Testing Some New Gear - C&C Appreciated...

[BirdyIsMe]

Hi, guys. A couple weeks ago, I ordered a 50" Westcott Apollo softbox, and I got to try it out today. I was using an SB-28 triggered by some eBay triggers. 50mm f/1.4 on a 7D. I grabbed one of my parents' dogs, and had my wife hold her for some test shots.

Your thoughts are appreciated. The only thing that is bothering me is that I would've preferred the backdrop to be a little further out of focus. I didn't notice that until I saw it on my laptop, and it's an easy fix on a re-shoot. Anything else worth working on?

 

[matt62485]

im not too savvy on potraits, so i may be wrong here. but perhaps some more light on the left? looks a little soft around her cheeks to me.

not bad though. i cant wait to get money and work on some lighting

 

[Derrel]

Hey Mike!
That new handle threw me for a second! I quickly opened up the image in PS to look at it. I thought, like Matt, that it needed some fill lighting on the left hand side and in her hair, so I wanted to see if it could be fixed by a curves lift or a simple exposure +, but no, it didn't want to "fix". I think the camera's tone curve or the conversion from CR2 is just a tad bit too-contrasty. I quickly tried adjusting the exposure upwards to see if it was under-exposed, but the dog quickly burned out. I then peeked at the RGB channels in Levels, individually, and saw that the exposure was not grossly under--but it looked like you had adjusted the levels after capture, and so I tried a curves lift just to see if I could "perfect" the shadowed side, but that didn't work too well. Which is what makes me think the camera was set up with too-steep of a tone curve or that the conversion from CR2 was done with too steep of a tone curve.

I agree with you about the backdrop being too much in focus; whatever that is (wallpaper?) it has a lot of visual "pull" to it, and it does distract from the two subjects. I do like how large the catchlights are from that 50 inch box! BIG and easy to see catchlights. I think clients will like the look of shots done with a big softbox. Looking at the overall exposure, it seems like the background is receiving a lot of window light or something--the backdrop seems a bit brighter than it should, at least in my mind...
Without DXIF data, it's hard to know what the sync speed was, but it seems like the backdrop might sublimate in tonal value more if the sync speed were faster,or there were less light hitting the backdrop.