First Post Here, C&C is MUCH appreciated

[bazooka]

First I'd like to say, I've been trolling this forum for a bit and am very impressed by the maturity and knowledgeable responses in general. It seems you all actually know what you're talking about unlike another forum I frequent which usually just turns into a flame war. I'm eager to learn from your input.

I've been learning OCF, mostly reading, but some actual practice. I setup my gear in my living room in front of my Christmas tree partially to create a fun pic for my wife and partially to practice with my 550EX which I just got from craigslist.

This is the best of the group of shots, mostly had trouble because my remote battery died so I had to run back to the camera after every shot to chimp and get the dog situated and hit the shutter, run back, find my spot, smile. :) That got tiresome after a while.

Please let me know what you think, particularly the light setup and the color. If I get specific input, I can setup the shot again and make adjustments, and post the outcome.

f/2.8
1/30
ISO 200
100mm (x1.6)

Umbrella camera left, 45 degrees onto me, about 3 feet away, full CTO.
Straight flash, about two feet right of camera for fill, full CTO.
Straight flash right and behind, about eye level.

[hue-e]

I might have put that last flast (behind), on the left to put a nice rim on the dog, to separate him from the background... or even just move that one flash behind the both of you to keep you both separated from the bg. also, overall, I might have come up a stop on your camera and maybe desaturate slightly in post.

but I wouldn't consider myself a seasoned pro... those guys might have a better answer.

[ldelacruz]

It looks soft most likely because you had to prefocus but if you have the power try to shoot at f5.6 or smaller for more DOF, 1/100 or above on the shutter. Also raise your lights above eye level. Check your shadows to give you the right height.

[HFMarshburnJR]

Some things to think about -
1. The main is set on camera left and a little low. And you have your dog on camera left slightly in front of you (between the main and you). That is probably not going to put the dog's shadow where you want it. Move your main to camera right, and higher (as previously suggested). Move your fill above the camera and pointed down. That should put your shadows out of the frame.

2. It looks like the dogs eyes are in focus while yours are soft. Shooting wide open is going to give you a sliver of DOF at that distance, so the solution to that issue would be to lean slightly forward so your face and the dogs face are essentially on the same plane.

3. The hair light is pointed at your left ear instead of higher up on your head where you are losing separation with the christmas tree. It is also adding to your fill because it is pointed too far forward. If it were me, I would feather it toward the treee.

4. You are shooting at ISO 200 at 1/30th. I would bump the ISO to 800, which would give you 1/125th, which should take care of the motion blur.

All of these suggestions are specific things I would do to improve on the image. That is what you requested. It is a good start. Keep on practicing!

HFM

[bazooka]

Awsome guys!! I can tell I'm going to love this forum.

Originally Posted by hue-e

I might have put that last flast (behind), on the left to put a nice rim on the dog, to separate him from the background... or even just move that one flash behind the both of you to keep you both separated from the bg. also, overall, I might have come up a stop on your camera and maybe desaturate slightly in post.

So you think I should try moving it to more of a direct backlight position behind us to produce rim lighting instead of a 'kicker' (I guess it's called)?

I also now see what you mean about the saturation. I added a gaussian blur layer in overlay which tends to over saturate things.... I like it because it creates a glow and softens things, but I have to turn the opacity down to like 20% or it's way too saturated and way too much contrast. Should I add some desaturation on top of this or am I doing it wrong?

Originally Posted by ldelacruz

It looks soft most likely because you had to prefocus but if you have the power try to shoot at f5.6 or smaller for more DOF, 1/100 or above on the shutter. Also raise your lights above eye level. Check your shadows to give you the right height.

I had my aperture low to get the bokeh as large as possible from the lights, but if you think have a greater DoF would benefit more, then I'll try it.

Originally Posted by HFMarshburnJR

Some things to think about -
1. The main is set on camera left and a little low. And you have your dog on camera left slightly in front of you (between the main and you). That is probably not going to put the dog's shadow where you want it. Move your main to camera right, and higher (as previously suggested). Move your fill above the camera and pointed down. That should put your shadows out of the frame.

How do I know at what height I should have the key? Is it just an issue with the dogs shadow on this particular shot, or is there another problem the height is causing? The light itself is about 45 degrees and the umbrella is fairly close. Is there something I should be looking for when setting height?

2. It looks like the dogs eyes are in focus while yours are soft. Shooting wide open is going to give you a sliver of DOF at that distance, so the solution to that issue would be to lean slightly forward so your face and the dogs face are essentially on the same plane.

I was trying to keep us on the same plane, but it was hit and miss just getting one of us on the plane at 2.8. I will try 5.6 next go-around, but it leads me to the question I ask after #4...

3. The hair light is pointed at your left ear instead of higher up on your head where you are losing separation with the christmas tree. It is also adding to your fill because it is pointed too far forward. If it were me, I would feather it toward the treee.

You're right, it is pointed at my ear basically. I see now that my hair is getting lost in the tree. I'll point it toward the back more. I was also getting some glare from the light I think, even with a flag...errr, I mean a metal folding chair propped against my coffee table. :)

4. You are shooting at ISO 200 at 1/30th. I would bump the ISO to 800, which would give you 1/125th, which should take care of the motion blur.

I actually didn't see the motion blur, I'm guessing my eyes aren't trained to see it like yours are. I thought that using the flash would take care of any blur though, is this not correct? I was not using second curtain though... my camera won't do it with OCF, at least I don't think it will.

I didn't want to do 800 because the 40D gets very noticeable noise there, I was trying to minimize this as much as possible. But blur is worse than noise. I just didn't see the blur. Could you point it out so I'll know what to look for next time?

Again, thank you all very much. There is plenty for me to change next time. Perhaps tomorrow when I get home from work, I'll set it all back up and try again.

[HFMarshburnJR]

I will try and give you my take on the second round of questions below:
1. The main is set on camera left and a little low. And you have your dog on camera left slightly in front of you (between the main and you). That is probably not going to put the dog's shadow where you want it. Move your main to camera right, and higher (as previously suggested). Move your fill above the camera and pointed down. That should put your shadows out of the frame.

How do I know at what height I should have the key? Is it just an issue with the dogs shadow on this particular shot, or is there another problem the height is causing? The light itself is about 45 degrees and the umbrella is fairly close. Is there something I should be looking for when setting height?

It is all about making the shadows fall where you want them to and getting the light in all the areas that you want the light to hit. In this case, I would want the shadows from you and the dog to fall down and out of the frame. The way to do that is to raise the key up slightly above head height.

2. It looks like the dogs eyes are in focus while yours are soft. Shooting wide open is going to give you a sliver of DOF at that distance, so the solution to that issue would be to lean slightly forward so your face and the dogs face are essentially on the same plane.

I was trying to keep us on the same plane, but it was hit and miss just getting one of us on the plane at 2.8. I will try 5.6 next go-around, but it leads me to the question I ask after #4...

OK

3. The hair light is pointed at your left ear instead of higher up on your head where you are losing separation with the christmas tree. It is also adding to your fill because it is pointed too far forward. If it were me, I would feather it toward the treee.

You're right, it is pointed at my ear basically. I see now that my hair is getting lost in the tree. I'll point it toward the back more. I was also getting some glare from the light I think, even with a flag...errr, I mean a metal folding chair propped against my coffee table. :)

4. You are shooting at ISO 200 at 1/30th. I would bump the ISO to 800, which would give you 1/125th, which should take care of the motion blur.

I actually didn't see the motion blur, I'm guessing my eyes aren't trained to see it like yours are. I thought that using the flash would take care of any blur though, is this not correct? I was not using second curtain though... my camera won't do it with OCF, at least I don't think it will.

I didn't want to do 800 because the 40D gets very noticeable noise there, I was trying to minimize this as much as possible. But blur is worse than noise. I just didn't see the blur. Could you point it out so I'll know what to look for next time?

I always have the flash set for rear curtain. Always. That way, the last thing the sensor sees should be frozen by the flash. As far as the blur I see, it could be caused by a variety of things (artifact from sizing for the web, inadequate DOF, motion, etc.) It is probably fairer to say that what I see is softness at the edges - look at your hairline, the edges of your arm on the dog side, the area around your eyes. All of these look soft - if that is what you were going for, then there is no problem. If not, getting yourself a little more shutter speed would probably help. I have a buddy who has shot with a 4oD for a long time, and he never complained too much about noise at ISO 800 unless he was doing long exposures. Give it a try - digital film is cheap!

Hope this helps. Like I said, you are off to a good start.

[doctahjones]

here's the hard part about your shot: you are "white", your dog is "black". you aren't going to -properly- exposure for both of you.

personally here's how i would have set that shot up.

main/key light positioned camera left, about 45 deg up & 45 degree left (10 and/or 2 as Don Barnes used to say), with umbrella 2-3 feet from subject, full power. set aperture to at f5.6, iso 100, adjust shutter to get proper exposure for your face. don't worry about shutter speed so much, as with that high of a f stop and low lighting, the flash 'speed' becomes your shutter 'speed'.

rim/hair light directly opposite main/key, same height as main, no umbrella, 1/2 power, 5-6 feet away. basically you're making a circle with a slash through it (like on no u turn signs), with you almost in the middle of the circle. (make sense?).

get as much distance as you can between the subject and the tree to get a soft background. change to a shorter lens if needed. but this is all just my opinion. everyone has the way they like to do things.

that's how i did our fugly xmas sweater picture (we were really trying to go overboard here). only 2 studio lights. one umbrella and one bare they opposite each other. i don't have the original right this second so no exif, but i think i was at like 1/15 or less for shutter (so i could catch the fire), f5.6, iso 100. notice how we seem pretty crisp even though it was such a low shutter.

[Steve Balderrama]

Originally Posted by doctahjones

here's the hard part about your shot: you are "white", your dog is "black". you aren't going to -properly- exposure for both of you.

Not sure I get this comment. Yeah, if you are using reflective meters you'll have to adjust, but an incident reading will be right. There is a "right" exposure for this scene, unless you want to make the dog unnaturally bright, correct?

IMO the biggest issues with the photo are the slight softness and the lack of separation from the background, especially obviously with the dog. If that dog was at the exact same exposure but on a light background I think he'd look fine.

[bazooka]

Thanks for the follow up comments guys. I did the setup again and changed the following:

Key w/umbrella moved to opposite side
Backlight moved to opposite side
f/2.8 -> f/5.6
Moved a bit further from the tree to compensate for aperture change ( can't get much further away because the tree is becoming too small and I'm up against a refrigerator).
Only used a quarter or half CTO on key to make the backlight less blue.
Used ISO 800, but I was still at 1/30 because of the aperture change.

I haven't processed the pics yet but I still don't like how they turned out... I think even worse than the first ones. One thing I did try though as recommended previously was moving the backlight directly behind me, blocking it from the camera, and it created a rather harsh highlight around us, almost like we had be pasted into the shot. It certainly helped separate, but maybe too much.

I also tried turning the backlight around and just hitting hte wall behind the tree. I think this worked better. Originally, I was worried that having light on the tree would lessen the affect of the christmas lights, but I may be wrong here. It didn't lessen the affect, but it did separate my head and the dogs head from the background.

I realize this is a difficult shot with me with dark hair, and the black dog against a lightless (as attempted before anyway) background (tree), so for some of the shots I just left the dog out to make it easier and faster for me. I also got a remote battery so that helped a lot.

I'll post some of the better shots this weekend. Thanks again for helping me out.

[bazooka]

And another thing I noticed, when I look at my posted image on my work computer (IE8 32-bit), it looks overly saturated, but at home (IE8 64-bit) it looks fine. I don't know if this is a colorspace issue or a monitor calibration issue. I'll have to investigate this.

[doctahjones]

Originally Posted by Steve Balderrama

Not sure I get this comment. Yeah, if you are using reflective meters you'll have to adjust, but an incident reading will be right. There is a "right" exposure for this scene, unless you want to make the dog unnaturally bright, correct?

IMO the biggest issues with the photo are the slight softness and the lack of separation from the background, especially obviously with the dog. If that dog was at the exact same exposure but on a light background I think he'd look fine.

with todays camera technology, it is impossible to -properly- expose for highlights (Tim) and shadows (dog) at the same time. this is why hdr style exists. i'm sure in another 10 years sensors will be at the point where it would be possible though.

with a single shot you can find a middle ground, but neither would be properly exposed. post processing also helps alot to make it look better, but straight off the camera it can't be done.

[doctahjones]

Originally Posted by bazooka

And another thing I noticed, when I look at my posted image on my work computer (IE8 32-bit), it looks overly saturated, but at home (IE8 64-bit) it looks fine. I don't know if this is a colorspace issue or a monitor calibration issue. I'll have to investigate this.

i'm betting it's a color profile issue. i want to say by default IE uses the windows color profile instead of srgb and such.

[Phisch]

Originally Posted by doctahjones

that's how i did our fugly xmas sweater picture (we were really trying to go overboard here). only 2 studio lights. one umbrella and one bare they opposite each other. i don't have the original right this second so no exif, but i think i was at like 1/15 or less for shutter (so i could catch the fire), f5.6, iso 100. notice how we seem pretty crisp even though it was such a low shutter.

just a little OT...

*That* is awesome!

[texxter]

with todays camera technology, it is impossible to -properly- expose for highlights (Tim) and shadows (dog) at the same time. this is why hdr style exists. i'm sure in another 10 years sensors will be at the point where it would be possible though.

with a single shot you can find a middle ground, but neither would be properly exposed. post processing also helps alot to make it look better, but straight off the camera it can't be done.

This is not quite right. I think you're confusing dynamic range and reflectivity, and these are two different things. A white object and a black object receiving the same amount of light will be exposed properly when the exposure is determined by an incident meter. They have different reflectivity, that's one shows as light colored and the other as dark or black.

However, if you have two objects, regardless of their reflectivity, one of which is exposed to massive amount of lights, like f/32 and the other is in darkness but with detail visible to the eye, then the dynamic range of digital sensors will not be able to capture the complete range, i.e., making the bright areas look bright while at the same time making the dark areas appear with some detail. The eye has the ability than digital sensors or film, to process correctly wide variations in illumination.

HDR allows you to artifically extend the dynamic range of the light capturing device so that areas with different levels of illumination can still show detail.