Strobe Lit Christmas Candids

I read the article, I think posted in 2007 on the Strobist Blog by David Hobby, describing using a couple of speedlites to light up his living room during the action of Christmas morning. I decided to try this, after finally rounding up the equipment to do so, and ended up getting these shots.

After looking through most of them, I think that they may be slightly underexposed, these are SOOC, so no adjustments were made, other than converting from RAW to JPG.

My strobes (2 580EX II's) were placed about 12-15 feet apart (about 3 feet off the ground), pointed towards the (white) ceiling (which is 8' and 9' in some places), with Full CTO gels, triggered with Paul C. Buff CST and CSRB+ wireless triggers. The strobes were originally set to the recommended 1/8th power, but after some test shots, I ended up at 1/4th + 1/3 stop power. These were all taken with the 24-105mm @ f/4 and 1/40th second, ISO 400, on the 50D.

Any comments are welcome, perhaps the strobes needed to be even higher power, or maybe placed lower, or at different places in the room. I have a picture of the location of the strobes, but will have to upload that later.

#1

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jasonbentz/5298​623689/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jasonbentz/5299​231444/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jasonbentz/5299​227844/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jasonbentz/5299​229482/

One thing that I thought was interesting, is that if I removed the gel from the flash, my pictures were then overexposed. So I am assuming that the gel actually reduces flash output by at least a stop or so, maybe not that much... Is this correct?

anything that you put in front of the flash will reduce the flash output. by how much, depends on what diffuser/gel i assume, which would need to be tested.

One thing I would recommend for this type of shooting is to bump your ISO up to 800 and your shutter speed up to 1/80. Your 50D can produce pretty clean images at ISO 800, but shooting toddlers at 1/40 is bound to leave you with motion blur. If you were trying to include as much ambient as possible I understand why you'd try 1/40, but personally I'd rather kill the ambient w/ a high shutter speed and then use the flash at a higher power than have to try to gel to match ambient plus deal with a slow shutter speed.

Your images do look to be under exposed. As mentioned, anything in front of the flash will reduce its output.

I really wish we could see her eyes in #2. That would have made this shot.

I like the idea, however. Just set up a few strobes around the room to bounce off the ceiling and just move around as you need to.

I think the exposure in these shots is salvageable. Just pull it up a bit in Lightroom. #3 looks like it was shot with a very shallow DOF. Probably a bit too shallow for this.

-Charles

I was trying to bring some ambient light into the pictures, since I knew several would end up with the tree in the background. However, you are right, even with 1/80th, I probably would have had enough ambient, and may have been able to get away without using gels.

I also agree that I should have tried to tilt the mirror on #2 up, so it would catch her face. Didn't even think of that, but did think of focusing on the mirror at least...

I like #3, and also agree, that I was too close for f/4 in that picture, however, I probably would have had to go to ISO 800, just to get f/5.6 in that one. I don't like how his eyes turned out either, they are bright blue, and they almost look brown in the picture, due to the way the light is hitting his face.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm still learning, so I appreciate the comments.

For those interested, here is the article I mentioned.

I was trying out my Demb Flip-it that I got for Xmas. I used a ocf pointed at the ceiling( using pocket wizards). I used another flash on camera with the Flip-it, part of that flash went toward the ceiling and the other part was sent forward toward the subject. That can be regulated with the angle of the Flip-it. When set up that way it puts a little light on the face of the subjects.

Interesting, I have that thing too. Should have tried that. I will for sure try that out the next time I have a chance.

I went back into Lightroom, and adjusted the exposure, from +2/3 stops to 1 and 1/3 stops in some cases, and it made these pictures look better. I was surprised in #3, to find that the blue detail in the eyes was actually there, after bringing up the exposure!

I agree with the original poster, the lighting was a little underpowered. I do however think it was a good setup overall. I'm going to use that kind of lighting the next time we have a "event" at out house.