Friday night I was testing out a new Justin Clamp with my Canon 430EX flash. I grabbed a few shots of my daughter Emma while we were outside waiting for a play to start. I pretty much rely on trial and error when I'm working with a flash so after a series of over and under exposed shots I finally took a few with what looked to me like the correct exposure. As usual I would really appreciate any feedback about how today's shot turned out.
Title: "Portrait of Emma"
Shot data: 1/320s f/10.0 at 55.0mm iso100
Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Flash: Canon 430EX (TTL mode) Justin-clamped at camera right low pointed over the subjects head to feather the light
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS3 > Topaz Adjust plugin
5 comments:
For a one flash setup this is a nice shot Barry. It has a soft feel to it due to the way you lit your subject. It is an emotional photo in the way she seems so pensive or lost in her thoughts. With another light or two you could bring more out of this photo. I would use PS and add some creative lighting to reduce the floating head effect.
Nice job.
DHaass
Thanks Doug!
She was wearing a dark colored shirt but I suspect there is detail in the shadows I could reveal by reprocessing the raw file to address the floating head issue. I'll have to give it a try!
Cheers!
Barry
I like the floating effect and the totally different angle that you chose on this one. The lighting is nice and soft. Good use of light and shadow.
Very nice and unusual portrait. I too like the soft light on her face, it is not too harsh at all. Her skin looks beautiful and I love the detail of her earring. It all combines to look very classic and elegant. But also I would like to see some detail in her shirt. Did you think about adding a texture there? I am not sure this is the type of shot for that, but if you cannot recover any detail maybe a texture layer there would do something for the floating head effect. Do you remember what the power level was on your flash? Was the flash diffused? Wonderful portrait with very interesting light.
Thanks Patrick and Cindi!
Cindi - I'm afraid that trying to answer your questions will expose my ignorance but here goes: The flash was pointed over Emma’s head to feather the light. I had the flash set on TTL mode (here comes the ignorant part) but I don't really even know if TTL works with the flash off-camera triggered by a Pocket Wizard. If TTL doesn't work this way (and I suspect that it doesn't) then I guess that the flash would have fired at full power. I wasn't using any kind of diffuser. Hope this helps!
Thanks again for your comments
Cheers!
Barry
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