Using Indoor lighting for Creative Portraits

My challenge for today is to shoot a portrait with only two generic household light bulb (camera right about 2 ft from Tyler) and a few strings of Christmas lights (10 ft back). With these sources white balance is well, problematic. The color temperature of the Christmas lights is rebelliously warm and the light bulb is one of those daylight balanced kind that is supposed to (but doesn't really) look like sunlight. These bulbs are simply covered in a thin film that changes the color of the light, not the temperature in Kelvins. There is no present white balance that can get this one right, so it's best to create a custom setting. Here is how to do it on a Nikon D-300.



Exposure: 1/100 @ f 2.2 IS0 400

Just for fun I took two photos and combined them in photoshop.  Here are the two images I used.

The left is shot with a 50mm and the bokah shot is 300 mm.

Lighting Indoors Part 3

I've briefly mentioned window light, but I want to talk more about it today. My home faces East to West so there are two short periods during the day that I get good window lighting. This happens a few hours after sun rise when the the sun raises above the roof of my neighbor's house, and the second is in the evening just prior to sun set when the light is bounced off of the same neighbor's house and into our windows. The evening light is softer and the color can be problematic since it's later in the day and the house it's reflecting off is blue but the results have been interesting for sure. This is why I've suggested a north or south facing window to be the best (depending on which hemisphere you live in.)

Here are some window light photos. The first is from 10am the second is at 4pm. It was an usually nice day yesterday, so when the light came in the living room in the morning I had more light to work with. By the early afternoon when the sun was going down my results are different. (Plus the second photo is not so flattering as the first of me. I guess that's what I get for doing self portraits with a timer.) Both shots with a 50mm lens but the ISO has been raised for the second image to make it work. This is also a good opportunity to talk about noise. Here are some crops of the same photos at 100%. These are unedited. To help reduce the noise I used the Dfine 2.0 plug in on the last crop.

Very little noise in the background. This was at ISO 200.

Not so pretty... This is shot at ISO 800.

This image has had the noise reduced slightly but it's still not as nice as the ISO 200 shot. This is why I try to avoid higher ISO's unless it's totally necessary.  It simply saves time while post processing. I have gotten nice results with ISO's up to 1600 but it took some extra work. I'd rather be on the couch watching a movie personally...

A couple things to remember when shooting with window light.

• You will almost always need a reflector to fill in the shadow portion of a person's face. Contrast can be problematic in shots like these. I was holding a reflector just off camera left in the first shot. I didn't need one for the evening shot since the light was very flat!
  
• Watch for color shift. At different times of day you'll find the color of the light will vary. The color is the second shot hasn't been edited- it's right out of camera. I look slightly blue green, not so pretty as the warm glow of the direct sun light in the first shot.
  
• I recommend using a tripod for any shots like this. You will most likely be shooting at wide open apertures with higher ISO's, and even then need a longer exposure to gather the light necessary. The morning light shot was 1/40 @ F8. I don't recommend hand holding 1/40 with a 50mm. I get camera shake every time. The evening shot was even slower. Even with the ISO at 800 I still could only manage a 1/20 @ F2.8 exposure. Big difference.
  
• It also might help to use a spot metering mode (where available) to expose for your highlights only instead of metering the whole scene. Focus of capturing the subject only- let the other details and background go. If those elements are vital to your image, you'll need to rethink your lighting. I spot metered the morning image and you can see that the background goes darker behind me. The evening photo has more detail in the background because of the longer exposure.

Tomorrow: More on ambient light in doors. How to work with light when there isn't very much!

Indoor lighting Part 2 continued...

This is a photo of Alex (nearly 10 weeks now!) using the same lighting set up as the photo of Megan. Alex is turned to face into the light so there is a broader lighting pattern across his face. The reason I'm showing this is to give you a quick trick you can use to figure out how any portrait was shot.
Look into his eyes. The reflection shows a larger rectangular catch-light on the bottom (it looks light it's coming from the bottom because I was standing directly above him for this shot) and a small dot of light above and nearly dead center of the eye. You can even see the fill card on camera right. In case your wondering the small spot of light is my on-camera flash sending a radio signal to the speed-lights behind the scrim. This little flash is just enough to set off the others without effecting the lighting on Alex's face.

Combine these facts with the direction of the shadows and you can deduce the light source, it's angle, and my position. Try it, pick up any magazine and study the eyes of the people photographed in it. Take the photos you like and then mimic what you think the lighting was to see if you get the same results. If you try this out please post a link to your results below! Have fun practicing.

Yes, I do know what day it is...

Thursday the 8th was the last blog post, and though I originally set out to post daily, I'm coming to the understanding that not all things are possible within my waking hours. That being said, I won't be deterred from my original goal of 365 posts. It just may take me longer then one year to get there! Today I wanted to show you a shot from a Christina and Corbin's wedding this weekend. They were so much fun and I just loved working with them. I'll have more from their wedding later next week and from a few other sessions I've been busy with. In fact tomorrow I'll going to show you some simple manipulations on this image that Brides and Grooms love (but I think are cliche' and annoying- but I do them anyways. It's all about the Benjamins...)

While I'm discussing my calendar of events for the blog, here's what's coming up:
One of the wonderful people following my blog asked about shooting indoors, so I'll be posting information on that also. And for anyone looking to get into the wedding business, I just finished up the Northwest Bridal Showcase and later this month will be at the Lynnwood Wedding Expo. Once those are completed I plan on discussing a few of the in's and out's of photographing weddings and the business behind it. If you have questions ask now and I'll try to answer any them in that post. Those are my mini goals (working towards that new years resolution stuff).

Also, I'd love to see your photos. Show me your favorite photo you've done indoors and describe how you did it. Flash, window light, slow shutter speed, anything goes as long as it's inside and something you want to share. The best way to do this is post your images to flikr, facebook, or any other site you may be using and post a link in the comments.