help, what am I doing wrong?

[kevindar]

I bought the Scot Kelby setup, and trying to do a standard portrait, with "loop" lighting.
I have a flash on camera, acting as master, and hair light by bouncing against white ceiling (yes I know its not ideal) with my key light to my right, and fill light pretty close to axis of camera. Problem is I get two catch lights. both lights are being shot through umbrellas. The catch light of fill light is not as obvious, but there never the less. I have the ratio of lights at 2:1. thank you for help. here is an example. other than skin smoothing and resizing, no pp done (I do neet some sharpening since this was shot raw)

[Hermes]

Looks to me like you're using too much fill - a 2:1 ratio is quite low if the key and fill lights are both umbrellas. Also looks like the hairlight bounced off the ceiling has just bounced more light around the room and added to the fill rather than seperating the hair from the background - it would be a good idea to use something more controlled.

If you don't want a second catchlight then try bouncing the fill off the ceiling/walls and using the second umbrella as your hairlight. Make sure you meter all your lights (including the on-camera flash) individually so you're sure what they are all doing.

[kevindar]

thanks Hermes. I am actually not metering anything, and just trying to see how well the E-TTL does on its own. I placed the fill light a little further back to make the ratio even more than 2:1, but I think you are correct that my bounce flash is adding extra fill light.I am just surprised the fill flash still causes a catch light, even though its shot through and umbrella.

[Curtis N]

Did someone tell you that having two catchlights is a bad thing?

I really wouldn't worry about that.

[Lotto]

If you don't like the second catchlight, just clone it out in Photoshop, only takes seconds.

[kevindar]

thanks. I thought I am not supposed to have two catch lights, although admittedly the second one is not very noticeable. I am trying, for the fun of it, to get images with good exposure and proper lighting, which I can process quickly through lightroom. The lighting forum has become my favorite forum.

[Jim M]

If you have two lights in front of the subject, you will have two catch lights. If you turn one of them down so low that it won't be reflected in the eyes, it will be too low to produce any useful light.

[bomzai]

I would suggest to try cutting fill amount in half and for hair light instead of bouncing it off the ceiling shoot it directly from behind with snout (can even be a piece of paper held by scotch for now) put on flash.

As for ETTL controling the overall exposure - that's true, but it doesn't mean that you can't control the ratios ;)

[GDHugh]

Try this...
http://pictureline.webphotoschool.com/A_Three_Light_Portrait_with_Portable_Flashes/index.html

I found it helpful

[kevindar]

Hugh, thank you for the link. That set up requires 3 flashes off camera. It also requires a boom for the hair light, and a reflector. I think I can do without the background light for starters. I like just letting the e-ttl system do its work, and so far I have been very impressed by it providing me with good exposure. I just have to make sure I dont go beyond the power of my flash. I think I loose at least 2 stops due to the umbrella. I am still able to easily shoot at iso 200 and F8. I also realize that the closer I put my light source to my subject, the softer the light, and, relatively the less exposure to the back ground (as long as subject to background distance remains the same). I would love to figure out a good easy way for a hair light. I am also considering getting some reflectors to use as source of my fill light. The ettl with setting ratios seem to be serving me reasonably well, and I think I just need to experiment more. here is another one, with a little more retouching. and of course work on my posing.

[thrash_273]

Try this...
http://pictureline.webphotoschool.com/A_Three_Light_Portrait_with_Portable_Flashes/index.html

I found it helpful
thanks for sharing.=D