Added hair light to my home studio - do I use it properly?

[pulsar123]

Only the hair light was missing in my home basement studio (it's all speedlites with radio/optical triggers). Finally I added it - and it took more of my efforts than the rest of the setup. I got a YN460II, light boom stand from ebay, and ended up making my own narrow softbox, from car windshield reflective protector, and thick wire.

For now, I placed the hair light somewhat behind, and above the model. I can see that a part of the hair is illuminated, and that the shoulders now have better separation from b/g.

Did I set it up right? Is it too bright/dim? Any recommendations for improving the setup?

Thanks for any feedback!

Left - no hair light, right - with hair light:

hair_light by syamastro, on Flickr



IMG_9366 by syamastro, on Flickr

[nathancarter]

Looks pretty good to me.

If you move it back a bit, so it's right at the top of the backdrop and aimed at the subject's shoulders, the fall-off will be less between the head and the shoulders. That is, the hair will be a little less hot and the shoulders a little more hot. And since the light is coming form more behind and less above the subject, you'll get a bit more of a rim/edge effect.

Of course, you can reposition it as necessary to get the effect you want.

Do your before-and-after again with the background lights turned off. That's where you can really measure the difference.

[pulsar123]

Thanks! I also figured it'd be better to move the light even further back, but I probably will need much longer black paper shade on top of the hair light softbox, to prevent the light shining straight into lens. I think it is important - right? Or may be I should not worry about that, as the lens' hood would do the job just fine? I am using a zoom lens, 17-50 f2.8, at its longest end, 50mm, and I suspect the lens hood (designed to work even at 17mm) is not of much help at 50mm? May be I need another, more narrow lens hood, just for 50mm?

[Chet]

You must had been excited to try it out, you forgot to put pants on.

[RDKirk]

Think about your actual purpose: Hair light (to brighten and enliven the hair) or background separation light. For a true hair light, you would actually want it coming from the same direction as the main light and significantly above the mainlight, tightly snooted.

More often, a boom-mounted accent light is used for background separation, in which case it should be farther to the rear.

In either case, you would want to dial it down a bit more than you have it here.

[pulsar123]

Thanks - I think I was aiming at background separation with my setup. I wasn't sure about the brightness though. I'll try to slightly reduce the flash output.