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Photography Question 

Apriyile D. Vidales
 

lighting


 
  rust colored tint?!!
rust colored tint?!!

Apriyile D. Vidales

 
  rust colored tint?!!!
rust colored tint?!!!

Apriyile D. Vidales

 
 
HELP!! I'm new to the forum I go by the name "FOSHEEZY" Im a beginner in photography let me stress that a beginner. every thing that I learned I picked up fom free sites on the comp. ive never taken a photography class so im CONFUSED!! MY question is how do I position my lights I have 2-1000watt continuous lights with 2-43inch white umbrellas and a 250 continuous watt hair light. Now I dont know what I did but when I was takeing test shots of my kids with the backdrop one rust colored
my kids had a rust color to them! WHAT THE HECK.I I just bought this equipment and this is the first time i've used it
so I dont now what is going on. oh yes, my camera is a Nikon D-50 and I had it set on auto.Please help what am I doing wrong?!!!!


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December 17, 2007

 

John H. Siskin
  Hi Apriyile,
I suspect that the reason for the color on your kids is that you didn’t use a preset selector for your color. There are a bunch of these, one looks like a little bulb with light coming from it. That is designed for light from tungsten lights, such as the continuous bulbs you are using. When you are working outdoors auto color can be very good, but when you work with a shot that isn’t average, such as a shot on a rust background with tungsten lighting, the color will be wrong.

Regarding the position of your lights, there are an infinite number of places you can put them, and reasons for doing so. Frankly you can do a lot of practice and work with books, or you could take a class.
Thanks, John Siskin


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December 17, 2007

 

Alan N. Marcus
  Hi Apriyile
For starters, pick a relaxed subject rather than kids. Practice – Practice – Experiment –Experiment. Set your camera lens to about 70mm focal length. You will find this ideal for portraits with your camera. If your work area is too small it’s OK to reduce the focal length but keep it long, i.e. as close to 70mm as your comfortable composition distance camera-to-subject permits.

Set one of the 1000 watt continuous lamps about at lens height and locate it near the camera. This will be your fill lamp. With it you are filling shadows cast by the main lamp or modeling light. With the fill you are softening shadows cast by the main from the camera’s viewpoint, so don’t allow the fill to stray far from a line drawn camera-to-subject. OK to place on the left side or right side of the camera, it makes no difference. How about placing it on the opposite side, from the part in your subject’s hair?

With a tape measure, establish distance from fill lamp to subject’s forehead. Think in fractional feet; ignore feet plus inches like 8 ¼ written 8.25 or 8 ¾ written 8.75 etc. Find this distance with the tape and multiply it by 0.7 (point seven). Thus if you measure 8.75 then 8.75 times 0.7 = 6.12 round to 6. This will be the subject-to-lamp distance in feet to place your other 1000 watt lamp. This will be the main lamp or modeling lamp. (Math works if you are using the metric system. Fill 5 meters times 0.7 = 3.5 meters subject-to-main).

Using the factor 0.70 mathematically places the main lamp closer than the fill. Mathematically the light from the main now arrives at the subject plane casting twice the light energy as the fill. This is what we want to happen. If the main is twice as bright, you have established a 3:1 lighting ratio known in the trade as the bread-and-butter ratio because it sells pictures.

Now for the 250 watt lamp…I suggest you position it directly behind the subject aimed to illuminate the background. Moving it close or far from the background will allow control over how the background appears (i.e. dark – light – middle.)

Continuous photo lamps of the tungsten variety make light by heating tungsten until till it glows white hot. The glow appears white to the eye, but it photographs with a salmon (red-orange) cast. The countermeasure is to set your white balance to tungsten.

Now for main placement: Place high to simulate afternoon sun. Place on the side on which your subject parts his/her hair. Observe the shadow cast by the main (best if fill is off for placement purposes) Place main to cast short nose shadow on long nose subject -- long nose shadow on short nose subject. Place main for frontal lighting on thin face – place main further off to the side for fat face. The idea is to create a enhancing lighting.

Best of luck

Alan Marcus (marginal technical stuff)
ammarcus@earthlink.net


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December 17, 2007

 

Alan N. Marcus
  Additional notes on White Balance:

The human eye/brain combination is remarkable having the ability to cope with changing light intensity and color. The camera is not as brainy however it sports chip logic and a bountiful menu selection designed to allow you to manage White Balance. You need to study your camera manual. Your D50 is quite advanced. You are well advised to take advantage of the built-in chip logic.

You have at your command seven selections:

A-WB Auto – Allows your camera to automatically adjust to the color of the current light conditions. This is the best setting, it takes full advantage of the camera’s chip logic.

PRE White Balance Preset – Allows you to dangle a gray object, illumined the same as your subject, and present it to the camera for a look see. This mode allows the camera’s chip logic to pre-adjust for the ambient color of the light. This mode allows the camera to handles unusual lighting situation not otherwise listed in the menu selection.

Daylight – Color balance is set by chip logic to daylight conditions i.e. a profusion of blue light energy.

Incandescent – Chip logic adjusts and compensates for the salmon color produced by the glowing filament of standard and photo grade continuous lighting,

Fluorescent – Chip logic provides countermeasures for the odd colors encountered when fluorescent light is used.

Cloudy – Chip logic compensates for a cloudy sky which is deficient in the rich blue light present on a blue sky day.

Flash – Chip logic compensates for the color of electronic flash light which is a close imitation of daylight conditions.

Alan Marcus (marginal technical stuff)


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December 18, 2007

 

Debby A. Tabb
  And you'll find more on Light seet ups, and posing children and other subjects on the "studio Photography Threads"

Here is part one or 23:

http://www.betterphoto.com/forms/QnAdetail.php?threadID=17534

I wish you the very best in your new venture,
Debby Tabb


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December 21, 2007

 

Christopher A. Walrath
  I think Alan is on it. With a light source as powerful as you are using and with such a strong colored background, what you're seeing may be the color of the background, or rather the light reflecting from it, bouncing around the room and landing on the children. Fiddle with light mode settings to see which correction does what you need. Thanks for all your help on this site, Alan. May we all have a blessed holiday this year. Cheers, all.

Chris


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December 21, 2007

 

Apriyile D. Vidales
 
 
   colors dull,and background not bright??
colors dull,and background not bright??

Apriyile D. Vidales

 
 
Thanks to all who helped.I did go and change my white balance and this is the result I got.Its better than the one before, to me but I know I have a looong way to go. A new problem has a risen why are the colors dull and not sharp? Also since i'm working with 2-1000 watts continuous lights should I have them turned to the max for optimum brightness?

To John Sisken you are absolutely right!! i've come to realize what you said, "i can do a lot of practice and work with books or take a class." I now know that,"I NEED TO TAKE A CLASS."


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December 21, 2007

 

John H. Siskin
  Hi Apriyile,
I am mostly self-taught as a photographer. It took a lot of extra years to learn good craft without somebody packaging the information. If I had it to do again I would try to find a place to learn and get feedback. Regardless I often mention that practice is critical. I am sure that Eric Clapton and Luciano Pavarotti have practiced. You have to be willing to take some bad pictures in order to take good ones.
Thank, John Siskin


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December 22, 2007

 
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