What to improve?

[brusselandsprout]

http://www.animationgalaxy.co.uk/pic3.jpg
The one of the girl was taken just with my Sigma flash and tungsten lighting lighting her to either side?

http://www.animationgalaxy.co.uk/pic2.jpg
The one of the baby was taken with my tungsten light lighting the background and two flashes with white umbrellas infront of the subject.

ISO 100 shutter 1/200


Just wondering what advice you could give for these images?

Thanks in advance!

Roger

[wazmunstr]

first shot lighting looks great, the picture itself is just a little fuzzy or off focus. needs to be a bit sharper.

second shot i like how the background is blown out, but the baby is very close to being too over exposed. fuzziness with it as well. your on the right track though, very pleasing overall.

[brusselandsprout]

Thanks

is what I am doing - tungsten for the background and flash for the subject right?

What distance should I have the flashes from the subject?

I dont use a flash meter - would that make a difference?

Sorry for all the questions

Thanks

roger

[Jim M]

"Right" is a matter of opinion in photography. If it pleases you, it is right. You seem to be getting away with mixing light. Is one of them color corrected to match the other or are you working on white balance in post processing? Regardless, the light seems to match. If you aren't doing something with the color temperature issue, then I suspect that by blowing out the background, the orange tint of the tungsten light is being masked.

How far should the lights be from the subject? It depends on what you want.

Using a flash meter makes life easier if you have manual flash, but if your flash units are being used in ETTL mode, then it probably won't make much difference.

As for image softness, I noticed it in the first one, but not in the second - at least not beyond what I would expect from "Save for the Net" in Photoshop or whatever. I can usually tell right away if the softness is due to camera movement, mis-focusing, or subject movement, but I'm having a hard time discerning with the first image. Since it was shot wide open according to the EXIF data, I'm guessing it was just shallow depth of field coupled with a tiny bit of image softness from shooting at maximum aperture.

[mmahoney]

The first (judging by the shadows) is a kind of cross lighting which has the one on the side of the nose conflicting with the one cast by the hair. Perhaps try a different ratio so that the shadows cast by the main (key) light are retained but muted by the fill light.

The second shot of the baby looks like it could have been taken inside a light tent as there is no discernable direction or quality to the light .. if that was what you're going for then OK but it is a bit boring.

There are tons of very good lighting tutorials online if you google and a good place to start is "Strobist". Most lighting techniques are based on the "key" and "fill" concept .. the key kight provides the primary direction and quality while the fill determines the quality of the shadows created by the key.

Lighting is a personal thing and what one person likes another does not, but the idea is to flatter the subject and add interest and shape to the face and / or body.
Mike