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Help with portrait lighting??
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Hi, Can anyone provide tips on where i may have gone wrong here,
I was looking to get the background a perfect white however most shots seem to have a hue in the background.
When I increase the white balance, I loose the picture detail.
I am using a white backdrop with two studio lights and a Canon 40D.
Any tips on camera and light settings to achieve a white background would be appreciated.Hi Stephen
How far is your subject from the background? How many strobes? Soft box? Umbrella…loads of question in this equation.
You could gel your flash (CTO) used for the subject and go tungsten in camera or…use a lastolite HiLite box :)
You could also place one flash (bare flash) right behind your subject and blast the background to kingdom come :)
And by the way. You don’t increase the wb to get the background lighter or whiter. The shutter speed controls that.taken with..more or less this
EDIT..sorry I did not see you mentioned already you are using 2 strobes. Place one in front of the subject ( right or left depends on mood and where is your subject looking) and the second one behind the subject. The reason you cannot get a white background is called inverse square law. You could get the background white if you place the light right against your subject and the subject right agains the background but even then you will have a slight difference in the f/stop between subject and background. Easiest way. One strobe for the subject and second behind subject.
Thanks photOvidiu, I have 2 x softboxes, If I place one in front of the subject, would this not give a shadow effect on the white canvas. Also, you mentioned placing the second light behind the subject. Where exactly should the light point, directly at the canvas from the side? I notice in your attachments you have two softboxes which appear to point to the front of a subject.
If i used the two lights pointing to the back of the canvas from both sides and a flashgun on the camera, would you think this would give the desired effect?.P.S, The attached photo looks very good and is exactly what I need to achieve,
On another note, where did you get the backdrop from?, I have a white muslum backdrop but very hard to reduce creasing, is yours paper / portable.
Many thanks for your help.Stephen.
You are right. If you place one light in front of your subject then you will get shadows on the background. But this is where the second light come in place. set the second light +1.5 or +2 stops higher then the main one and place it right behind your subject orientated towards the background. Allow for some separation between your subject and the background otherwise you will get chromatic aberration around your subject and strong highlights around your subject. I hope you shot manual and not TTL because this is where most of photographers are doing it wrong. The camera will try to turn the white in gray..since this is what its been thought to do :).I noticed that with kids, a clamshell set-up works much better then traditional 45degree left and right. Gives them a nice skin glow and certainly makes the eyes pop :) If you look at the attached photo you will see the position of the lights reflected in her eyes. I ALWAYS place the light as close I can to the subject. This will give you the best light quality possible and will allow me to control the background intensity ( inverse square law again ;) )
The attachment shows two lights but did not show the bare flash I placed behind the subject. In my case I put the flash ( actually 2 SB900 inside the HiLite). Google Lastolite HiLite if you are not familiar with this product.
Wow, fantastic shots again. Will take your advice and post back. Just one more question, is there a need to use a speedlight attachment for portraits or should I rely purely on the softboxes without any camera flash?. Thanks again mate.
HI Stephen
I apologise if I did not understand your answer and also for my English (not my primary language)
“is there a need to use a speedlight attachment for portraits or should I rely purely on the softboxes without any camera flash?”
Do you mean if there is any special speedlight attachment designed exclusively for portraits? Answer..LOADS. You could use an Orbis, Ringflash…etc. You could also use a Snoot, Gobo or why not shoot through a glass :). The effects are amazing. The need for all these attachments depends only on the mood you want to achieve. Both photos posted have been taken with 2 softboxes. The one with the black background had a speedlight positioned somewhere behind and on the right side of the model. The speedlight was an sb900, bare flash, no attachment, zoomed at 200 and pointed at her hair to create a bit of separation between her hair and the black background. I could have use a snoot but did not have one.
What size are your softboxes? Do you use them with speedlights or with monoblocks When it comes about softboxes, size really matters 8) . The bigger the better. One good tip: I noticed that you get better quality light if you don’t point the light straight at your subject. Make sure that you wash the face with the light instead of bathing it completely in light. To make myself clear, point the light 5degrees left or right of your subject face.Experiment with one light position, understand what happen and why does it happen and then move on to another one.
Let me know if I can be of any more help.
Ovidiu
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