Today's work: a lollipop and a violin

I'm probably starting to annoy the critique forum, but oh well.

From today.

More experiments with lighting.

#1 I know the light from the window is blown out but I don't know if there's a way to adjust for that in-camera or if I just shouldn't shoot in front of windows like this.

Heya,

I assume you used flash in the first one? If so, just note that when using lighting, you're doing two exposures in one. Ambient & subject are separate.

With a portrait, your lighting is exposing the subject, and your camera is exposing for ambient light. So in your first photo, if you want to not blow out a window or ambient light in general like you did there, then you adjust camera settings for ambient exposure. You will find you either need to stop down aperture significantly against a bright sunny window (which you may not want to do, if you're trying to keep a thin depth of field look), or you have to employ things like high speed sync flash so that your shutter brings down ambient light, or use an ND filter to drop all light while keeping aperture open. Keep your sync speed on your camera (unless using HSS), and just adjust aperture & ISO for ambient light. Again, you could apply a ND filter to further drop ambient light without closing down aperture. Your flash power level is now your exposure for your subject, raise that to whatever it takes. Camera to ambient light. Flash to subject light. Also when mixing flash & ambient, you have to note that they're different temperatures of light often (flash is cold). It's a good idea to get a 1/4, 1/2, etc, CTO gel for your flash.

In your first, photo, you used ISO 500. But why? By doing that, you raised ambient light by over 2 stops (leave it base ISO 100 if you want to drop ambient exposure), and that contributed to blowing out the window exposure. Let your lighting expose the subject. Camera settings expose ambient.

Very best,

You might try turning her towards the window. Window light is usually very soft and that's the type of light we often try to duplicate with flash.

I actually didn't use flash in the 1st one since I didn't want to do another bounce flash. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling (my flash doesn't move side to side) seems to give me enough exposure, but it also "floods" my subject with light everywhere (it's a small room). I wanted to get some soft shadow to shape her face and I literally only have the flashhead for lighting as of now, so I thought I'd put her in front of the window like that to utilize it for lighting from behind. It’s a tight space right there so not possible to put her facing the widow (I'd be outside of my house). The best I can do is have the widow light on her from a front angle, but then there's no space for another light source besides the flash on the camera, which defeats the purpose.

Thank you for your comments.. lots of things to think over now.

I still think the biggest jump in quality of my photos was buying a (cheap!) cable so I coulld hold my flash off the camera. Then you can point it where you like - I also use a "flashbender" so I can get some slightly softened light directly as well as ceiling bounce. The flashbender is very simple and portable.

Reshoot of her in front of the window, partially cloudy sky.

How does the wb look overall? I probably processed it too quickly, otherwise I would've kept playing around with it. But it’s not too far off from the raw.

I'm going to be blunt partly because I'm on my phone, and partly because I am just that way. If you want I will come back and fill in the gaps. But reflect on these shots and ask some questions

You seem to be getting comfortable with the technical aspects of your camera and photography. It's time to start looking at light. I'm not talking about just the light coming through the the lens, but light everywhere. If you can see it with your eyes it will come through in the photo, I promise.

"By a window" is not a sufggestion for a background, it is a suggestion for seeing the quality of light falling on the subject. The image you posted has zero window light falling on your little girl. It is all the room light.

Start looking at light falling on your subject without the camera and do it all the time. Compare a lightbulb to window light to outside under a tree, WITHOUT A CAMERA. Just look at the light and the shadows it creates.

Cheers.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I see what you mean. The window lighting is not sufficient. But just to be cheeky, the entire right side of her hair is lit up from behind at an angle by a ray of sun (albeit too weakly, from what it sounds like). Also there is no lightbulb being used, I aimed my flash behind me against part of a wall.

I guess the main reason for reshooting (it's not a strong composition) was to match the ambient light to the additional light, as it was pointed out there was a mismatch in lighting in the first one. And also to not have the sky blown out.

One thing at a time, right?

The first goal is always to put your subject in the best light. Always.

If you can balance the back lighting situation that's great but you are pretty obviously in a small room and bouncing a flash around will usually result in flat light that gives no dimension to the face.

The window light can be sufficient given the right angle and exposure settings. ISO 100 won't get you there.

Lemme watch the rest of this terrible game and I will post an example of what I am talking about.

I had some continuous lights set up for some focus testing, this set up lent itself to some easy examples taken with my phone. Here they are.

First light on the right emulates backlight from the window. Light on the left is a bounced flash. You can see my buddy Jethro Hedroom on the right.

So now I turn off the bounced "flash" on the camera and just leave the "window light.

Thanks! This was very helpful!

You're welcome.

Watch light all the time. It is kind of a sickness for me. I watch movies and look for light sources. I drive, walk and sit while trying to see how direct light, bounced and other ambient interact.

You don't need a camera to practice seeing light.

just remembered this awesome resource.

read it and the next few pages about phase angle

http://www.clarkvision​.com/articles/lighting​.part3/

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