Steve,
You've gotten pretty much the hang of how to make use of diffused flash and
have discovered the other tricks to employ with it. I'm guessing that the
headlight shadow is sharp because it is very close to the backdrop, but it
is such low key lighting that it's hard to tell the distance. As you
increase distance of the subject to backdrop the shadow falls farther
downward and diffuses more (like your kids). The shadow there, even though
it is present, is so soft that it's not objectionable. The presence of
some very soft shadowing looks natural. Elevating the flash about 8-10
inches above the camera, directly above the lens, seems to be a good
distance. One of the reasons I bought the bracket was knowing I would be
shooting a large number of verticals.
BTW, the image of your kids is small, but it looks like you got good
catchlights in their eyes! I like the pose. By keeping your daughter's
glasses from directly facing the lens, it eliminated any glare from them .
. . you can clearly see her eyes! An effective f=100mm worked very well
for it.
-- John
At 04:31 1/26/01, Steve Goss wrote:
Hi Y'all
Back when John Lind was testing out flash techniques for the wedding he
was going to shoot, and Lex debuted his pie pan diffuser, I came up with
another approach. This one is high-tech (it came from a .com!), and cost
more ($60 minimum for free delivery). It's an entire milk jug, with the
top cut out.
When using it, I keep having to explain why I have a milk jug on my
camera. It seems to work ok, but I have found that getting the subject
away from the background really helps in cutting down shadows.
The first image is of my current portrait rig. Diffuser on the flash, and
a 50mm f1.4 on a 2x teleconverter.
The second image is my kids, a couple of feet (half meter?) away from the
wall. There's a shadow by David's neck, but it's nice and vague.
The third image is a portrait for the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority
newsletter. This was a vertical shot, which explains the shadow to the
side of the headlight casing. Unfortunately, that headlight shadow looks
pretty crisp to me, even with the diffuser.
Comments, cheers, jeers?
Steve Goss
Dallas Tx usa
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