#5 People Lighting: Kirsty Resubmit

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:53 am

Kirsty very kindly posed for me again. I had to put some tables togeather for the tripod to sit on this time to get the height. Went for the colour selection but have had a go at converting to b/w.

Settings

Olympus SP-500UZ
ISO 200 1/25 f3.4

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 3:41 pm

The quality of the light is very nice.

There are strong verticles in the shot but they do not bother me at all.

Nice color and a neat, sly look on her face.

What does she think of this?

NOTE: With window light, you don't move the light to change the effect, you move the subject. So if you are not happy with the effect of the light, you move the subject.

Nice job. This is an excellent light for portraits and especially for digital as the lighting is soft and easy to record in the hightlights.

Take another stab at using this lighting but use it for a still life instead. Add a reflector for fill.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:31 am

I did like using this lighting and used a lot of the memory taking the shots, getting the conversion right was another matter, i did follow the instructions that i was given from a post i placed on the Digital Forum but looking at black and white film photography is not the same as the converting it using software. The B/W in fact was the best result that I came up with. Splitting the photo into its three components, Red Blue and Green in a negative form then reversing the process to the positive. This B/W is from the green negative. I like the way the shadow falls over the face and the light in her eye.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:45 am

Part of the burden of shooting by window light is positioning the subject so that the background is not a distraction.

You have a lot of variables to work with. You can turn her left or right; move her to a different position; move yourself to a different position.

My recommendation is that you NOT pick up the camera until you have positioned the subject and located your shooting spot. That way you can do all your concentration on the lighting, posing and positioning. The camera stuff comes later.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:12 am

Having looked again after reading your post Packard I realize my mistake. Its that dang red marker isn't it?!? I have printed off these two photographs and have altered them so that Kirsty is more in shot and not so much background. I really should have realized before posting that there was too much background and adjusted accordingly.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:51 am

Yes, red markers are a real problem with digital photography.

I suspect you could have easily moved the easel out of the frame of view.

Also, if you position her a little further from the window and you towards the window, then the background is going to be much darker and it will fade from view.

By necessity you end up using a wide aperture for these shots as they are fairly low light shots. Make sure your flash is turned off. Either use the portrait mode, or aperture priority mode for this. Shoot at about f/4 or f/5.6; faster if you have a fast lens. The wider aperture will throw the background out of focus.

Most often "clients' like the color images better than the B & W ones. What does your "client" think of these?

Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:09 am

Kirsty picked the photos to post for this assignment. It was the condition she gave for taking her photo. I printed her both lots in colour and B/W of which she prefered the B/W, I'm not sure why this is, I did ask her and she said that she just liked the B/W prints.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 1:07 pm

Nice work Trevor! It has a very natural feel to it!
peace tjd!

Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:39 am

Cheers TJ, it was a really nice doing this...Kirsty and I get on really well so just chatted all the time. It took about 30 minuets from start to finish and Kirsty was really patient while I pratted about with the camera. I was told once that if you are taking a portrait of someone that getting them to blow a raspberry gets them to relax the face, and will put a small grim on there too. I didn't have to do this at all, but it's quite a fun tip.