My first real strobist encounter....

[Sheiky]

Hey there,


well I have had my first strobist encounter. I will tell you a part of the story.


My sister and her man asked me a while agoto shoot a group-shot of all the grandchildren of their family(brother in law side, so not mine). Of course I agreed to do this. I have done a similar thing before for some of their familymembers.


So we set a date and a time. We agreed on 7pm (1900h) at wednesday the 29th of september. The next day I had a wedding so it should be a quick shoot, because I hadto prepare for the next day.That wasn't a problem. My brother was with me to "assist" (in the end I was the assist []) so it was the idea to drop him of at the farm of one of their familymembers at a quarter before 7 so he could "scout" the surroundings. At that date sun would set at half past 7, it was an amazing sunset so we were having fun.


When we arrived at the farm the farmer looked strange and he told us that the shoot wasn't at 7, but at 8! [:S] He couldn't understand either, but that was the deal...


Ouch...it was going to be an outdoor shot after sunset or an indoor shot in the barn... Anyway we went off to return an hour later. In between I had to pick up an extra 430 EX flash that we needed for the wedding the next day. When we returned it was getting very dark already so an outdoorshoot wasn't really an option anymore.


So the farmer took us inside where it looked like this:





24mm f2.8 ISO-3200 1/80sec


So you could imagine that it was dark and me and my brother looked at eachother thinking...oh *&$#%$ [:#]


The farmer showed us a big grey wall where we could take the picture. At that part there was no artificial light whatsoever, but luckily he had a small construction light.


When some of the others came, one of them(also a photographer) brought another construction light. This one was bigger and so we decided it was going to be our main light. We set up 2 flashes in both sides of the camera. And my brother took a test shot of mein the situation:





40mm f8 ISO-1600 1/60sec


The background was very reflective which was pretty annoying, but better than that we couldn't have done it. As far as weknew.Both flashes were set at manual1/2 power if I remember correctly.


The final result after some photoshopping looked like this:





40mm f8 ISO-1600 1/60sec


Anyway I like the result we got, given the circumstances. It took somewhat longer than I had planned. And the family liked the result a lot so that's a good thing.


I learned a few things this evening:


1 - I had just bought a set of colorcorrectionfilters for my flash, which turned out to be the best purchase I made lately


2 - Don't let somebody plan a shoot for you who doesn't know how difficult it can be to make such a simple looking shot


3 -I have enourmously much respect for all the strobist photographers out there. It's not easy at all! [A]


4 - I don't think I will do such a shot again anytime soon. It gives me headaches [:P] I'm more a spontaneous photographer. Not a set-up guy....


If you want to give critique or comments, be my guest [] Any tips for future surprises are also welcome.


Thanks for watching,


Jan

[Tom Wertman]

Hi Jan,


Considering the circumstances I thinking lighting wise you pulled off a great shot and you should feel proud of that. I don't like the arrangement of the people though because it is off balance. Unless you were arranging them by relationship there were many other choices you had. For the bottom row 4 out 5 are facing one direction with the last in the opposite and the top row is off by height and direction as well. The blond third from the right is throwing the balance off by facing in that direction. The height of the guy second from left is out of place and would be better served in the middle with half of the people facing towards center in opposite directions on either side of him. And positioned by height so no one picks up a shadow from the person next to him. Also the guy dead center in back row has some shadows on his face. I'm sure once you had the lighting right the composition may have not entered your mind and it was an easy overlook based on where you were and the lighting conditions. Good job overall though.


Tom

[Oren]

The third one is really great

[ddt0725]

Hi Jan -


Considering what your first shot looks like I am amazed with the last shot!! I think you & your brother performed a miracle in the end! [Y]

Denise

[Sheiky]

Considering the circumstances I thinking lighting wise you pulled off a great shot and you should feel proud of that.

Thanks Tom, your comment was really good! I agree with you on every aspect. It's not a secret that I am a strobistnewbie and I don't shoot a lot of portraits[]


To be honest, we had 2 different set-ups. For some reason they all had black or white clothing so we did a thing with that, but it became very static and boring. Among the things you mention there are some that I didn't even see untill now [] That's really something to pay attention to. At this time of my photography-road I'm not ready yet.


The height of the guy second from left is out of place and would be better served in the middle with half of the people facing towards center in opposite directions on either side of him. And positioned by height so no one picks up a shadow from the person next to him.


My defense [:P]Well as I mentioned, I was working the flashes(both manually and one needed to be handheld) and my brother took the shots. But honestly the guys length wasn't the biggest deal. For some reason he doesn't like taking serious pictures and he tries to mess them up by blinking with one eye or snouting his nose, so my brother had his hands full on him alone. And we also had like 5 minutes to take the photos....they weren't the best group to take pictures of. Next time if something like this happens I will arrange the time of the shoot myself.


Whenwe hadn't had the stress of getting the lighting good, we probably could have done a much better job, but everything needed to be quick. And I was on a tight schedule myself as well.

Also the guy dead center in back row has some shadows on his face

Haha this is absolutely the best part! [] To be honest, if I show you the original shot before photoshopping, you can see why[A]


Thanks for the great constructive advice, I know the picture is bad and my skills aren't the best, but with your advice a next time will be a lot better. Thumbs up[Y]

The third one is really great
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Thanks Oren []

Hi Jan -


Considering what your first shot looks like I am amazed with the last shot!! I think you &amp; your brother performed a miracle in the end! [img]/emoticons/emotion-21.gif[/img]

Denise
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Hihi thanks Denise, we know what miracles photoshop can do now []

4 - I don't think I will do such a shot again anytime soon. It gives me headaches [img]/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img] I'm more a spontaneous photographer. Not a set-up guy....

I can relate, well to everything but the guy part! [img]/emoticons/emotion-5.gif[/img] I'd much rather jump in the car and head out somewhere on a nature hike or take spontaneous shots of the family doing whatever at the moment! But Inever would have found that out unless I tried it!

Denise
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Hihi yeah we totaly understand eachother []


For the sake of the game, spot the differences [:P] Good luck!


Before:





After:





- Jan

[Kayaker72]

. The guy in the middle is photoshopped in from another pic.


btw I hope my first "strobist" effort turns out so well.

[Sheiky]

Bingo! [:P] Sometimes it pays off to know some photoshopping []


I'm not too proud of the results, but none of them noticed my photoshopping on a 40*60cm print(1.3*2ft?) so I guess it's ok. I'm still thinking when I'm going to show this all to them [A]

btw I hope my first "strobist" effort turns out so well.

Thanks and I wish you a lot of luck. Sean and others make it seem very easy [:|]

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

I think you did an outstanding job, considering the circumstance.

[ddt0725]

4 - I don't think I will do such a shot again anytime soon. It gives me headaches [img]/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img] I'm more a spontaneous photographer. Not a set-up guy....

I can relate, well to everything but the guy part! [] I'd much rather jump in the car and head out somewhere on a nature hike or take spontaneous shots of the family doing whatever at the moment! But Inever would have found that out unless I tried it!

Denise