Trying to pull off the white seamless look....

[Scatterbrained]

I don't envy people who shoot babies for a living. I don't know what's harder, getting her in the right spot on the floor or getting her to look at the camera. I think I'm going to rearrange my lights to try and get the background and floor area behind her with two lights which would free up a light for the foreground, hopefully making the process easier.

 

[MohaimenK]

they are really over exposed. wayyy over exposed

 

[carvinrocks2]

I have to agree with them being overexposed.

How do you get the "White seamless look?"

 

[gsgary]

You have got her too close to the background and light is reflecting from the background onto her

 

[kundalini]

You have got her too close to the background and light is reflecting from the background onto her

..... or you are getting wraparound light from the background lighting and they're too hot. You only need ~1 stop over your key light to make the background white. Flag the background lights so that it doesn't spill onto your subject. They may be a tad overexposed, but not drastically IMO.

I also think your key light is positioned too low. The catch lights run around the clock from 3:00 to 9:00 o'clock. Ideally they should stay in the 11:00 to 1:00 o'clock range.

Mind your framing. Awfully tight with the props and an arm and a leg there.

Still good work to improve on a little. :thumbsup:

 

[Dominantly]

I just did my first baby shoot this past weekend. I can say it was probably the most frustrating photo experience to date. Between the crying, moving out of position, and everything else, I can say I do not envy baby photographers one bit.

That being said, for a seamless white background you are going to want a sweep. You can use a white sheet, or you can invest in a cheap roll of Arctic White Background paper. I picked up a large roll from a local shop for $25. You can find different kits on all the photo equipment sites.
Next a really easy way to get that pure white look is to overexpose your shot by two stops. So I went in and set my flash to i-TTL and went +2 compensation in the settings. I just put the baby on a white bed sheet on my bed, stretched the sheet out so it just gradually sloped up, Bounced the flash off the ceiling, and took the shot.



This was more of a "he is awake and not yelling at me, hurry and get a shot" moment, but it worked. If you roll out a paper sweep, and put your baby 5 feet or so in front of the slope, you should should be all right. You can also break up the photo in PS and adjust the background while keeping your subject from changing dramatically, with some layers.

 

[Derrel]

I do not think these are overexposed too badly or inappropriately; it's a "creative exposure". Picture #3 IS QUITE SOLID. That would look outstanding as a canvas print.
As you can see, with a child of this age, occupying their little hands and minds keeps them localized and interacting with their props. Again, shot #3 would make a mother's heart melt.

As you can see, Kundalini is right: look at the sides of her cheeks,and the way the light is "wrapping" around them...that's coming from the background and the light bouncing off of it. That creates highlights on exposed skin, and can cause a lowering of contrast as the dark areas kind of flare a bit, but then again...it gives an "ethereal, heavenly" look to the background...almost as if the child is up in the clouds...some people really like that effect.

 

[Scatterbrained]

You have got her too close to the background and light is reflecting from the background onto her

..... or you are getting wraparound light from the background lighting and they're too hot. You only need ~1 stop over your key light to make the background white. Flag the background lights so that it doesn't spill onto your subject. They may be a tad overexposed, but not drastically IMO.

I also think your key light is positioned too low. The catch lights run around the clock from 3:00 to 9:00 o'clock. Ideally they should stay in the 11:00 to 1:00 o'clock range.

Mind your framing. Awfully tight with the props and an arm and a leg there.

Still good work to improve on a little. :thumbsup:

I do not think these are overexposed too badly or inappropriately; it's a "creative exposure". Picture #3 IS QUITE SOLID. That would look outstanding as a canvas print.
As you can see, with a child of this age, occupying their little hands and minds keeps them localized and interacting with their props. Again, shot #3 would make a mother's heart melt.

As you can see, Kundalini is right: look at the sides of her cheeks,and the way the light is "wrapping" around them...that's coming from the background and the light bouncing off of it. That creates highlights on exposed skin, and can cause a lowering of contrast as the dark areas kind of flare a bit, but then again...it gives an "ethereal, heavenly" look to the background...almost as if the child is up in the clouds...some people really like that effect.

yeah, I can definitely see the wrap, I had to move fast so I was just checking for the blinkies on the camera and making sure there were no warnings on her anywhere. I'm going to have to go back now and see if I can get better control. My setup is a 6x7 lastolite hi-light background that I bought recently and a 4x12 sheet of white plastic wall board from Lowes. I've got an Alien Bee b1600 in the Lastolite and another combined with a b800 lighting the transition between the lastolite and the floor. The problem with the lastolite is the difficulty with getting a seamless transition between the background and the floor. The key light is an Alien Bee ringflash mounted to my camera with my 24-70 at about 50mm.
I think that when I get another bout of free time I need to change the set up to get better control of wrap. Looking back I was using my vagabond as a test subject and I think the light that I was bouncing off the floor was just missing the top of it. I'm pretty sure that next time I may be able to get better control if I use one light for the transition and move the other to use on the subject.

 

[Scatterbrained]

....It's just more to work on.

 

[Derrel]

You could try using less light inside the hi-light background,and that'd probably cut down on the wrap. Using a lower-powered main light setting will also effectively boost the backdrop brightness (in terms of differential). If your main light were very low-powered, like say 50 watt-seconds, you could light the backdrop transition with 200 watt-seconds from two heads and have it pure,clean white. Lowering the main light's power level is an easy way to get this thing under control...the lower watt-seconds on the main will call for lower watt-seconds on the backdrop and the transition area, and will cut down on all that blowback.