Lighting up the face.

I've been going for certain dramatic effects of facial lighting. Trying to learn them, control them, maybe reinvent something, I dont know. Mostly I'm just wasting time, but so long as I learn in the mean time. Anyway, a couple of self portraits, one used with 24x24 softbox alone, one used with softbox + a very faint off-shoe fill. Both f/8, at 100mm.

#2 emphasizes your face way better
#1 has a shadow on the nose that I do not like

the fill flash is adding a tiny little dot in the center of your pupils, and I do not know how much it helped

maybe bouncing the flash of a large surface can help add more fill without looking harsh

thanks armando - maybe I'll try with a reflector. I noticed the catchlight too, thats easy enough to edit.

So you think #1 could have used more fill?

Both shots are pretty well lit, just a bit different from the fill. Also, your head turned at a slightly different angle has an effect of the same light set up. shadows will be different.

I prefer the scultped look of the 2nd shot (no fill)

Was anything else done in PP to these? something looks "unnatural" about your black shirt in #2, as if there is a soft blur/focus applied? (especially noticed on the edges of the shoulder areas)

Both are very nicely lit. Experimenting is good. .

If your ok with it, i think this thread would be best suited in the "Studio and Lighting" forum where you can get some advice from those that do this on a regular basis and can offer ideas and suggestions.
Let me know.

Good work

Thanks for the feedback Gary. Yeah I am aware of the infinite number of ways light can fall on a face depending on subtle angles. The nose shadow was always the most troublesome for me, if there is any sort of ratio then there has to be some shadow on the nose, but what shape of shadow really is the best, and how best to achieve that shape. Sort of one of my goals of this experimentation is learning how to control that nose shadow, with the right light fall-off on the shadow cheek.

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Was anything else done in PP to these? something looks "unnatural" about your black shirt in #2, as if there is a soft blur/focus applied? (especially noticed on the edges of the shoulder areas)

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Yeah, the black shirt was actually a white one. It definitely does need some smoothing over at the edges, my main concern was the face. Very little other PP done.



Yeah go ahead and move it.

I think I'll have to start pairing up my flashes with some modeling lights. Of course, that wouldn't have helped me on this one...

Both are great in different ways. Don't prefer one over the other.

To me, there 's just enough fill in #1. Well done on that. And I love the contrast in the second...

Thanks Dray.

I prefer #2 as a masculine lighting effect myself. Dramatic if you have a ladies shot, would work in that case as well. But I agree that both are well lit. Just #2 seems to have more impact with me.

I would use an open light with a nose on it shooting through a medium honeycomb and use a white card to catch the light for the other side. Or you can flag most of your soft box with black and have it on one side sort of behind and a white card catching and blowing back on you.

I
I am bsically a beginner and my question is actually about your focus....I am having difficulty getting sharp focusing...any advice on how you got such sharp focus especially in photo 1?? Do you post sharpen or does it come out of camera this sharp? Both are great photos by the way, I prefer the "centering" of photo 1 myself

Thanks for the feedback Ian and Dee.

Julie - Since this was a self-portrait and I had no one to look through the lens and find focus, I actually used the wide area auto-focus and hoped the camera would focus on the right spot (which, it didn't always, actually it didn't a lot!). I was using a remote shutter release so the camera could focus on me.

This was shot at f/8 @ 100mm (on a very sharp, optically resolving lens), and the wide area AF picked the right spot here. Focus falls mostly behind your focal point, so focus on the front of a subject. With portraits, the convention is to focus directly on the eyes, but sometimes I focus somewhere on the nose when my f-stop is narrow enough (like at f/8 or higher), which will give the right amount of focus to the eyes without giving a soft nose-tip.

Post-process sharpening is frequently overdone, it is a useful tool but it can only enhance the sharpness of already sharp images, it doesn't really just fix soft images. I use the high pass filter to sharpen, with either a blending type of soft light or overlay (always soft-light with portraits). Link <-- Thats the tutorial I first learned how to use high pass on some years ago. I had stopped using the basic sharpening filters after learning about this technique.

Wow its your first post I see. Welcome to the forums, this is a great community of beginner and experienced hobbyists and professionals alike, a great resource for information to help you learn the craft. Stick around I'm sure you will enjoy it here.