Shooting Against a Black Background.

[rodnunley]

So I have two Yongnuo Speedlight YN460 II flashes with one DIY snoot/grid to use. THose are what I have been using to take some pictures against a black background.

The look that I am going for is this image from a local photographer that I know named David De Lara:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/delara/5722469833/in/photostream

The above is an amazing image and I am trying to learn about lighting by attempting to do a shot with a lighting set up like his. Now he had two Alien Bees and a softbox grid overlay. I know that I can't get the exact same set up (I do have a large softbox but no monolight as of yet ) with just my flashes ... but I'm trying.

So my first attempt was just under powered:

Without a modeling light it's so difficult to adjust the lighting properly. Also this image is clearly under lit.

I have one flash above and at 2 o' clock of the model (me) and the other flash at 8 o' clock of the model and angled up at lowest power setting.

For this one I turned off the back flash and turned up the power of the front flash.

It's better than the first.

For this one (the best of what I did today) I turned up the front flash to about half way and moved the back flash up to about hip height at 9 o' clock of the model.

I would love some feedback on ways that I might be able to improve the lighting I have going here. It's a struggle without a strobe with a modeling light (ordered one and will hopefully have it soon) but there must be more that I can do to get a better look from my existing lighting.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[TheBiles]

Try not to post images that aren't your own.

Sent from my HTC Glacier

 

[rodnunley]

Try not to post images that aren't your own.

Sent from my HTC Glacier

Will do. I was going to link to his webpage but it's not safe for work. Same with his flikr page. That's why I put his name so he would get credit. Should I just go ahead and remove it?

 

[Geaux]

Shoot a higher aperture f/14ish and bump that flash power up.

Example from some of my shots.

This one was f/20, but wasn't necessary. F/14 or 16 would have sufficed I'm sure.

 

[Geaux]

Try not to post images that aren't your own.

Sent from my HTC Glacier

Will do. I was going to link to his webpage but it's not safe for work. Same with his flikr page. That's why I put his name so he would get credit. Should I just go ahead and remove it?

The same link you used to post the image, just post that as a link. No need to post his website.

 

[rodnunley]

Shoot a higher aperture f/14ish and bump that flash power up.

Example from some of my shots.

This one was f/20, but wasn't necessary. F/14 or 16 would have sufficed I'm sure.

Awesome. I will try that.

 

[mrpink]

My lighting setup....


DSC_9968 by Matt Francosky, on Flickr

Resulting images...


S_P1BB by Matt Francosky, on Flickr


S_P3ww by Matt Francosky, on Flickr

I totally agree about stopping way down if you are looking for that low key lighting look. I did these a while back (self portrait) and believe they were shot at either f/11 or f/16 in a completely blacked out basement.




p!nK

 

[Big Mike]

The first thing you need to figure out, is the exposure. That has nothing to do with modeling lights.
It looks like you are starting to figure it out, but this is something that you should get right before trying to worry about the other stuff.

I doesn't sound like you have a flash meter, so you'll have to figure it out another way. Guessing & testing isn't ideal, but it should get you close enough.

Keep in mind that for flash exposure, you can use the aperture, the ISO, the power of the flash or the distance from the flash (not the shutter speed).

 

[TheBiles]

Use your flash guide numbers to determine flash power.

 

[Derrel]

Looks to me that you are simply under-exposing your shots...not enough flash power, or too low of an ISO setting, or too small an aperture, or any combination of those three things...

 

[rodnunley]

I love how everyone has a sort of different answer on how they would approach the issue. It's a lot of great advice and now I just have to sort through it all.

It doesn't help that I struggle with math ... ugh.

Also ... the guide I have claims a guide number of 34 for my flash. Now I just have to do the research and see what that means.

I love doing things like this though. It shows that I still have a lot to learn but at least I am seeing the results of working out how to do this stuff.

 

[Aye-non Oh-non Imus]

Without a modeling light it's so difficult to adjust the lighting properly. Also this image is clearly under lit.

Best advice I can offer, and I hope you take this in the manner that is intended, don't post crap shots for C&C. Why did you include #1? You already mentioned that it is underexposed (badly), so that's a no-brainer. If you can't bump the exposure in post, dump it to the recycle bin. Secondly, (still on #1) why are you posting an image about lighting when you have clearly missed the target, the face, and lit the chest? I highly doubt that was your intention, otherwise there would be other elements within the image to better define your subject. Again another perfect reason to dump this image in the recycle bin.

The other two images are worthy of discussion, but #1 makes me wonder about your ability to self-critique. I don't mean to be offensive, just trying to understand.

 

[gsgary]

Looking at your examples it shows you have not studied the shot in the link properly, he has 2 lights opposite each other, 1 high and from behind her left shoulder as a hair light and his softbox opposite at the front, the back light is harder than the front light. You could use one from behind and above with the flash zoomed to about 70mm at 1/2 power and one opposite zoomed at about 50mm bounced off some white card at full power dial it down to suit, try setting your camera to iso100, 1/125, F8 and see what you get

This shot uses a similar technique, but different tools

 

[rodnunley]

Without a modeling light it's so difficult to adjust the lighting properly. Also this image is clearly under lit.

Best advice I can offer, and I hope you take this in the manner that is intended, don't post crap shots for C&C. Why did you include #1? You already mentioned that it is underexposed (badly), so that's a no-brainer. If you can't bump the exposure in post, dump it to the recycle bin. Secondly, (still on #1) why are you posting an image about lighting when you have clearly missed the target, the face, and lit the chest? I highly doubt that was your intention, otherwise there would be other elements within the image to better define your subject. Again another perfect reason to dump this image in the recycle bin.

The other two images are worthy of discussion, but #1 makes me wonder about your ability to self-critique. I don't mean to be offensive, just trying to understand.

I included #1 to illustrate how the lighting itself looked in the different ways I was shooting. These were all test images so that I could show what I was (and clearly wasn't) doing so I could seek guidance from others in a photography forum.

And correct me if I'm wrong but this is supposed to be a forum about learning photography. So I thought it might be appropriate to show both what I was doing correctly and what I was doing incorrectly.

This isn't directed solely at you but I get pretty aggravated with some of the smug and often times rude responses that people give out here. There are a lot of very nice people around here that continue to share their advice for free (which I know lots of us appreciate). But there are also a lot of people who want to be snarky for no real purpose.

Of course the first image is crap ... but isn't talking about what is wrong with an image also a valuable way of learning? Isn't there value in talking about why something is crap so that something can be learned from it?

Just my two cents.

 

[rodnunley]

Looking at your examples it shows you have not studied the shot in the link properly, he has 2 lights opposite each other, 1 high and from behind her left shoulder as a hair light and his softbox opposite at the front, the back light is harder than the front light. You could use one from behind and above with the flash zoomed to about 70mm at 1/2 power and one opposite zoomed at about 50mm bounced off some white card at full power dial it down to suit, try setting your camera to iso100, 1/125, F8 and see what you get

This shot uses a similar technique, but different tools

Thanks for your input and advice. I have a couple of questions though.

When you say the back light is "harder" do you mean more powerful? So the front light is dialed lower than the back light?

I will try shooting with your suggestions tonight. Thanks again.