Outdoor family portrait with flash

[adamhiram]

Those of you who have known me a while have seen that I am a glutton for punishment, and try to take my own fall family portrait each year. I recall last year when @tirediron said "To me this always seems like a doctor performing his own surgery", and I still agree.

One of the biggest challenges I have had with outdoor portraits is getting to the location at the appropriate time; once a young kid is in the mix, trying to stick to a schedule can be a lost cause. This year I found a location with a lot of open shade and brought a flash with me to use as a key light, giving a much long window of time to work with.

D500 with AF-S 50mm f/1.8
50mm, 1/250s, f/4, ISO 80

Exposed for ambient, 38" octobox above and camera left for key light


20191019-DSC_5141b by adamhiram, on Flickr

Pull-back shot to show lighting. Nothing too interesting, just a softbox on a light stand with a sandbag to keep it from tipping.


20191019-DSC_5211a by adamhiram, on Flickr

 

[Jeff15]

Nice shot........

 

[Soocom1]

Great shot! Good use of fill.

 

[tirediron]

Nicely done; it would be nice if you had a version without the fill just for comparison so that people could see how important that flash is to the exposure.

 

[smoke665]

"To me this always seems like a doctor performing his own surgery"

Since you nailed the family portrait, are we to assume you're ready to perform your first surgery??

Great shot, great location great pose. Your little boy just makes me smile, he exudes happiness.

 

[Designer]

Good light, good pose, good location. Try a square crop to see if you like it.

Did your son trip the shutter?

 

[jcdeboever]

Really nice. Beautiful family!

 

[adamhiram]

Nicely done; it would be nice if you had a version without the fill just for comparison so that people could see how important that flash is to the exposure.

Thank you. Nothing really worth sharing, but obviously subjects were in the shade and underexposed with proper exposure for the background.

Great shot, great location great pose. Your little boy just makes me smile, he exudes happiness.

Thanks - this was probably the least cooperative he's ever been, but I'll take the compliment!

Good light, good pose, good location. Try a square crop to see if you like it. Did your son trip the shutter?

I actually really like a square crop. I intentionally shot a bit wide to accommodate different crop ratios - prints will likely be 2x3 or 4x5, while this might end up square if used for a holiday card.

I used the built in intervalometer for 9 shot bursts with 3s delay between shots and 5s before the first shot with a radio trigger.

Thanks, all!

 

[SquarePeg]

Nicely done. Kudos for doing this every year - not easy.

 

[smoke665]

Thanks - this was probably the least

Ah but that's the beauty of the shot, I'll take raw, natural emotions of kids any day. You and Mom have really nice smiles, but I can almost hear his laugh coming from the screen.

One after thought on second look, is I might be tempted to work on the bright blue reflection coming between your legs, to either tone it down, or in PS use a selection of matching shore grass to hide it completely. Quick example

 

[Original katomi]

Nice shot, are you making copies for family.
I can see this is a pic that family will look back on and rem the day and the fun they had

 

[Braineack]

Nice shot, are you making copies for family.
I can see this is a pic that family will look back on and rem the day and the fun they had

it's him and his family ;P

 

[adamhiram]

One after thought on second look, is I might be tempted to work on the bright blue reflection coming between your legs, to either tone it down, or in PS use a selection of matching shore grass to hide it completely.

Definitely agreed, and this is actually the "after" version of that edit. Unfortunately I wound up with a bright blown out highlight from the sun reflecting in the water in that spot in almost every shot. I was not very successful comping in more rock or grass there, and leaving the water looked the most natural. I did burn down the highlights and desaturated slightly to make it less noticeable though.

Nice shot, are you making copies for family.

Absolutely. As a side note, one of the worst pieces of photography advice I ever got was to fill the frame and never crop. That's great until I want to frame it or print in any other aspect ratio. Using this as an example, I will probably make 4x6 prints for the grandparents to put on their refrigerators, so using the native aspect ratio made sense. For myself, this will end up in a frame, which means I need to leave space around the borders. It will likely be a 5x7 or 8x10 print, meaning I need room to crop on the sides. If we end up using this for a holiday card, it will likely get cropped again, either to one of the aforementioned ratios, or even to a square. In the complete opposite direction, family members have used similar photos on social media, such as a Facebook cover photo which ends up being an extremely wide crop. Obviously there's no way to take a single photo that meets every need, but for anyone wondering why I left the amount of space I did, that's why.

 

[Braineack]

Nicely done; it would be nice if you had a version without the fill just for comparison so that people could see how important that flash is to the exposure.

I have a pretty good shot from last weekend I could post from the wedding I just shot. I was using an on-camera flash with a bounce card using TTL @ -2.7EV for a little fill. It failed to fire a couple of rapid succession shots and you can really see the difference.

 

[smoke665]

I did burn down the highlights and desaturated slightly to make it less noticeable though.

That's something better suited to PS. It's an easy fix. Load your image, duplicate the layer. Now open an empty layer above. Go to your duplicate layer and do a selection on the grass and water big enough to cover. Crtl C to copy selection Ctrl V to paste it on your empty layer. Crtl click empty layer to select, click on move tool and move it to cover the hole. Now you can either use a white mask on the layer and a soft black brush on the mask to hide what you don't want to show, or you can do a selection of the hole on your duplicate layer, then click on the patch layer to make it active. Hold down the the alt key and click on the add mask icon, and it will place a black mask cut out for the hole. Adjust opacity, and/blending mode for best match.