Trying to get better with location lighting 1 for cc

[TylerF]

forced my brother to sit still for a few minutes while i tried to get a better handle on location lighting. I am trying to get as much practice in as possible because a girl from work wants me to shoot some engagement photos. let me know what you think!

 

[tirediron]

Not bad; need a little more detail in the hair and a bit more DoF I think.

 

[TylerF]

it was taken at f/3.2 on my screen, the hair has a bit of detail. could be my screen though. thanks!

 

[tyler_h]

I think he looks fairly well lit, but if you had brighter light on him you could bring him up to the background level so you don't have a blown sky. Spot meter skin then fill flash along with the reflector use?

That being said I'm a complete noob when it comes to lighting portraits. Had my first go with reflector/fill flash yesterday and once I get time to run through some PP I'll be posting for critique too.

 

[Raian-san]

I think his face is a bit soft, and the background looks like you photoshop him in there. He's well lit though but like tirediron said, more details on his hair. Try to get some background that's not too distracting, anyways that's my opinion. Good shot though, keep shooting!

 

[TylerF]

well i tried my hand at some skin softening, that could be partly whe he looks soft. when i had it blown up on my screen, you could see almost every pore lol. also, tinypic ruins IQ. i was trying to figure out a way to get rid of the blown out sky but whenever i exposed for the sky, underexposed by 2 stops, the light was never strong enough or wouldnt go off due to sync time. i know the BG is distracting, but i was more focused on the lighting. thanks though!

 

[Raian-san]

What skin softening did you use? Maybe tone down the opacity a bit? Yeah I know how it's like when you're shooting just like when I take a photo and post it on here and people saying watch out for background! But yeah that background is not good for portraits. Next time, find a background that's not very distracting, and mess around with it.

P.S. That pose looks like a middle or senior HS yearbook so that's why background is very distracting. I'm bad at poses too so take my critique with a grain of salt.

 

[TylerF]

i was surprised i finally got him to look at the camera for a second lol. then he was like "it's like im getting pictures taken at school" haha. like i said, these were taken in my front yard so i knew going into it my background was going to be bad lol.