Here are two photographs of my granddaughter, Emily.
I figured that taking a picture of Emily in a window would be easy since I was basically just using the flash as fill. The Canon 580EX ii speedlite was hand held at arm's length off to camera left. My goal was to light Emily while keeping the background properly lit and realistic (I wasn't looking for a nice bokeh). I accepted that there would be sharp shadows.
Camera settings: 1/250th at f 9.0 and ISO 400. Flash triggered with the Canon STe2 transmitter.
It turned out to be harder to pull off than I anticipated. I couldn't place the flash close to the camera without creating an ugly reflection in the window. Holding it off to my left meant the side of the window nearest the flash was way too bright. I think that if I had had a light stand handy, placing the speedlite up close to the ceiling and pointing it down at Emily might have worked better.
This second picture was inspired by one of Joe's recent blogs (and his demo in SF). I wanted to take the photo looking into either early morning or late afternoon sun, but that wasn't possible. I settled for a bright spring day.For this one I used two speedlites triggered by the STe2, each set to high speed sync. They were held on either side of my head and aimed directly at the subject. I experimented and found that 1/1600th and f 3.5 got me the best result at ISO 100. The sun's shadow was softened but was still visible but Emily was well lit.
For fun, below is one I took the week before using ISO 1600 to give me a high shutter speed in order to catch Emily jumping. The background looks fine but there is way too much contrast where the light hits Emily's body. For me, the flash approach yields a better result.
Hope everyone is well and taking lots and lots of pictures.
Virginia
All 3 photo's are cute, as Joe would say, a great subject in action trumps the lighting. I agree that the second picture turned out nicely, pleasing lighting all around, enough shadowing to give it dimension without distracting bright areas. My eye goes to her and stays there. Nice use of HighSpeed Sync.
ReplyDeleteReal nice - I think the sharp shadows of #1 add to the photo. It has a very high-fashion look to it. The other 2 are a great use of high-speed sync, talk about energy! Nice job!
ReplyDeleteThe hard light from left combined with the pose in 1 defines and projects an "attitude" and maturity beyond her 5 years. The outside high-sync shots show the joy of youth but visually tend to blend into the background, especially 2. of the three I'll give 1 the kudos here. Very successful.
ReplyDeletelight, composition, pose all wonderful.
ReplyDeletegreat choice with window "framing"