A Portrait

Our youngest was in a placid mood recently, long enough for me to place her strategically balanced on a cushion where she was fascinated with all the black objects surrounding her .... namely the flashes in a softbox and umbrella and my camera, which kept her looking nicely while I grabbed a number of frames. Here's the set-up ....




I want to show how a quite rough and ready setup in any domestic sort of environment can still work out nicely. The main light is a Pentax AF-540FGZ in the square softbox, coming in from her left and front, a little above, and the umbrella provides a more direct front-on fill light, to reduce the deep shadows on the off-side of the face.

This uses the Cactus RF60 radio flash on the umbrella, fired from the V6 trigger on the camera, and the AF-540FGZ is set to S2 slave mode, so it just fires in response to the Cactus. Both flashes were set with Manual power levels, and the Camera was set to manual also. Both flashes were working at 1/4 power, but the effect of the umbrella one was much less as it was further away and is a reflected light. I cloned out the catchlight from the umbrella in order to just leave a more natural single catchlight.

Pentax K7, D FA28-105mm (at 88mm), F11, 1/180th sec, ISO 200





Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you might be prompted to try some simple two flash portraiture in your home!

Lovely portrait Nigel.

Showing the set-up is very helpful too. It is interesting that despite having two light sources quite close to your daughter, the result is soft light that brings out "form". Before I had read your guide and started to delve into the world of flash, I would have expected the opposite!

A question for you on umbrella (or any reflector really), is the difference between a white or silver colour. When would one colour be a better choice than the other, and can indeed they be combined in a multi flash set-up ?

Hi Peter, I haven't used a silver umbrella, but from reading and seeing pictures I think it creates a stronger (more reflective) and harder sort of light. Maybe more suited to grittier styles and fashion stuff, probably not babies.

I have thought about getting an umbrella with the different materials to swap around, including white, silver and gold..... But really I mostly want the softest effect, so the white suits me fine. I don't think there is any issue with mixing silver and white in one image, it's more about the quality of the light rather than any colour clash.

A truly lovely portrait Nigel and the 3D effect is also quite remarkable.
I wonder if there is any technique whereby that effect can be deliberately achieved?


Roger.

This is great Nigel, so useful to see the setup as well, lovely image.

Thanks Roger .... I guess the '3D Effect' must be the result of the angles from the duel lighting, plus the result of the light 'shape' across the face, which creates direction and contrast going from the subjects left to right sides. I'd say also that the aperture, F11, plays a part as well .... this aperture ensures that the whole head is well in focus, so giving depth I think. And finally, the eyes have been sharpened more, and the skin tone softened slightly in post processing .... this may have the effect of making the eyes jump out in relation to the face.

Thanks for you comment, and thanks also Paul, I hope you found it interesting to see the set - up.

As above, lovely portrait, great to see the setup also.

There's been some excellent portraits on here recently.

Keep up the good work.
Derek

The lighting is spot on Nigel and them eyes are huge! One thing I would say is that the skin softening is a little strong and you've lost all detail and texture which gives it a slightly fake look so in Photoshop either adjust the opacity of the skin softening to allow detail back through or take a look at something called frequency separation

Thanks Gareth, I'm glad you like the lighting, and I'm sure that's a fair point about the softening .... no doubt its one of those 'marmite' type of things that some will love and others not ..... I did the softening process on a PS layer so I could have easily reduced it with the blend through of the original. 'Frequency separation' .... oooh, I like it

Yeah, frequency seperation seperates the texture from the skin colours on seperate layers so you can work on either independantly

As you say, Nigel, the skin softening is a little like marmite - but those eyes are awesome. A stunning portrait.
Regards,
Mike

Isn't she just the cutest model ever? about the softening, i don't think this is too much OTT but just a tad maybe, i've seen some really bad skin smoothing where the child looks like a doll and the eyes pop out unnaturally, this isn't in this category, a lovely portrait overall in my opinion.

Thanks also Mike, I'm glad you saw it, and thanks Maria for the reassurance! I have a number of similar shots so I will certainly process them with some differing amounts of softening to compare.