First "Real" Shoot

Not "real" like I made money. Real like, this was the first time I took a picture of another human being under the pretense that I am a photographer with the intent of taking portrait shots.

I'm VERY new. I wish I had the hindsight to get the exif but I don't. At least nit at the moment.

SUPER cheap gear. 4000d canon, kit (18-55...but crop sensor... So...) and cheap Newer (Neewer?) lights. They were like 125 for 2 on Amazon.

I'm so new in fact, I'm not able to catch things I should improve upon, so any criticism is really appreciated.

Great start!

I am not feeling the second shot due to the softbox being the background there. My suggestion there is to watch the background, it can make or break a portraiture style photo.

The first shot is much better for me, and I will add a few points to help in the future:
- Look at the catchlights in her eyes, it appears there might be a window off to one side and the lights on the other?
- The light might be a bit too close or too direct in this shot due to the bright highlights on the left brow.
- You might experiment with shooting wider and cropping later perhaps, unless that is what you did here. It adds the ability for you to fine tune the final result that way. I always make the mistake of shooting too tightly and kick myself all the time afterwards.

Detail is very good, and colors look good as well, both can be managed during post processing too.

Don't get hung up that you are using a rebel or that you are using a kit lens or that you have a crop sensor, they are perfectly fine. In fact I still keep the 18-55 STM lens around for group shots, as it can be a good portrait or group lens in its own right. Also a crop sensor gives up nothing to a FF sensor in the cases of set up studio style shots, you are going to always set up whatever aperture for the DOF you want, and you will likely be at a low ISO, so FF doesn't have much gain over a crop body in these situations IMO.

I assume the lights you got were continuous lights? I started with those and after a year or two, I got rid of them. When you get to the point of wanting to use strobes or flashes, take a look at the Godox/Flashpoint line, very robust systems for very little money. It looks like you are willing to really dig into this and try new things, so this is a great first round, keep up the creative uses of the lights and see what kind of look you like.

Look at the XproC for the transmitter, and then their TT flash line or AD strobe line.

Having strobes/flashes allow you more room for studio style portraiture, like using a black background or control how bright your fill lights are for the shadow areas, something that is much more difficult with a continuous light, I feel.

You have to start somewhere and I think you've made a good start. It's how we learn and it's good you're open for a critique so that you can learn and get better.

Image 1:
For me, it's a little to close (zoomed in) but that is more of a style thing and you could be perfectly fine with it.
Background - the color of the background is casting a color bleed on her face. This can be corrected in post. IMO a more contrasting background would be better, white would be my choice.
Skin - your lights have created a lot of shine on her face and this can all be corrected in post with some effort. Depending on your intent you could smooth the skin as well.
Light - you have more of a broad light setup (lighting the near side of the face) which puts the eyes in a shadow area. I would have opted for short lighting her to eliminate the shadow in the eyes.
https://digital-photography-school.com …-lighting-in-photography/

Image 2:
Pretty much the same comments. Again I'd use Short Lighting.
I'd prefer if we didn't see the softbox in the mirror.

Overall a good start and hope you take these comments as they were intended and with a grain of salt. Keep shooting and enjoy.

Oh man, thank you so much. Great feedback. I very much appreciate it.

Yeah, they are continuous. And yeah, they were REALLY close. I had them back a bit, and I had a hard time with the exposure while keeping my ISO down. I chalked it up to cheap lights??

And oh yeah, I love this little camera. Easy to take it everywhere, and I really don't worry about dropping it or letting people play with it. After deciding to take this hobby slightly more seriously, I'm flipping a coin on either a 6d or the R in a month or so. My lady asked if she could have my "old" camera. I advised it would be easier to get a new boyfriend. She reminded me of a few things, so she might actually get the camera... But man, it's provided so many fun times.

Along with a slightly improved bidy I'm also looking into lights. I really wanna learn more about lighting in general, and so badly wanna play with off camera flash techniques. Looks so cool!

Man, thank you so much again. I'll keep your points in mind for the next one.

Awesome. Thanks a ton. And thanks for the link, excellent stuff. The more I learn about lighting, the more aware I am that there's more to learn.

Ugh. You guys are making me wanna shoot this again and test more stuff lol. I really appreciate all the help.

To get started with flashes with very little expense up front, here are some ideas for a budget of $250:

Full ETTL and built in wireless control, and very compact:
https://www.adorama.co​m/fplfsmmain.html - $60 x 2

Transmitter/Controller
https://www.adorama.co​m …ro-c)&searchredirect=true - $70

Light stand mount for flashes
https://www.amazon.com​/dp/B00DAW8688/ref=dp_​cerb_1 - $10 x 2

Softboxes for flashes (unless you can use your current ones)
https://www.amazon.com …501&s=electroni​cs&sr=1-11 - $30

You should be able to reuse your existing light stands as long as they have a conventional mount post on the tops. You can always add more gear to this list later like the AD strobes, they all operate on the same wifi system, so you can just add as you need more. There is nothing throw away here, you will be able to continue to use these along with more items later.

In fact you could still use your continuous lighting as long as you can turn the output way down, they can become modeling lights for focusing and compositional needs, and the flashes will then become the main source of light when they fire.

Good luck in the future portraits! I love helping others spend money, it makes me feel better when I splurge myself, lol.

Perfect. Exactly what I'm looking for.

Lol so yeah, I can see me getting carried away with gear. I've gone a full year without a purchase in an attempt to discipline myself, but that year is up, and I wanna play with new buttons. Any help in spending my money is obliged lol

Joshua, I'll have to echo what TeamSpeed said. Try not to get hung up on equipment, it is too easy to talk yourself into the latest and greatest. One thing that helped me when I first got started was working with natural light, learning how to use it and control it. There is a level of difficulty when using artificial light and I remember trouble shooting more than actually shooting in my early shoots. I'd recommend going outdoors and explore. While you're working with natural light and its time constraints it also allows you to add textures and colors into your background.

I found the transition from natural light to studio light much easier as I had a better understanding of it and replicated light in studio. Plus, using natural light is typically a minimalistic approach. All you need is a camera and maybe a reflector. Things do change once you play around with balancing flash with ambient light but that's for another day.

Great advice. Thank you very much.

I only shot a few portraits myself, but learned a lot from watching Sean Tucker on Youtube. He has one or two videos that focus solely on taking portraits with only one flash and reflector. I think you could learn a lot from him without needing to upgrade your gear at all. Also he has an excellent video on retouching a portrait, which requires no previous knowledge of Photoshop or Lightroom

If you want to practice shooting with artificial light, I would recommend trying some of the techniques you see in videos or other people's images on an inanimate object, like food or a doll. That way you can take your time moving the lights around and getting a feel for it and the way that reflectors work. And next time you have a real person with you, you can focus more on them, because you already know how your gear will perform under certain conditions.