Month: July 2012

Butterfly Lighting and Foot Lights

by Stanley LearyPortraits
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Available Light

First, always start with no lights before adding lights. This photo at the top shows you the excellent diffused lighting of the open shade on our deck.

Foot Lights

One of the lights used in theater is the foot lighting. This helps the older actors look younger. So, while they can act better after some years of experience than they did when they were young, they need the footlights to help soften the wrinkles of the skin.

If you go to Broadway and see the stages, you will usually see some lights built in the front of the stage floor near the audience. These lights give you the ghostly lighting children like creating using a flashlight under the chin. Bringing it away from the face looks more like your theater footlights.

Foot Lighting balancing with available light

In the photo above, we are still getting some overhead lighting from the sky in this outdoor photo, but look in the eyes and see the lower light being very bright.

Butterfly Lighting

Butterfly Lighting and Foot Lighting combined with available lighting

If you put a light straight above the lens pointing down at a model, you will get a butterfly shadow under the nose. To see this effect, the model must look straight into the camera with no foot lighting.

In the last photo of my daughter, I kept the footlight and the butterfly light the same power and underexposed the overall picture by one stop.

The Setup

Setup: You can see the SB800 on the lower light and the SB900 on the upper light.

To trigger the Nikon SB800 and Nikon SB900, I am using the PocketWizard Mini TT1 on the camera and the Flex TT5 transceiver on the flashes.

I am shooting through the white umbrellas with the soft domes on the flashes to soften the light.

To keep the background blurred, I shot with the Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.4 lens at ƒ/1.4 opening. If you look closely, you will notice that the front of her nose is out of focus as the edges of her face are just behind the eyes.

I am focusing on her eyes.

Setup

To control the amount of power from the flashes, I use the PocketWizard AC3, which attaches to the Mini TT1.

The flashes are set to 0 compensation for the photos above, and the camera is set to -1 EV using the exposure compensation dial on the Nikon D4.

I am shooting in Aperture mode.

  • ISO 100
  • ƒ/1.4
  • 1/500

These are the camera settings for all the photos above.

Nikon Telephoto AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF Autofocus Lens

You must use a lens hood to avoid lens flare when taking these photos.

The Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.4 comes with a lens hood, which is made of metal. You can always buy a rubber off-brand hood if you choose.

Why not use a reflector?

Most photographers will use a reflector to act as a footlight, which is perfect. However, the advantage of using a flash with TTL control is you can control even more so the effect of the footlight.

The best you can do with a reflector is come close to the same value of light as the leading light; however, for some people, you may want to pump it up to be even brighter. 

I suggest going out and trying some of this yourself. You can get comfortable with the setup and try different things to have one more lighting option for your portraits.

Cable Management and being prepared

by Stanley LearyPhotography
Reading Time: < 1 minute

When I travel, I need many different cords. I need power cords for my computer, cellphone, iPad, and card readers. Thinktank has designed several different Cable management bags. I use two of them.

To hold all these cables, I use the Cable Management 30.

Cable Ties and packing

I use the Cable Management 10 to store my RadioPoppers. You don’t have to use these bags just for cables. When you go to your bags and need to find something, these bags help keep you organized and more efficient when shooting.

Be sure you are prepared before you go to a job. Have everything you need or might need with you. Nothing is worse than knowing what you need for a job, but it’s at home or your office.

Super simple off camera flash portrait

by Stanley LearyNikon D4 / Off Camera Flash / Portraits
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Nikon D4, 85mm ƒ/1.4, ISO 200, 1/8000

The key to any good photo is the old KISS rule, which is: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

For this portrait of my dad, I chose to shoot outside and use some of the sunny weather we were having down at the beach. We shot this outside on the balcony of our cottage. The location was chosen because it was the fewest steps I needed to make to get a good photo.


Start with the sun backlighting the subject.

One of the reasons I always start with the sun on the back of the subject and not where it is lighting their face has to do with expression. I find i  almost impossible for getting a good expression when people are squinting and straining due to the sun being directly in their eyes.

The benefit of backlighting the subject is that you get a good rim light around it, which will help you separate it from the background.

Look for a darker background.

I like to find a simple background without blown-out highlights. I normally look for a much darker background than I chose here. My point is to be careful, or your blinking highlights will be in the background and distracting rather than complementary to the subject.

Choose a shallow depth-of-field

I am using my favorite portrait lens, my Nikkor 85mm ƒ/1.4, for this photo. When shooting with this lens, you need to be sure that the eyes are the sharpest point in the photo. I still recommend having the eyes be where you focus, even if you shoot this at ƒ/22.

In general, if you are doing a portrait of a person and not an environmental portrait, then the background and surroundings are not really that important. Since that is the case here for this photo, I threw that background way out of focus by shooting at an aperture of ƒ/1.4.

Fill Flash

I love to use an off-camera flash as my fill/main light outside for portraits. Here is a diagram showing where the sun was and the off-camera Nikon SB-900 speedlight placement for this photograph.

You can trigger the off-camera flash in many different ways. I often use the Nikon SU-800, which uses infrared to trigger the off-camera flash. I chose to use the PocketWizard Mini TT1 on the camera with the AC3, which lets me alter the power of the flash from the camera and not the flash itself. This saves you a lot of steps back and forth for tweaking those fine adjustments.

The Nikon SB-900 has the PocketWizard FlexTT5 on it, which receives the signal and talks to the camera’s TTL system to give consistent exposures.

 

I placed the light 45º to the right of the camera and not quite 45º above the eyes. I am a little lower since my subject has deep-set eyes. 

What is the benefit of the flash, say, over a reflector? If I use the reflector, I will be bouncing the sun into their faces and often getting the squint I was trying to avoid.

Second, I get good skin tones by using the flash, and the color temperature of the flash gives it that “pop” I like to see.

Third, I like seeing a catch light in the eyes, and the flash helps me be sure one is there. I think it helps bring the eyes to life.

Go and try this setup yourself. Adjust it to your conditions and the subject, and see what you come up with.

Off camera flash for beach portraits

by Stanley LearyOff Camera Flash
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Nikon D4, 28-300mm @ 98mm, ISO 1,200, ƒ/8, 1/50
Gitzo GT-0531

While on vacation with the family, I ended up taking some portraits on the beach. I had my Nikon SB-900 and SB-800 with me.

I wanted to use the beach as the background for the photos. There is no need for a white seamless when you have this kind of natural setting.

I used flashes to help give the photos a pop. I wanted the subjects to be just a hair bit brighter than everything else to draw more attention to them.

I also used my Gitzo carbon fiber tripod to keep the camera rock-steady so I could shoot these at dusk. This way, everyone’s eyes were open and not squinting on the beach.

I had the PocketWizard Mini TT1, FlexTT5, and AC3 to trigger the flashes. Using the AC3 to control the flashes’ output, I set the SB-900 at zero and the SB-800 at -1. This way, the SB-900 is the main light, and the SB-800 is the fill.

Since this is working using TTL, you have to play with it. The scene really affects the look and how the TTL reacts in any given situation. 

We had fun taking different photos of everyone down on the beach.

Lighting diagram for the photos.

Now that the technical stuff is explained and out of the way, how do you get good expressions?

Have some fun and let them goof around. After having some fun, you can squeeze a few pleasant moments in as well.