Strangely enough, I dislike having my picture taken as I feel like a startled rabbit trapped in the headlights of a car. I think I lack the ability to direct myself or perhaps because I cannot see what I look like I am not sure if the pose I am striking is okay or not. I can, naturally, direct others and I have an idea of what to say and do to get the subject to get the desired pose.
I have recently bought some new equipment in the shape of a Lasolite HiLite background, which is a cross between a tent and a soft box. The background I have is 2.5m x 2.15m, which is rather large and cumbersome. It collapses down into a circular carry bag that is about 1m in diameter. Putting it up is easy and you can find an
online review here. I was keen to test mine out and the results are below.
I set up the background with a single flash unit on the right hand side and I secured the top to points on either side of my studio area. My 'studio' area, I should stress, is more of a multi-purpose room with gym equipment and drying laundry which changes my 5m x 7m room into a rather cramped working area. Not great for health and safety but it is pleasing to see what can be achieved in such a confined space!
I set the F-stop to 22 in the centre of the background, which meant that it was weaker further away from the light and stronger closer to the light, this is obvious when you say it but they do not generally make it clear in reviews that you may get over-exposure on one side compared to another, perhaps they just expect you to know about this and then conveniently forget to offer solutions. So in my images below on the left the light is weaker on the right it is stronger resulting in glare or over exposure on the right hand side of my subject. To resolve this you can stand the subject further from the background, so that the over spill diminishes or compromise with your camera setting, in my case the main light was set at F11 but I closed to F13 to reduce the impact and angled my back to the stronger light source. Another solution is to have two lights providing a more even strength, but this I think is a little excessive.
I had a single soft box placed high and in front of the subject set to F11. On the floor I had my old white background. I set up my tripod and then had the challenge of how to get the focus right on my camera. The distance between the subject and the camera was about 8 feet, so I set the lens to manual and adjusted the focus ring to around 8 feet. Unfortunately the lens is not that precise so another way of overcoming the issue is to set a higher F-stop which will give a greater depth of field and therefore more chance of the subject being properly in focus. A higher F-stop is a smaller aperture and therefore more light will be required, you will need to re-set your lighting as desired.
The difficulty I had now was triggering the camera and then posing. I could not frame the shot as I had nothing to go by. Although I did put a penny on the floor to indicate where to stand and I placed a yellow post it note at eye level on the background immediately behind me to give me a clue about framing. I have to say that although this helps it was trial and error. The easy solution is to simply widen the frame and then crop down later in Photoshop., but I wanted to try in camera framing. I used the timer on the camera to trigger the shutter release.
So in summary the issues suggested solutions:
The strength of light is uneven if you use one light from one side and stand too close to the background. Use two lights, stand your subject further from the background or compromise with the camera settings.
The camera (if doing self portrait on your own) has nothing to focus on when you use a white background and this presents the issue of getting the subject in focus. Pre-set the focal distance in manual focus by measuring the distance between the lens and the subject or increase the F-stop (higher number, smaller aperture) to increase the depth of field.
Framing subject and triggering the shutter is challenging if you are on your own. Use the timer feature on the camera or a wireless remote if you have one and place markers that indicate where to stand.
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Pre-editing with the background, you can see how close it is to the ceiling
and there was approximately 4 1/2 feet of fabric in the floor.
Lens used was the standard 17-70mm at focal length 19mm, F14, 1/125sec, ISO 200. |
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| Post editing in Photoshop |
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Pre-edit shot using a 105mm macro.
Focal length 70mm, F14, 1/125sec, ISO 200. |
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Not much in the way of post shoot editing, just
whiten background and stroke outline. |
I must learn to smile and be more relaxed!
