediron]

Hmmm... I think just a touch more light on the eyes; they're rather dark and featureless at the moment, and I find the skin a bit ruddy. 'Saturated' may work well for landscapes and such but not so much for people. The exposure overall looks correct, and if you were using OCF, the shutter-speed really doesn't affect the exposure all that much.

 

[Light Guru]

Sorry I didn't pay to much attention to the lighting as the awkward cheesy pose pulled in all my attention.

I don't say this to be mean I say this to point out that I would rather see a well posed subject with ok lighting then a awkward cheesy pose with predict lighting.

 

[KmH]

Yes. It looks under exposed to me, about 3/4 of a stop under exposed.
The light was a bit to high, and some fill from camera right would have helped.

The white balance is also off, and as mentioned the Vivid + setting has made his skin way to red.

A good part about the pose is that his head is tilted towards the high shoulder which is a 'masculine' posing attribute.

 

[Derrel]

It looks too saturated, which further accentuates the underexposure. His shadow-side eye needs some more light. I would use Capture NX to "add" more exposure.

 

[jubbin2001]

Thanks all for the help. I reprocessed the image through ACR and did some minor touch up and here is what I came up with. I think it looks much better. What do you guys think?

 

[Derrel]

Yes, it does look better processed.

 

[TMC]

the second image is much better. the amount of saturation in the 1st image left the guy with a very red nose and face. He looks alot better in the second and the lighting looks better as well. Did you use a single light camera left and reflector to fill in some shadows??

 

[jubbin2001]

Actually it was a 3 light setup. Main strobe was at a 45 about 10:00, kicker almost straight on just a little off camera right, and another studio strobe to illuminate the background.

 

[Derrel]

The background is too close to him...the fabric is within the acceptable depth of field, so we can see every wrinkle in the fabric, and also texture of the cloth as well. When using an APS-C-sized camera, this kind of excessive depth of field is a problem on half- and full-body shots many times,since many times the focal length is so short, and the sensor is smallish, so at this angle-of-view, there's plenty of DOF at small apertures like f/8 or f11 or f/13. If the background fabric is large enough not to show the edges, it;'s usually helpful to get it moved back, farther away from the subject, so the texture,wrinkles, and or patterning of the cloth is not so noticeable; when this type of fabric is shown more out of focus, it becomes more of a color-wash effect.

This very issue, of background rendering and background control, is one of the main reasons I prefer a FF d-slr over an APS-C one: background control in "normal" indoor shooting scenarios. With the small-sensor camera in a normal sized studio environment, one ends up using very SHORT focal lengths, and getting pretty deep DOF.