Help Please - Group Lighting

Dave,

You got a close-up of that shot? I want to see the face better.
I've been thinking of getting that, wouldn't mind seeing more examples.

bdillon wrote in post #13587081
Dave,

You got a close-up of that shot? I want to see the face better.
I've been thinking of getting that, wouldn't mind seeing more examples.

This is the actual shot, previous was a pull back. I received these recently, so not much time to test them yet, and no live models yet with this setup. Kind of similar to a BD in a butterly setup, so you'd want some low fill here to fill the neck shadow...

Dave Jr wrote in post #13586952
I believe the quality of light is excellent from them. The 86" with the diffusion fabric makes a massive cheap softbox. I can't comment on the difference between these and the large expensive eli stuff, but these do a very nice job, at a great price.

Hmm. These definitely seem like a great low-cost investment and I plan on getting a couple of these things for the odd jobs for church and whatnot. Thanks.

Well, here's the result. We had some drama among the boys so there is a pouty face. I also didn't have enough clearance with the hair light so my head is a bit hot but overall my mom was quite pleased. If I had to do it again, I would have purchased the big umbrella and positioned the camera higher so there weren't so many heads in the way.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/22918854@N04/6​572356379/

I've never shot a group with my lights before but this seems like a good start. There's obviously always going to be something that you can improve upon but this is a solid step forward, especially with a little PP.

Critical take to sharpen my knives:

-Everyone's heads are all over the place. Too much tilting one way or another.
-I'd like to see everyone but the front row stand on something that would ensure nobody would be in the way or just have more background room and spread the heads out more.
-Reflections in glasses are distracting.
-I don't know how high the light was but I think it would've benefited from being even higher up. I need to practice this myself for the new year party.
It sounds like you already know the rest, like with a bigger umbrella you won't have that pitch-black background blending in with hair and what have you. Those are all more minor points for me. The bullet points are what I feel most comfortable on pointing out; I'm fairly clueless on poses and plenty of other things I'm sure.

There were a couple of things working against me:

1. The hair light is hitting the ceiling so nowhere to go with that.
2. The group is too big for the studio (or my skill level). I had to photoshop a backdrop into the back left because the edge was showing. Working the angles meant keeping the back row near the backdrop, which left little room for the red back light.
3. Me being in the picture, I didn't get to see how everyone was lined up.
4. The kids knew they could open presents after the shot so they weren't cooperating very well.

Overall, it went better than I expected, which is good because it was the gift my mom was really looking forward to.

The gentleman in the back right has a red light on his face. Any idea what that was from?

Did you put your background and hair light off to camera right?
I probably would have done background light dead center, fairly wide zoom so it casts a wide gradient.

The hair light should have been dead center, again with a wide zoom so it hits everyone. The background would have hid the light stand. If there was no background then I would have either done away with it all together, or used it anyway and photoshopped the light stand out.

A higher key light would have cured the glare in the glasses. If you can't get it any higher, have the person raise the temples off their ears a hair so it doesn't reflect the light source back to the camera.

Anyhow, good job. It's clear you see what's wrong and will learn from it. The posing I'll let you slide on, I know how hard it is to get that many people to look at a camera especiall when you're not behind it.

NoahKrueger wrote in post #13605936
The gentleman in the back right has a red light on his face. Any idea what that was from?

That's no gentleman, that's me!

The background light was leaking onto my face. We were smooshed up against the backdrop to get all the people in. The hair light was hitting the ceiling. I like the idea of moving the backdrop up and putting the stand behind it.