SOoooo discouraged.

[twoboysnmygirl]

Yesterday I had a shoot with a friend who is pregnant. My lighting SUCKS. Not only was it a chore, it took forever, and I just could not get the light to do anything I wanted. I am having to heavily edit my shots, and even though she likes them, I'm feeling like this is making something I love a chore. I don't have the money to get the lighting and equipment I want, so I feel like I'm just stuck.

I have a backdrop, 2 umbrella lights, and a light with no umbrella. I don't even have an off camera flash, and some of my shots were so dark that I couldn't clean up the noise and fix them without ruining the picture or horrible shadows.

Here are a couple, I'm not really asking for C&C, more advice on light. I know there are a lot of issues. Yes, I'm aware in the yoga pose, her head is cut off. She works with pregnant women and wanted some shots that weren't "her", but just a body.

I don't know what I'm asking for, support I guess. I'm broke and frustrated and hating something I love b/c I can't get my shots to look the way they are in my head. Sigh...

this one I just decided that since it was dark, I would work with what I had and use it to my advantage.

Maybe I'm just meant to take outdoor shots forever. :er: and somehow I suck at B&W. I don't know if I don't have the eye or what, but it's one of the hardest edits for me is B&W.

 

[fudsylow]

Shots aren't too bad..
My advice... go onto ebay and purchase an off camera trigger for a flash unit... mine cost about $30 from Singapore... purchase a really cheap flash unit. Any brand. You can get flash units by unheard of brands pretty cheaply that will still flash enough to light a single subject in a lit, or a dark room..
You then have remote off camera flash.
Learn to shoot in manual mode (as there won't be TTL). Shoot the flash across your subject. YOu can then play around with lighting or not lighting your background etc..
If you want to use with ambient light, no problems... use natural soft light coming in through a window, move your subject away from the background and shoot the subject with a longer lens (allowing the background to still be the only background you get in the image)... playing with extra lighting or not lighting the background will then change your mood of the image...
You can also buy a cheap reflector (5 way pop up type) on ebay for about $20 from hong kong....
Use this on a chair or have a friend/assistant hold it (to keep costs down), to fill any shadow areas a little...

And KEEP AT IT !!!! Often you will get little bits of advice, put them in to practice and think to yourself, why didn't I do that before !

Good luck, and don't get too disheartened.. your images are nice, and by learning to play with light more, you will get some wonderful images as you experiment...

Cheers
Rich

 

[twoboysnmygirl]

Thanks Rich, I have a reflector and was actually having another friend help, but I swear the bulbs that came with my kit (I think they are 5500's) barely give off any light and you really couldn't see much difference with it. Her house was VERY dark, so that didn't help, and I just felt so...CLUNKY? about everything.

I already shoot in Manual, so hopefully learning to use an OCF won't be too hard. I have an OCF in my wish list at Amazon, it's a Vivitar DF283, anyone have good or bad reviews of it? Wish I could get a speedlite, but that's just not going to happen. I had found a softbox for 42 that I could use, but I feel like I just keep adding and I'm concerned that it's hindering my creativity, when it should be helping? Maybe I'm just in a bad headspace. Sorry for rambling...

 

[twoboysnmygirl]

and I'm frustrated with my white balance. Even though I shot in RAW, when I go to fix it, there's no option to choose "shi**y lighting" when adjusting it. I'm fairly sure that's not a setting on any camera. :gah:

 

[nahtanoj]

sorry your shoot sucked. but, i think the shots are pretty darn good. i especially like #3.

 

[Destin]

look into yonguo yn460 flashes on ebay. Performs almost as good as a nikon sb-600, but it only costs around $40.

Also, umbrellas are cheaper than softboxes, and provide light thats almost as soft, in my opinion. You can get an umbrella on ebay for less than $10. Then a lightstand and umbrella adapter head is another $30-40.

For triggers, I like the ctr-301p model. Search for it on ebay and you'll find it easily. I paid $50 for a trigger and 3 recievers.

None of this is great quality stuff, but it get's the job done pretty well in most cases.

 

[fokker]

look into yonguo yn460 flashes on ebay. Performs almost as good as a nikon sb-600, but it only costs around $40.

Also, umbrellas are cheaper than softboxes, and provide light thats almost as soft, in my opinion. You can get an umbrella on ebay for less than $10. Then a lightstand and umbrella adapter head is another $30-40.

For triggers, I like the ctr-301p model. Search for it on ebay and you'll find it easily. I paid $50 for a trigger and 3 recievers.

None of this is great quality stuff, but it get's the job done pretty well in most cases.

+1 for the ctr-310p triggers, I also have the trigger and 3 receivers. Can't fault them really and for $50 they open up a new world of possibilities.

 

[vtf]

I tied to give the picture a soft glow while sharpening her alittle. The overall picture I believe to be soft due to 1.8 aperature used. You can dial down the shutter speed down to 1/50 to 1/60 and this will allow a better iso or aperature. Personally I would shoot in RAW and close down the aperature to 3 or 4 and deal with noise when I process the RAW image. I believe you might get a shaper image. Lots of lamps will help too just to light the room not necessarily to shine on her.

 

[Zrock]

sorry your shoot sucked. but, i think the shots are pretty darn good. i especially like #3.

Im with this one i like 3 it may not have turned out the way you wanted it but i like the way the belly just sort of glows

 

[twoboysnmygirl]

I tied to give the picture a soft glow while sharpening her alittle. The overall picture I believe to be soft due to 1.8 aperature used. You can dial down the shutter speed down to 1/50 to 1/60 and this will allow a better iso or aperature. Personally I would shoot in RAW and close down the aperature to 3 or 4 and deal with noise when I process the RAW image. I believe you might get a shaper image. Lots of lamps will help too just to light the room not necessarily to shine on her.

Thanks! Yep, my problem is that I don't think I'm processing noise right. When I try to clear up noise (in NX2 or PS4) it just blurs everything too much and then when I sharpen, I still see noise. And, it smooths their skin out so much that they look fake. Is there a trick to PP noise? It was much worse when her children were involved b/c they were moving. I barely got a good shot of them and the background looked horrible b/c I didn't have enough light.

I did try to use light in the room, but they were very warm bulbs and really just messed with the color of the shot in general.

I'm off to look at those suggestions! Thanks

 

[vtf]

Take your subject and place a bright light (or off camera flash) angled to the right front of your subject. You stand angled to the left front side of your subject. Set camera at f3.2, shutter at 1/100 and iso at 100 in manual. Set focus and use your onboard flash. Have subject 2 to 3 feet from a black background. The below image was taken at those settings using an off camera flash to my left. This is unedited and only saved to jpeg and resized for here. The one on the right is same settings with a 500 watt work light not flash. The wb is off but as said I really didnt edit.

 

[twoboysnmygirl]

Thanks for the visual! I tried to use my on camera flash a few times with my diffuser and got red eye, of all things! I don't think I've ever had that problem.


In reference to the Yongnuo...does it matter that it does not work in TTL mode? I'm so new to flash that I'm unsure.

 

[Blake.Oney]

TTL is auto for flashes. Shooting manual with flash just adds one more thing to the equation. Since you're already shooting in manual you should pick it up fairly quick.

 

[twoboysnmygirl]

TTL is auto for flashes. Shooting manual with flash just adds one more thing to the equation. Since you're already shooting in manual you should pick it up fairly quick.

Oh good, thanks for explaining!

 

[KmH]

+1 for the ctr-310p triggers, I also have the trigger and 3 receivers. Can't fault them really and for $50 they open up a new world of possibilities.

Do those use the CR2 batteries, instead of AA?