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More experimentation with coloured light.

Please critique. This was my first time with a black backdrop, and colored light. Also first time I have shot the backlight towards the model, rather than on the backdrop.

appreciation feedback, thanks
Oz

Focus seems to have missed the front eye and hit the hair instead.

The colour is interesting but I'm not sure what you were going for. The angle/colour/strength of the light would be great for a sunset photo.

Black backdrop doesn't seem to fit. What other angles / strength did you try with the light?

Hi Bruce,

I agree regarding the focus issue. It does look soft to me. What settings were you on in terms of shutter speed/aperture. Also, I think black background does not suit yellow colour of the gel you used for backlighting. The gel colour suits and accentuates her hair colour, but not the background.

Alex

Zeeps wrote:Focus seems to have missed the front eye and hit the hair instead.

The colour is interesting but I'm not sure what you were going for. The angle/colour/strength of the light would be great for a sunset photo.

Black backdrop doesn't seem to fit. What other angles / strength did you try with the light?

Thanks for the feedback.
The softening was a little photoshop dabbling, using blur to soften the face.

Black backdrop was new, so I was experimenting to see what would work with it, so all part of my learning. I now wish I had been more creative during the shoot, and moved the light around much more... oh wel...

Alex wrote:Hi Bruce,

I agree regarding the focus issue. It does look soft to me. What settings were you on in terms of shutter speed/aperture. Also, I think black background does not suit yellow colour of the gel you used for backlighting. The gel colour suits and accentuates her hair colour, but not the background.

Alex

This was f11 @ 1/125th, ISO 200.

Thanks for feedback on the gel color. I was trying a few different ones, I'll post a few examples.

I like the black for its purity, and isolation.

here is one against the studio wall (light grey)

Hi Bruce,

I think the 2nd one with yellow background, or white background turned yellow is an imporvement. The other issue is still the focus. I think you mis-focused and focus went some other place than the face.

Your settings seem fine and it should be very nice and sharp at the settings you state, I think it is simply an issue of trying to focus on the eyes of a model.

Cheers
Alex

I like the way the second shot came out. A great tip I recieved was to keep the focus on the closest eye to the lens.

Edit: It seems your lens is male as well, both shots are focused on her bust! haha

Yes, I agree, and thought the same when I was looking through these. I'll have to make some improvement in my focus technique.

For this for of shot, I use the default centred area, using AF-Lock, and recompose.

Something is not right...

Bruce,

When you say you use the AF button, is your focus mode AF-C or AF-S. If it's the former then you need to focus it on her eyes the let it go (the button) and recompose then shoot (don't press the AF button again). If it's in AF-S, however, then you need to press this botton whilst focusing on her eyes, HOLD it, then recompose while holding (don't let it go), then shoot. It's the opposite technique and can be quite confusing but it works!

Alex

Alex wrote:Bruce,

When you say you use the AF button, is your focus mode AF-C or AF-S. If it's the former then you need to focus it on her eyes the let it go (the button) and recompose then shoot (don't press the AF button again). If it's in AF-S, however, then you need to press this botton whilst focusing on her eyes, HOLD it, then recompose while holding (don't let it go), then shoot. It's the opposite technique and can be quite confusing but it works!

Alex

thanks Alex,
I'll grab my camera and check now. bugger.

Alex, I was using AF-C, which does not require holding the AF-ON button (as AF-S does).

Therefore, think I am either moving zoom ring due to support hand position, or maybe as wendellt raised in another thread, a "backfocus" problem?

I'm sure there is a test I can do to check that???

backlight is cool
but i think it works best when in it's used in theme like disco theme coloured backlights

or somne sort of funky retro theme

but in this example the light looks to artificial maybe if it were less yellow and more complimentary to the main tone of the image that would be much better

also watch things like the light spilling out too much cos the bit under her arm looks odd, backlights are usually to emphasise hair, you could snoot the backlight so it only gets the hair

or if u want to emphasise the body more put a beauty dish on that backlight it would cover more area and difusse the light somewhat

good work for a first try

as for your focus problem even if its a backfocus issue your shooting at f11 so the depth of field would cancel out that issue

it woudl be helpful to know what range your shooting at distance from model and you and the lens used

backfoicus issues are really noticable at 200mm when shooting distand stationary objects more than 10 meters awayif the area you focus locked on is blurry in the resulting image it's a backfocus issue

at close range the backfocus issue is more subtle

wendellt wrote:as for your focus problem even if its a backfocus issue your shooting at f11 so the depth of field would cancel out that issue

it woudl be helpful to know what range your shooting at distance from model and you and the lens used

backfoicus issues are really noticable at 200mm when shooting distand stationary objects more than 10 meters awayif the area you focus locked on is blurry in the resulting image it's a backfocus issue

at close range the backfocus issue is more subtle

the headshot, was at 200mm, about 7 meters distance to subject.
f11, 1/125th, which may be camera shake?

here is a 100% crop of the unedited version.

Being in focus isn't enough.

Try manually focusing with your camera set to burst.

That way you can fire off a few frames whilst modifying the focus ever so slightly. Within the focal plane there are is an area where everything appears the sharpest, finding that place is the fun part!

1/125 well that's the issue

your getting camera shake
200mm requires a shutter of 1/200 +

wendellt wrote:1/125 well that's the issue

your getting camera shake
200mm requires a shutter of 1/200 +

True, is this handheld? Try using mirror lockup mode, even if it's on a tripod.

Zeeps wrote:

wendellt wrote:1/125 well that's the issue

your getting camera shake
200mm requires a shutter of 1/200 +

True, is this handheld? Try using mirror lockup mode, even if it's on a tripod.

yes, handheld. not yet comfortable with tripod in the studio, but I'm thinking for a set shot, seated like this, it would be worthwhile, and increase to 1/250th.

wendellt wrote:1/125 well that's the issue

your getting camera shake
200mm requires a shutter of 1/200 +

Not when he's using flash.

The only thing that's happenning at the 1/125 is that the shutter is fully open. Within that blink of an eye, the flash will also be triggered, for maybe a poofteenth of a second, and that's when the exposure is made.

Camera shake is not an issue.

In that crop, I'm actually seeing what might be an acceptable level of in-camera sharpness, but it leads me to enquire after the in-camera and post-processing settings.

Basically, I want to know what level of sharpening has been applied here; I suspect that a little bit of unsharp mask might be the answer to this problem, and maybe even add a smidgeon of in-camera sharpening to nail this.

Also, what lens was used? My guess is that this is your new toy, Bruce, in which case I'm going to suggest oopening it up a tad; f/11 is, in my experience, beyond the sweet spot. Try f/8 or f/9, and see where that leaves you.

gstark wrote:

wendellt wrote:1/125 well that's the issue

your getting camera shake
200mm requires a shutter of 1/200 +

Not when he's using flash.

The only thing that's happenning at the 1/125 is that the shutter is fully open. Within that blink of an eye, the flash will also be triggered, for maybe a poofteenth of a second, and that's when the exposure is made.

Camera shake is not an issue.

In that crop, I'm actually seeing what might be an acceptable level of in-camera sharpness, but it leads me to enquire after the in-camera and post-processing settings.

Basically, I want to know what level of sharpening has been applied here; I suspect that a little bit of unsharp mask might be the answer to this problem, and maybe even add a smidgeon of in-camera sharpening to nail this.

Also, what lens was used? My guess is that this is your new toy, Bruce, in which case I'm going to suggest oopening it up a tad; f/11 is, in my experience, beyond the sweet spot. Try f/8 or f/9, and see where that leaves you.

thanks Gary. new toy is too long (thats for the ski race this weekend).

the first image in this thread (headshot) was with 70-200 VR. The second was with 28-70.

No sharpening used (in camera nor PP).

I had, in the first image, used the blur tool over the cheeks and forehead, including nose and mouth). Eyes were left alone. But the shots in my other posts (tonights) are out of focus with no PP.

Are you suggesting that I should make use of "sharpening"?

Still feels like I am not getting it in focus in the camera...

here is the first image, unedited.

Perhaps the focus issue was due to the softening in PP?

Oz_Beachside wrote:the first image in this thread (headshot) was with 70-200 VR. The second was with 28-70.

Ok ... f/6.3 - f/9-ish ...


and try a couple of the moderate levels of sharpening.

Still feels like I am not getting it in focus in the camera...

See my other comments about holding focus after acquisition.

My experience is that it's usually an issue of technique, and I know you won't be offended by that. Or at least I hope you won't be ...

But I think that you'll want to use the lens' sweet spots, a smidgeon of in-cam sharpening (if you've shot in raw, drag the NEF into NCE and adjust the sharpening there to see what it might look like) and look at how you're actually acquiring focus.

In NCE there's a setting that will show you the focus point that was used for the image: have a look at those and see see if they're any different from where you thought the image was focused.

Then, zoom in and pixel peep (100%) at the point of focus, and see how sharp that part of the image is.

Colour and sharpness can be fixed in post.



Sharpness: Use unsharp mask.

Colour:

1. Adjust Levels to get a true blacks and whites and a nice gamma.

Next problem is the harsh backlight. The yellow is overwhelming the subject. This is where a little colour theory comes into play.

Apply a yellow filter to bring the colour temperature of the mainlight inline with the direct yellow light.
Once that is done you have an image with a more consistant light temperature. Very warm, but consistant.
Now what we want to do is cool down the lighting. So a blue filter is applied and adjusted. And that's it!

Here is a copy of the psd with the above corrections. Play around with the layers turning their visibility on and off to see what they do.

http://saggi.com.au/Pic/20070205_gel_corrected.psd

When working in raw you can push the image much futher!

Greg