Indoor Portrait Lighting
Jonathan Slone
strobes bounced off of small umbrellas. While the light is nice and soft,
I still get ugly reflections in his eyes. Any tricks on how to get these
reflections out of my shoots? Also, any recommendations on a good book on
lighting would be appreciated.
Mike Rosenlof
One catchlight in the eyes of a portrait subject is generally
desirable - gives some 'life' to the subject. I think it's slightly
chiche, but not too bad. A rectangular shape like from a window or a
softbox is more desirable than a round or umbrella shape. Two or more
lights is usually considered a defect.
You can retouch your prints - not as hard as it might sound. A fine
point black felt pen, like a sharpie does very nicely.
To alter your lighting, you can use just one flash off to one side,
and a large reflector - white foamcore works well - very close to your
subject on the other side.
Lights anywhere within at least a 45 degree angle to the lens axis
will reflect nicely off eyeballs. You can try moving lights around
to move the reflections to less obvious parts of the eye, but my
experience with little boys is that they move around too much to
place lights this precisely.
--
----
Mike Rosenlof mros...@qualcomm.com
Qualcomm, Boulder Colorado (303)473-6798
Blake Stillwell
>
>I have been shooting portraits of my 7 month old son using two off camera
>strobes bounced off of small umbrellas. While the light is nice and soft,
>I still get ugly reflections in his eyes. Any tricks on how to get these
>reflections out of my shoots? Also, any recommendations on a good book on
>lighting would be appreciated.
Instead of using reflectors you may want to try to use a Softbox diffuser made
by several companies such as photoflex and Larson one great soft light is called
the starfish about a 5ft hexagon shaped softbox - also are you using one light as a main
and one as fill?
Sal
What do you mean "ugly"? That would be a little subjective, I think,
but here goes.....
You can:
1.Try using one light
2.Use an "Eclipse" umbrella (has material on the inside).
3.Quit using umbrellas, and just use window light, with a flex fill
card on opposite side.
4.Use a softbox for main, and card for fill.
5.Have reflection "touched out" by retoucher (very common).
Hope this helps..............
ERIC ARCHAMBAULT
: I have been shooting portraits of my 7 month old son using two off camera
: strobes bounced off of small umbrellas. While the light is nice and soft,
: I still get ugly reflections in his eyes. Any tricks on how to get these
: reflections out of my shoots? Also, any recommendations on a good book on
: lighting would be appreciated.
but "catch lights" are just a part of photography thay shouldn't be too
ugly unless the umbrellas are placed poorly. i find that images with out
a catch light are unnatural, just look close sometime thay're usually
catchlights in peoples eyes before the photo lights come out.
thay're just there all the time, whenever there's a light source around.
--
Eric A. Archambault arch...@nevada.edu
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Michael Cubstead
> I have been shooting portraits of my 7 month old son using two off camera
> strobes bounced off of small umbrellas. While the light is nice and soft,
> I still get ugly reflections in his eyes. Any tricks on how to get these
> reflections out of my shoots? Also, any recommendations on a good book on
> lighting would be appreciated.
Try keeping one of the lights very near the camera. You may also try
putting the side light father away than the main light ( the one near the
camera ) so it will produce lighter shadows. You should also make sure the
main light a little above the camera
--
Have fun,
*** Warning *** It has been determined that I am NOT right all the time
Oleg Volk
>
>I have been shooting portraits of my 7 month old son using two off camera
>strobes bounced off of small umbrellas. While the light is nice and soft,
>I still get ugly reflections in his eyes. Any tricks on how to get these
>reflections out of my shoots? Also, any recommendations on a good book on
>lighting would be appreciated.
You could tape photocopies of sm-th over the umbrellas--then the reflections
will look like windows. Also, try bouncing off white walls...
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