Exposure info: 52.5mm focal length, 1/50 sec, f/2, ISO 400, 5:12pm.
Flash info: Dome diffuser at 1/4 or 1/8 power, 14mm zoom, 4:00 camera right, 6 feet away from subject.
My buddy Andrew attended a medical conference in San Francisco this past weekend. The view from his hotel room was incredible. The sun was setting fast and he was anxious to grab some dinner, so I knew I didn't have a lot of time to work.
As usual, I started by finding the best exposure for the background (in this case, the city behind the window). I placed the flash on top of a table lamp (I didn't have my stand with me), because it was at the right height to allow the flash to light up his head and body. The lamp was also at 4:00 camera right which was great, because the light cast by the flash that hit the window did not reflect back into the camera. Lastly, I adjusted the power of the flash until it looked like Andrew's face was properly exposed.
What I didn't like:
1. The ambient light in the room can be seen as reflections in the window.
2. Andrew looks very cold. I warmed up the photo in Lightroom, and it looks good on my computer, but it looks cold when viewed through Flickr. More research is needed.
Update: My friend Swarup did a little research for me and dug up this morsel on the Flickr help forum. Essentially Firefox, IE, Google Chrome, and perhaps other browsers strip away the color space profile. Safari thankfully does not, so if you compare Andrew's photo on Safari vs. the other browsers I listed, you'll see that on Safari, his face and the sunset light are considerably warmer.
3. Why is the ISO set to 400? I can't remember whether I purposely set it that high to expose the background properly, or if I just forgot to reset it to ISO 100 after my previous photo shoot.
4. Andrew's face is blurry.Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Quickie Portrait With Off-Camera Flash
Exposure info: 52.5mm focal length, 1/50 sec, f/2, ISO 400, 5:12pm.
Flash info: Dome diffuser at 1/4 or 1/8 power, 14mm zoom, 4:00 camera right, 6 feet away from subject.
My buddy Andrew attended a medical conference in San Francisco this past weekend. The view from his hotel room was incredible. The sun was setting fast and he was anxious to grab some dinner, so I knew I didn't have a lot of time to work.
As usual, I started by finding the best exposure for the background (in this case, the city behind the window). I placed the flash on top of a table lamp (I didn't have my stand with me), because it was at the right height to allow the flash to light up his head and body. The lamp was also at 4:00 camera right which was great, because the light cast by the flash that hit the window did not reflect back into the camera. Lastly, I adjusted the power of the flash until it looked like Andrew's face was properly exposed.
What I didn't like:
1. The ambient light in the room can be seen as reflections in the window.
2. Andrew looks very cold. I warmed up the photo in Lightroom, and it looks good on my computer, but it looks cold when viewed through Flickr. More research is needed.
Update: My friend Swarup did a little research for me and dug up this morsel on the Flickr help forum. Essentially Firefox, IE, Google Chrome, and perhaps other browsers strip away the color space profile. Safari thankfully does not, so if you compare Andrew's photo on Safari vs. the other browsers I listed, you'll see that on Safari, his face and the sunset light are considerably warmer.
3. Why is the ISO set to 400? I can't remember whether I purposely set it that high to expose the background properly, or if I just forgot to reset it to ISO 100 after my previous photo shoot.
4. Andrew's face is blurry.
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2 comments:
Nice, next time turn off the room light?
Good point. He had a roommate, so I didn't want to turn everything off, but certainly turning off the hallway and bathroom lights would have helped.
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