recent Beach Portraits

[THORHAMMER]

 

[phakimata]

#1 and the family shots are my favorite. Some shots look a little yellowish. You did a great job on the poses. Great series!!!!!

 

[THORHAMMER]

thanks !!

good catch
I still have to tone down the saturation on a few, the falling sun was very yellow from all the clouds. its just noticeable I see it in a few too...

 

[skieur]

Great idea for having them all wear white tops and you also did well with accurately handling the skin colour too. The only finishing touch I would suggest would be to brighten the darker areas around the eyes in a few of the shots.

skieur

 

[THORHAMMER]

I just figured out what happened to the eyes,

I had angled both umbrellas above them pointing downward, maybye a little too downward ... one of them should have been eye level !!!!

I love it when I learn something new !!! first time outdoors with the lights I didnt want to overexpose. This was super tricky to meter....

It wasnt just overcast on the sides, but in the center of the sky the sun was still peeking out...

 

[NJMAN]

VERY GOOD use of fill light! Can you describe a little bit more of how you set up your lighting and how you metered for it?

Well done. :thumbup:

 

[THORHAMMER]

thanks ,


I am using 2 remote lights here. one shot through a white umbrella, and the other bounced from another umbrella. I used the V positioning basically each umbrella was aimed so that its converging on the subject
overlapping a little in some cases and on the side of the softer (shoot through) its giving it a little graduall falloff .....

I am using speedlights, one nikkon one canon , since I was getting so much light overall from the sun straight through and from the sides (overcast) I decided to place the lights pretty darn close to the subjects
so I could shoot the aperature and speed I wanted to shoot. which ended up being between 125 and 250 most of the time.

I am triggering with Elinchrom El Skyport RF recievers and transmitter.

In retrospect, next time I might pull the lights a hair back and open up the aperature a little more, if needed I can always throw on a ND, or polarizer to keep the speed to 500. I also might want to angle them a little more upward next time to to avoid some racoon eyes, but overall it didnt happen too much.

With the metering I metered for the brightest part of the sky and then
stopped down a little to keep the shutter speed in control. Then I set my lights to match my aperature and started shooting around 1/8 on the reflector and almost full power on the shoot through.

Its all trial and error when you are outside, only steps to remember not
settings... things change every 5 minutes.

 

[Alpha]

You might also consider shooting through a cool-tone gel in order to counter the warmth of the light. At the very least, this would save some time in PP. It would also allow you to cool down the skin tones a bit without pulling the warmth out of the sky.

 

[THORHAMMER]

yes, I think I am going to have to get some gels !!

good idea

 

[NJMAN]

thanks ,


I am using 2 remote lights here. one shot through a white umbrella, and the other bounced from another umbrella. I used the V positioning basically each umbrella was aimed so that its converging on the subject
overlapping a little in some cases and on the side of the softer (shoot through) its giving it a little graduall falloff .....

I am using speedlights, one nikkon one canon , since I was getting so much light overall from the sun straight through and from the sides (overcast) I decided to place the lights pretty darn close to the subjects
so I could shoot the aperature and speed I wanted to shoot. which ended up being between 125 and 250 most of the time.

I am triggering with Elinchrom El Skyport RF recievers and transmitter.

In retrospect, next time I might pull the lights a hair back and open up the aperature a little more, if needed I can always throw on a ND, or polarizer to keep the speed to 500. I also might want to angle them a little more upward next time to to avoid some racoon eyes, but overall it didnt happen too much.

With the metering I metered for the brightest part of the sky and then
stopped down a little to keep the shutter speed in control. Then I set my lights to match my aperature and started shooting around 1/8 on the reflector and almost full power on the shoot through.

Its all trial and error when you are outside, only steps to remember not
settings... things change every 5 minutes.

Excellent explanation. thank you.

 

[elsaspet]

Nice job with the light!
I agree with Max though, that's it's a bit on the reddish side. (That is a purely personal taste. Some like warm, I'm a "cooler" kind of person).
Beautiful sunsets and lighting though.

 

[THORHAMMER]

I think I got the yellow warmth under control. The one shot its obvious in is on purpose, but yeah looks better now...

thanks everyone for the great feedback, I hope to do more of these soon..