People photos on a gray cloudy day

[SquarePeg]

I think they came out pretty good. Not the final version - my editing needs work but light was decent.

 

[mrca]

So how did you light the shot? Looks like a catch light in L side of her eyes giving them life and fairly soft shadow edge transitions. Light coming from camera L. Nice shadow pattern on the face/nose. Nice ratio. Good job.

 

[texxter]

I think they came out pretty good.

I agree! Very nice portrait!

 

[SquarePeg]

So how did you light the shot? Looks like a catch light in L side of her eyes giving them life and fairly soft shadow edge transitions. Light coming from camera L. Nice shadow pattern on the face/nose. Nice ratio. Good job.

Thanks. We were on a covered walkway. The open side was camera left and for that shot I didn’t use anything else, just the ambient light. The sun was in and out between low heavy clouds so for some others I used a reflector but we had mostly this same light which worked well for the single subject shots. Never needed the ocf. This is my favorite of the photos. Will see how the others stack up. Have to do a lot of wrinkle smoothing on some of these for the ladies!

 

[SquarePeg]

I think they came out pretty good.

I agree! Very nice portrait!

Thanks!

 

[jamescooper18]

Follow the settings below for your camera on a gray cloudy day:

• Lens: 24-105
• Aperture: 4.0
• ISO:200
• SS: 1000

 

[SquarePeg]

Follow the settings below for your camera on a gray cloudy day:

• Lens: 24-105
• Aperture: 4.0
• ISO:200
• SS: 1000

You’re a little late to the party since the shoot was yesterday but thanks for your input. I’m not sure there’s a one size fits all approach to settings.

 

[mrca]

I thought it was under a cover of some sort to cut the overhead light. The catch light must be from the light coming in from the open area giving direction to the light. Finding good light makes your job so much easier. I think you had her at the right distance from the edge of the cover to get a great ratio. Have you tried this in black and white?

 

[SquarePeg]

I thought it was under a cover of some sort to cut the overhead light. The catch light must be from the light coming in from the open area giving direction to the light. Finding good light makes your job so much easier. I think you had her at the right distance from the edge of the cover to get a great ratio. Have you tried this in black and white?

I’m terrible at b&w conversions. I need to work on that.

 

[zulu42]

This is really a heck of a shot. The background is superb.

 

[zulu42]

Might suggest just crop or clone out the dark line on the right where the bricks end. Imo

 

[mrca]

Do you have the Nik plug ins? The price is right... free. In the early 2000's many of us paid about $500 for them. Silver efex is their b&w conversion plug in and is considered one of the best if not the best b&w plug in. The sharpening plug in is fantastic for print sharpening. Color efex has some great features as well. Viviza, does selections by color so click on a face for example and size the circle effected to the face and a drop down with brightness, contrast, structure, saturation allows you to work only on the instantly selected area.

 

[SquarePeg]

Do you have the Nik plug ins? The price is right... free. In the early 2000's many of us paid about $500 for them. Silver efex is their b&w conversion plug in and is considered one of the best if not the best b&w plug in. The sharpening plug in is fantastic for print sharpening. Color efex has some great features as well. Viviza, does selections by color so click on a face for example and size the circle effected to the face and a drop down with brightness, contrast, structure, saturation allows you to work only on the instantly selected area.

No, I haven’t used those. I have Topaz labs plug ins on my desk top and I like the b&w conversion filters well enough but I don’t really use my desktop for editing anymore. I edited these on the Affinity Photo app on my iPad Pro. I’m still learning how to use some of the features including the b&w filters. They’re more manual than I’m used to. Besides I know they want these for their social media and marketing so they’ll want the color versions.

 

[SquarePeg]

How far do you go to fix clients clothing? One of the women was wearing a horribly wrinkled sweater. Huge fold lines everywhere - it looks like she pulled it out of a drawer 5 seconds before the shoot. Her hair was a mess as well. I think she’s a bit of a “character”.

 

[mrca]

The reason I suggested b&w was since you were concerned about lighting, eliminating color allows you to examine tone only. I think you will like what you see as this is a great ratio and the shadow pattern is appropriate.