First 7D Portraits w/ Off Camera Lighting

Wallace River wrote in post #12836491
Huh? Either your monitor needs calibration or mine does I see yellow shorts.

They look yellowish green to me.

carshop wrote in post #12836340
Very nice.

Thank you for the visit

Haha cute. I betcha the little one is the ring leader.

Stamp wrote in post #12836545
Good idea, but my radio hotshoe trigger won't allow the flash to pop up.

Your 7d has on board wireless control so for shots like these you could utilize that and the pop up flash at the same time.

My opinion is that the lighting style is not appropriate for your subject. The lighting is dark (I mean in mood) and overly dramatic for the cute and fun faces. Like someone else said, bring the lights down a little and move them a little more in front of the subjects. Also be aware of evenly lighting all three subjects. In the last shot, the kid in front looks almost demonic with all of the shadows on his face.

disjecta wrote in post #12836992
... In the last shot, the kid in front looks almost demonic with all of the shadows on his face.

Maybe that's entirely appropriate

Stamp wrote in post #12836545
Good idea, but my radio hotshoe trigger won't allow the flash to pop up.

Most of the images look a little soft and under exposed, as well as far too contrasty for a smiling faces portrait.
A simple yet pleasing solution to your contrast, would be to add a second flash on a light stand behind you, bouncing off the ceiling, 'fill light' should be 'on camera axis'.
Then you can use the other flash to create which ever direction of light you want.

rhys216 wrote in post #12837146
Most of the images look a little soft and under exposed, as well as far too contrasty for a smiling faces portrait.
A simple yet pleasing solution to your contrast, would be to add a second flash on a light stand behind you, bouncing off the ceiling, 'fill light' should be 'on camera axis'.
Then you can use the other flash to create which ever direction of light you want.

That was my thoughts, too (except the bouncing off ceiling part), but I wanted to keep the background as dark as possible. With that in mind, using that fill flash set to 1/64, I'd have to up the umbrella to at least 1/8 or so, and that brought too much of the background into the image.

I do agree that the subjects don't fit the lighting for the most part, but again, this was just my first attempt at fooling around with this stuff. Maybe I'll throw the wife into this type of lighting and save the less dramatic lighting for the kids.

Dustin Mustangs wrote in post #12836816
Your 7d has on board wireless control so for shots like these you could utilize that and the pop up flash at the same time.

I know, but having the radio trigger on the hot shoe doesn't allow the pop up flash to pop up due to the size of the trigger. Plus only one of my flashes is compatible with the canon wireless that my 7d has.

Stamp wrote in post #12837182
That was my thoughts, too (except the bouncing off ceiling part), but I wanted to keep the background as dark as possible. With that in mind, using that fill flash set to 1/64, I'd have to up the umbrella to at least 1/8 or so, and that brought too much of the background into the image.

I do agree that the subjects don't fit the lighting for the most part, but again, this was just my first attempt at fooling around with this stuff. Maybe I'll throw the wife into this type of lighting and save the less dramatic lighting for the kids.

If you want to keep the background dark, then you need your subjects as far away from the wall as is practical and and close to the light as is practical, be care about getting them too close to the light though as you won't be able to light them all evenly, and the slightest movement of the subjects can result in big exposure differences, so if your going to put the light really close to the subject then ETTL works better.
Also an umbrella spills light everywhere, so maybe look into some cheap gridded ebay softbox's that fold away like an umbrella, you can use one for the key light and another for fill, then your all set to pull of the particular shoot, except imo the image would look better with a feathered snoot background light to add some separation so a 3rd light is required imo.

Stamp wrote in post #12837192
I know, but having the radio trigger on the hot shoe doesn't allow the pop up flash to pop up due to the size of the trigger. Plus only one of my flashes is compatible with the canon wireless that my 7d has.

Does the other flash have an optical trigger? if so maybe use that.

great start!! I really like the last two photos, you got great models!

Stamp, here's a book titled "Speedliter's Handbook" that has gotten high praise for us that are learning off and on camera flash techniques. I am reading now and, for me, it has provided some different insightful info about flash techniques. Check it out.

http://www.amazon.com …-Speedlites/dp/03217110​5X