Post Your Best Portrait Shots!

Welcome to the forum jkt! We're glad to have you here. Personally, I think you did a fantastic job on the exposure (you just enough ambient in). The pose is a bit awkward (having the elbow so much closer to the lens than the face makes it seem disproportionately bigger. In fact, I thought this was shot at the wider end of your 17-55 until I saw "43mm" (which can cause more distortion in your subject). The pose aside, I think you nailed the bounce flash. It does indeed look like window light--it works perfectly with the scene. Overall, well done!

Welcome JKT! For the sake of mention, if you go with Manual mode and ambient light is a factor in your shot, ISO values aren't "arbitrary": they influence how bright/dark the ambient is just as much as shutter or aperture settings. I'm not sure about the 430II, but I believe some of the newer Canon flashes interpret their color temperature and report that to the camera, so if you have the camera on auto WB it'll be "calibrated" to the flash and unaware of the ambient light.

And one from Good Friday...


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2745/...1a40d3d075.jpg

And a follow up on Easter...



http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/...af9ea26ff0.jpg


click on pick for strobist info

Real Thinker.7D, 70-200mm IS, hand held (bit shaky LOL)


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.34.07/HMB-April-2010.jpg[/img]

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6674495_n.jpg

Terrific lighting Madison!


I'm so excited I finally have some more portraits to add to the thread! Well, one.. but, I got to play with a friend's Alien Bee 800s a few days ago! Four light set up!!



http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2255/...b1f30f7599.jpg


Strobist Info: 2 AB 800s @ 1/3 power, standard reflector, behind subject on either side. One Vivitar 285HV @ 1/4 power, 43" Westcott shoot-through umbrella, below and aimed up to fill in below the nose and eyes. One Canon 430EXII @ 1/16 through another Westcott 43" shoot through, on a human boom, on axis, slightly above and aimed down for soft light on the face.

Thanks Rodger: people are always so against umbrellas but that picture was lit with one umbrella only, as the only light source, and nothing else. ^_^





Umbrellas rule!

I love umbrellas.


It's funny I was reading a guy models comments on model mayhem a while ago. He said he showed to a shoot once and they had umbrellas set up and he walked out.


What a maroon!

Yeah that's Model Mayhem for you 99,9% wannabes with attitudes acting like jerks and making demands. Horrible.





I call modeling agencies these days asking to do test shoots with new faces. The difference between a professional model even an unexperienced one, and people from Model Mayhem is mind boggling.