Need Feedback on Shot Using OOF Lights/Flashes/DOF/etc

Hey guys,

My girlfriend belongs to a dog forum where they all send each other christmas cards of their families/dogs so I offered to help her take a picture of her puppy for the card. We got LED christmas lights and hung them about a foot from the wall inside (so they wouldn't really light up the wall) and put a scarf around the pup's neck.

To get the lights OOF, I positioned the puppy as close to me as possible (as far away from the lights as possible). I used f/1.8-f/2.0 on my 85MM.

I had two YN flashes remotely triggered. One slightly to the right of the puppy with the white/clear diffuser thing on top and on 1/128 power and 50MM zoom. The other flash I used intermittantly because the way the house is set up (basement apartment) it was hard to light the dog without illuminating the wall behind her. I had no diffuser available for this flash, just the one that pulls out from the flash head.

I had a few problems:
1. The christmas lights showed up inconsistently. Sometimes they were really nice and OOF/circular while other times only have were lit up in the picture, etc
2. It was extremely hard to focus on the puppy. The lights were off and the center AF point was decent but I couldn't really focus and recompose with such a shallow depth of field (plus the puppy may move in that period of time). The outer AF points took pretty long to focus. Since I was using the triggers I couldn't us the AF assist beam (is there a way around this? I tried mounting the second flash on top of the trigger specifically for the AF beam but no luck).

I'm guessing a lot of these issues could be fixed by going into a bigger space. The way I had imagined it was going outside and hanging the lights with nothing behind them. Then positioning the puppy a good distance away from them and filling the frame (close to the puppy). I was also planning to put the flashes on either side of me - one slightly right but mostly straight on and the other more towards the left. Space was a big problem here I think....

Basically is there anything I could have done to make this go smoother? Any tips?

I am in the middle of a bunch of tests at school so I can't edit/get the pictures up right away but I will try to.

Thank you!

HLxDrummer wrote in post #15310394
Hey guys,

My girlfriend belongs to a dog forum where they all send each other christmas cards of their families/dogs so I offered to help her take a picture of her puppy for the card. We got LED christmas lights and hung them about a foot from the wall inside (so they wouldn't really light up the wall) and put a scarf around the pup's neck.

To get the lights OOF, I positioned the puppy as close to me as possible (as far away from the lights as possible). I used f/1.8-f/2.0 on my 85MM.

I had two YN flashes remotely triggered. One slightly to the right of the puppy with the white/clear diffuser thing on top and on 1/128 power and 50MM zoom. The other flash I used intermittantly because the way the house is set up (basement apartment) it was hard to light the dog without illuminating the wall behind her. I had no diffuser available for this flash, just the one that pulls out from the flash head.

I had a few problems:
1. The christmas lights showed up inconsistently. Sometimes they were really nice and OOF/circular while other times only have were lit up in the picture, etc
2. It was extremely hard to focus on the puppy. The lights were off and the center AF point was decent but I couldn't really focus and recompose with such a shallow depth of field (plus the puppy may move in that period of time). The outer AF points took pretty long to focus. Since I was using the triggers I couldn't us the AF assist beam (is there a way around this? I tried mounting the second flash on top of the trigger specifically for the AF beam but no luck).

I'm guessing a lot of these issues could be fixed by going into a bigger space. The way I had imagined it was going outside and hanging the lights with nothing behind them. Then positioning the puppy a good distance away from them and filling the frame (close to the puppy). I was also planning to put the flashes on either side of me - one slightly right but mostly straight on and the other more towards the left. Space was a big problem here I think....

Basically is there anything I could have done to make this go smoother? Any tips?

I am in the middle of a bunch of tests at school so I can't edit/get the pictures up right away but I will try to.

Thank you!

I don't have any advice other than an umbrella is only around $6 on ebay and that makes the lights softer and might help with the separation from the Christmas lights. But the important thing is why don't you post this in the lighting /flash section where you will get a lot more responses