Question about lighting

[OriginalKevan]

I was attempting to do a merged photo, mostly for the fun of it. The photo was supposed to be four or five of me playing poker. The problem started after I took the photos and started to process them through PS. Even though I had the shutter speed and apature on manual, the second image came out darker.



http://farm1.static.flickr.com/220/490014682_1690026d35_o.jpg




http://farm1.static.flickr.com/202/490040585_dd5e97af3c_o.jpg




The lighting sources that I used was the overhead light (regular kitchen light, 75W bulb), a small work lamp with a 500W halogen bulb behind me on the first shot, and the camera flash.

I'm guessing I neeed more lighting, but where would I put it so that the lighting in all the pics comes out even so that the merging seems seemless.

I tried to brighten the second picture in PS, but I couldn't seem to match the lighting level of the first pic.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[csteinman]

that's strange, i'm a noob but if you didn't change the aperture or shutter speed it should be the same i'd think. the only logical explination i could think of is if natural light via the window changed. though... that's not the issue since the same shadows are darker which point more to a camera setting changed... *shrug

may i make another suggestion though? my father just did one of these of himself, including himself 4 times in the image.. it turned out pretty good, but he did one thing the same as you did which i think makes the merge a little dull. you're wearing the same shirt in both positions, i'd think it'd look a little cooler with two different shirts.

just my opinion though! hope you figure out your problem!

[Benji]

The problem is that the camera stayed at exactly the same position and so did the lights, but you moved, and when you moved you moved further away from the lights (the inverse square law.) The further you are from any light source the less light there is from that source. The cure is to make certain that the meter reading is identical in both exposures. In your case if it was F 8 at 1/60 for the first shot, the second image will most likely need F 5.6 at 1/60. If you have a hand held meter this is a snap, if not you will need to shoot several exposures and compare.

Benji

[mudkips]

Even things that haven't moved are underexposed in the second image, for example the table.

[E-K]

...Even though I had the shutter speed and apature on manual... The lighting sources that I used was the overhead light (regular kitchen light, 75W bulb), a small work lamp with a 500W halogen bulb behind me on the first shot, and the camera flash.

I think this may be your problem unless the flash was a manual flash. Even though your ambient light exposure was locked in, the flash will likely output a different amount of light when you change the scene.

Try it without the flash and see if you get more consistency. The other possibility as mentioned above is varying light from the window.

e-k

[strmrdr]

manual flash bounced off the ceiling or no flash would work best.

[aji23]

I agree -- turn off the flash and decrease your shutter speed. You could also pull up those blinds in the back for some great soft lighting (make sure you take the backlighting into account; it's okay if the window's overexposed -- the view might be that good anyway) :)

I'd shoot a picture of the empty room until you're happy with it. Then play around with sitting in different positions (varying the clothing is a great idea, csteinman).

As for what happened -- I'm not sure what you're shooting with here, but if your ISO has an 'auto' setting that's separate from the shutter and aperature, it's possible the lightmeter bumped the ISO down because your ap and ss were set.

[StewartR]

ISO isn't the issue - it's 400 in both photos. The difference in exposure is caused by using flash - although the aperture and shutter speed are the same in each photo, the flash output isn't. That's because the E-TTL system is judging how much flash to use to get what it considers to be a correct exposure. To correct this, either use a manual flash or use available light.