Did I balance the light ok?

I'm starting to incorporate OCF into my portraits and I'm having the hardest time balancing the light on the subject and exposing the background properly. here's some samples of my parents taken yesterday at my bro's farewell party. Any insight will be helpful.

1)

It's not bad but the hot spots on their cheeks and glasses is distracting.

GorgeShooter wrote in post #10916287
It's not bad but the hot spots on their cheeks and glasses is distracting.

Ahhh yea the glasses were a problem. Any suggestions on them not showing up besides trying to remove it in post? The cheeks are going to shine no matter what. Asians have oily skin naturally on top of the moisturizer she put on so there was no hope for that... if there is then I'm all ears

The lighting balance looks pretty good. As mentioned the reflection and highlights are the main issue. A couple of things that should help minimize these:

For the glasses reflection, move the light further away from the camera and/or have them angle their faces more. Doing this should adjust the reflection so that it is not seem from the camera.

For the shiny skin, have them apply some makeup and/or use those absorbant papers. The papers can be found at Victoria's Secret and I'm sure other places.

Thanks! That helps a lot. I'll be sure to pick some up the next time I'm at the mall.

I have never tried it, but www.Strobist.com suggests that you have the subject look away from the flash to avoid the glare.

http://strobist.blogsp​ot.com …lighting-for-glasses.html

Thanks Psyecat, I'm going through strobist now and will re-read that post.

The lighting seems relatively diffused and balanced its just as per everyone else's comments, the flash hot spots.....

I would like to see a little more difference between the left and right. A 1:2 ratio works well for a shot like this. Some light meters will calculate the ratio for you.

I think the light is pretty good. Was this a bare flash or did you use a diffuser. The more diffused the light the less problems you have with hot spots.

I like #4 best because of the separation effect that the flash provides.

it looks a little fuzzy. what is your aperture? when using flash, try getting away from wide open. Shoot around f/5.6 or something. The color on the first 3 are WAY too red. I like #4 the best. U can easily PS out that glare.

Your images are all pretty much tack sharp.. Would you mind sharing the camera/lens/settings you used?

poloman wrote in post #10917849
I would like to see a little more difference between the left and right. A 1:2 ratio works well for a shot like this. Some light meters will calculate the ratio for you.

I'll be completely honest when I say I have no clue what you're talking about as far as ratio's. I'm planning ot pick up light meter here soon. I'm assuming you mean that I should run half power on the left compared to the right?

vk2gwk wrote in post #10918896
I think the light is pretty good. Was this a bare flash or did you use a diffuser. The more diffused the light the less problems you have with hot spots.

Thanks, they were all fired through a 43" Westcott white satin umbrella. Left was about 10' high and right was about 7'.

Krapo wrote in post #10918994
I like #4 best because of the separation effect that the flash provides.

Thank you! Not sure what I did different in that but I'll pull the exif and find out!

SJPHoto wrote in post #10919038
it looks a little fuzzy. what is your aperture? when using flash, try getting away from wide open. Shoot around f/5.6 or something. The color on the first 3 are WAY too red. I like #4 the best. U can easily PS out that glare.

These were all shot at f/5 which I should've stopped down to f/8. I'm still getting used to this new lens (17-40L). I'll be sure to remember that next time though thanks! As for the color, I'm partially color blind (red/orange, green/brown, and blue/purple) so a lot of my portraits come out a bit on the red side. I can go back and lower the reds a bit and ses how that looks.

Thanks again everyone!

Regarding light ratios. 1:2 or the inverse would be the amount of light hitting the subject is twice as much from one light as from the other. It isn't as simple as setting one at half power because of distance and modifiers. You can get darn close with a tape and the law of inverse squares and the power levels. The reason I like to use ratios is that I have found certain ratios to work best in certain situations. Because the light meter can calculate them for me, I can quickly set up and get very close to the effect that I want.