Some input please

I have recently obtained some photoflood lighting, and with my fairly new 350D this is my first attempt, any input as to what improvements can be made? I have cheated already as I have no backdrop so have used photoshop to remove the background completely. I had to use a speed of 1600 as I only have the standard lens of which was set at 55mm @ f7.1 @1/125s.

The main light was from a silver brolley to the right above the head the fill in was almost level with the face slightly to the left from a white brolley positioned to give 1 stop less than the main light.
Metering was from an incident light meter.

what type of advice are you looking for? shooting technics? Posing Technics?

looks a little noisey, what ISO were you shooting at?

I sometime wonder if people are actually reading.

I am more interested in the lighting tecnique at the moment, my poseing isnt up to much, but with digital my philosophy is now to keep shooting and if you get a good one, its a bonus.

I had actually sharpened the eyes on another I had done, but picked this one quickly as it fits the forums spec for size etc.

It looks pretty well lit to me. But cutting the background out ruins the picture to me, its very obvious that you did that. Also, you should put your camera on a tripod and lower the ISO, because grain like that isn't very flattering on portraits.

maybe there's a little too much lighting? I guess I'm shouldn't be replying because I'm certainly no pro, but I personnaly would prefer more depth in shadows...

Many thanks for your input, I have decided to order a Canon 50mm Lens 1.8 this should allow me to bring the iso down to around 100 - if used at 1.8 and maybe I'll try to reduce the fill in a little also. Backgrounds, mmmmm they will have to wait for a while. Cheers!

So exactly why does the standard lens only allow iso 1600? Not sure I get that point. The camera allows you to change this as the need arises.

maybe cuz he's at f7.1? and the new one would be lower? Not sure.

I suck at portraiture, but here goes with my thoughts:

1. Looks too well lit - look at some of the shadows. I'd use another brolley etc for minor fill in lighting, especially around the mouth, just to soften those shadows a bit. You don't want to totally remove them, just soften them imho.

2. ISO 1600! Yeah gods! Use a tripod, a cable release and mirror lockup. Use ISO 100/200 to keep noise down to acceptable levels. Oh, and run a noise reducer like Neat Image as well after all post production!

3. Exposure looks fine to my eyes

4. You cropped it a bit too tight, you've cut off her hair at the bottom right hand corner of the image. You wouldn't cut off part of her face would you? Don't do it to the hair! Other than that, the pose is fine to my eyes!

5. Leave the background backdrop in the image next time...it does look odd after you've removed it.

Not a bad job at all, I'd certainly be happy with such an effort myself.

As to some others not reading posts thoroughly, I had to laugh. I was about to post exactly the same thing!!!

Cheers,

Dave

edited: Oh, and use something like a 85mm f1.8, it's a very nice lens for portraiture work. I don't have one, so I'd most probably use the 70mm end on my 70-200 f2.8 instead...use the f1.8 or so, rather than f7.1 for a nice bokeh and better shutter speed.

due to the lens I currently have EF-S 18-55 ( I call standard as was supplied with the camera) used at 55mm for a portrait the minimum aperture is 5.6 with a 50mm 1.8 in similar lighting conditions if set at 1.8 / 2.2 I should be able to reduce the iso to around 100. The tungsten lighting kit I have is suprisingly low in light compared to flash.

My original query was for input on the lighting itself?

But thanks anyway chaps.

Thanks dave, thats just the sort of input I wanted,

Good on yah sport

the 50 is a good lens, but for a studio type portrait you're still going to want to stop it down to f/8 or f/11...for the most part, so it might not solve your problem. Outdoors or for available light it's going to be better though.

Why is that JaertX?

Dave