Please be honest as I don't know what I'm doing, but tried hard as Hell.

Jeff Harper

Well-Known Member
Super Modle B 012.jpgBrook Super Modle 046.jpgBrook Super Modle 029.jpgSuper Modle B 009.jpgI used several flood lights and T5's no flash, the second picture was under 6,700k light with no 5,000k turned on to add the red spectrum.
a 35 mm lens and some where shot with a 100mm lens.
I played alot with lights and even managed to simulate moon light but I didn't like it.
I really am begging for feed back since we are using some of these shots for our store BTW I took the pictures in the salon so customers where watching a lot of the shoot.
I used my wifes Nikon D60.
 
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Great looking subjects - loving the saturated colors Jeff

The best shot for me technically is the hands shot - really cracking image, well lit and super sharp with nice DOF.

The model shots are good, but a couple look a little soft?

Maybe need to up the ISO and use a smaller aperture to give more depth of field, and make sure the focus is on the subjects eyes - definitely use a tripod if you're not already. What were the settings on these shots (shutter/aperture/ISO)

I think the lighting came out well - no nasty shadows, and the WB suits the theme very well

Model shot #2 looks the sharpest, and is a nice relaxed look with good eye contact

100mm will usually give you a nicer looking portrait than a 35mm lens - less distortion of the features

The only thing I'd add on comp would be to move her head a little higher in the frame on each shot - or crop later that way.

You planning on doing some more?
 
What is the ISO? WB? I used a tripod for all the shots. But I played with the shutter speed a lot.
At one point it was really slow and if she moved at all the image came out blurry.
DOF?
I'm a point and shoot guy trying to learn something a little at a time.

I may do more later but not right away.Not kidding when I said armature my camera is a 3.1 mega pixel Kodak easy share 10 years old. I used my wife's D60 and the lenses I got her for it,as she never uses it.
The one thing I have a good under standing of is lighting so it has helped me along.
 
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Sorry Jeff

ISO is the film speed - you can set the camera to emulate various film speeds from the old days, so in low light you would want to set the ISO to a higher value, as this gives you faster shutter speeds and avoids the blurring issues when things move.

Typically ISO 400 or 800 I'd guess, depending on your lighting strength

DOF is depth of field - so how much is in focus front to back in a photo - when the backdrop goes out of focus nicely, it makes for a nice image. Aperture effects DOF - f2.8 will give you a narrow depth of field, i.e. a lot of he picture either side of the focus point will be out of focus. f16 will give more DOF - i.e.more of the image will be in focus either side of the focus point.

Any idea how the camera was set for the pictures?

WB is white balance - how natural the light color look sin the pictures - most cameras do automatic WB to adjust for lighting temperature.
 
I couldn't tell you because I kept adjusting,shutter speed from 200 to 800 ect..
This was the first time I could really play around with the camera.
I had no real idea what i was doing to be honest,and when I messed things up to bad i just started over.
And at some point God just smiled on me.
 
Well if this was the first go around then you're well down the track Jeff.

Shooting live models under constant lighting is no easy task.

With flash, the subject is frozen by the short burst of light, so that avoids most if not all of the subject moving blur.

But with floodlights you don't get that benefit - so you need to keep the shutter sped high enough to freeze any movement

I would think 1/250 would be a good place to start, unless you're capturing someone in motion, such as dancing etc.

Next setting for me would be aperture - to be safe you can set the aperture to give you a deeper depth of field, so that the models face and body is all in focus when you focus the camera on her eyes.

With the 100mm lens at a shooting distance of say 10ft - setting the camera at f/8 would give you approx 1ft of depth of field

So if you focussed on her eyes anything 6 inches in front of her eyes, and behind her eyes, would be in sharp focus - so her face and body should be good an sharp, but the back wall would be going blurry, which is good.

With your shutter speed at 1/250, and aperture at f/8 - you still need enough light to get the shot correctly exposed. So you can adjust the amount/quantity of illumination by using more or less lighting - or more likely you have a set up where you need all your lights, and what you want to do is adjust that film speed (ISO) setting on the camera up or down, so that the exposure at 1/250 f/8 is good.

Once you have that dialed in - you can take some test shots and look at them on the rear screen of the camera - check for sharpness and exposure - if the camera has an exposure histogram you can check that to see if the shot looks well exposed.

You will probably have to manually select the auto focus (AF) point that lies over the subjects face - rather than letting the camera decide which AF point to use - this will make it easy to focus on the face, and that makes for a good portrait shot.

Having a play with the camera away from the shoot is a good idea - figure these things out without the pressure of models and lights and people watching!


One of the advantages of using floodlights as you have, is that you can see how the lighting will look on the shot - just by looking. With flash this is much more difficult. You've done a great job getting even lighting and some good feature definition, so I think you have a good feel for that already. Reviewing shots on the camera screen or even a laptop, is another good gut check to see how it's looking.
 
I think you did pretty well here Jeff. The colors are nice and crisp and the focus is very good for the most part. I might suggest moving the lighting to see if you could capture more of a feeling of depth.

The had shot is interesting but I'd probably go for a background with less detail in it so it doesn't detract from the hands.

Overall pretty darn good work, I'd say!
 
Thank you for all the schooling Chris, and thanks, Ralph for the back ground suggestion.
I have so much to learn,I am not really into photography my camera is worth about $10.00 a very old Kodak 3.1.
I got my wife a nice used Nikon D60 and spent a small fortune on lenses and filters and loads of other stuff and she uses it on Christmas and Conners Birthday, so maybe twice a year.
Pro photographers wanted a small fortune to shoot our model for a buisness,but more so they retain the rights to the pictures and charge you every time you use them so it was out of need as we just don't have the money right now for a full on pro.
I do have a much larger appreciation for what it takes to get a good picture though.
I will probably play around taking portraits of my wife and son since the cameras here doing nothing most the time.

Here is an example of 6,700 to 10,000k lights to simulate moon light. See the blues reflected in her hair.
Lights can make a real difference. A very fair skinned model would look like a Smurf but it works well with Brown and Bronze skin tones. The hard part was getting her to hold the pose while I went around switching on and off lights.
I was hoping Hamish would see these, He has inspired me to take a few pictures after looking at some of his on AOS and here.
 

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I too think you have done impressively well all things concidered Jeff!
Chris has really nailed the advice on this one.

experimentation is key here! But a starting point of 1/250th and f8 should get you sharp photos!
focusing on her eye using the mode of the camera that uses a single spot for focus will help

To get all this in action...

here is the manual http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/noprint/D60_ennoprint.pdf

Set the camera to manual (m)
set the shutter to 1/250th
set aperture to 8

page 57 in manual
focus
you want AF-s
and single point focusing

then play with the ISO (page 53 in manual) and power of the lights to get a nice balance
 
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Images of Krishna, Goddess Durga, sometimes are blue.
I love that about Hindu culture Woman is a Goddess (Devi) to be worshipped (Puja) by men.
 
Thanks, Hamish,
When all else fails read the manual?
Do you play with light color temps?
 
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