Strobist portrait, C & C please

[Reefing]

Have been reading as much as I can about off camera flash and trying out different things. Looking for some C & C please.

Strobist info:
SB 600 shoot through umbrella above camera right, 1/16 pwr, fired CLS
Reflector below

Niki

 

[Samanax]

Your exif says you shot this at ISO 1600...that's way too high. For flash you can use ISO 100 to keep the noise out of your images...noise will decrease the amount of clean detail in your images.

Watch out when you bring in light from below your subject...it tends to make them have a surprised look on their face.

 

[Reefing]

Thanks for the comment,

The 1600 ISO was a mistake, forgot to reset from shooting in low light the night before, only to realize once I loaded the photos onto the computer.

Where would you recommend the reflector go to fill in below the eyes? A little off to the opposite side?

 

[Samanax]

I'm still learning about studio type lighting and have never used reflectors (yet). Check out the information on these web sites:

Portrait Lighting Basics

PortraitLighting.net

Lighting - Light Like a Butterfly

Portrait Lighting For Beginners: Introduction

Portrait Lighting For Beginners: Portraits With One Light

Portrait Photography Lighting 101

 

[jlykins]

I know that you were shooting it in manual, but if you decide to use TTL remember that it works best at ISO400 or above indoors(or dimmly lit) and below ISO400 outdoors(or well lit). Just an fyi...

 

[revilo]

The first thing that I thought is that the flash has really picked out the stray hairs. Maybe next time ask your model to brush their hair?
Other than this I don't see anything wrong with it: it's a natural-looking pose, you've got a catchlight in the eyes, the lighting is even without being boring, and you've managed to make the model look attractive.

 

[Reefing]

Thanks for the comments. I did not know that about TTL and ISO in low light situations, thanks for the tip.

It's funny, she commented about the flyaways once we had the photos on the computer but you could hardly notice them while we were shooting.