Second Portrait new home studio. C&C please.

[jwbryson1]

Please offer comments on this portrait. I shot it with a single SB-700 bounced inside an umbrella at a 45 degree angle. The light is slightly harsh so I will need to move the umbrella farther away from the subject. I used a solid white corrugated plastic piece to reflect light on her left cheek.

C&C welcome.

Thanks.

 

[480sparky68 67]

I'm no portrait expert, but I think you need a hair light. Maybe a silver reflector would work better than white?

 

[mwcfarms]

Moving the light away from the subject will not make it less harsh. The closer the light to the subject the softer it is. Think of the sun. You might need to adjust your power. I would shoot throught the umbrella rather than bounce it out. I have found it tends to be softer going through than reflecting.

 

[jwbryson1]

I'm no portrait expert, but I think you need a hair light. Maybe a silver reflector would work better than white?

I was just saying the same thing to my wife. I only have 1 speedlight which limits what I can do. I was thinking of getting a couple of Vivitars or Nissin's or other off brand flashes since I'm on a limited budget, but I first need to understand how I can trigger them since they will not work wirelessly with Nikon's CLS.

Thanks for the comment.

 

[jwbryson1]

Moving the light away from the subject will not make it less harsh. The closer the light to the subject the softer it is. Think of the sun. You might need to adjust your power. I would shoot throught the umbrella rather than bounce it out. I have found it tends to be softer going through than reflecting.

Thanks. I am going to do some more portraits this afternoon on my wife and 7 month old daughter, and I'm going to convert to the shoot through umbrella and see how it looks.

Thanks for the comment.

 

[tirediron]

Good work so far. Your cheapest way of triggering additonal flashes will be with an optical trigger such as this. The only downside is that the optical sensor needs to be able to see the flash from the main unit. The other option is radio triggers; you can get into cheap ones for <$30 (Search "flash trigger" on eBay) or you can spend $250/unit and anything in between. These have much greater range, can be hidden, etc... The Cactus triggers are generally considered the best of the inexpensive radio triggers. Check out Craig's List for used flashes. They're cheap like borscht and available by the basketful. As long as they can be used in manual, they're fine.

 

[cgipson1]

I'm no portrait expert, but I think you need a hair light. Maybe a silver reflector would work better than white?

I was just saying the same thing to my wife. I only have 1 speedlight which limits what I can do. I was thinking of getting a couple of Vivitars or Nissin's or other off brand flashes since I'm on a limited budget, but I first need to understand how I can trigger them since they will not work wirelessly with Nikon's CLS.

Thanks for the comment.

Some of the YongNuo flashes claim to have an optical slave mode that ignores the preflash.. don't know how well it works. I have two 560's on order (for white background lighting) and will test them soon. Out of town next week on business.. but might be able to get to it next weekend. Amazon.com: Yongnuo YN-560 Speedlight Flash for Canon and Nikon: Camera & Photo ( I am trying to avoid having to order more PW's.. have four TT5's already, so hoping this works!)

 

[kundalini]

A few thoughts on the posing.....

Try having her turn her left shoulder slightly away from the camera (30-45° from lens axis). Currently, the pose is adding some tension. Also by this slight turn, it will give her an opportunity to not have to put her eyeballs in the corner of her eyesockets. A bit of white on either side of the iris is preferred. Otherwise, you get of a manic look.

If she is seated, try having her sit on her hip (near camera) rather than flat on her bottom. Additionally, a small footrest (4-8" - known as an apple crate) for her far camera foot will automatically give a new, fresh and more dynamic presence to the pose. A posing stand (anything out of frame will do) for her to rest her elbow upon will also change the dynamics because she will be leaning forward to the camera.

Smiling, happy, toothy expressions are not always necessary for portraiture.

Have a look at this posing tutorial.
The Rules Of Good Portraiture


I had more thoughts written down, but for some reason my 'puter decided to close the browser as I was hunting that tutorial. If it comes back to me, I'll add later.

 

[Noxire]

The Yongnuo-flashes works great for off camera flash, I have 2x yn560 and 2x460II that i have used without problems for about a year.

I'd suggest that you buy the yn560 even though they are a tad more expensive than the 460ii because; more power, a zoom funktion, and the optical trigger works outside in sunlight.
Also it's five YN560's for the price of one Canon 580ex

It's a cheapo-flash from china, but It's well worth the money imo.