I was a bit surprised, based on the strong shadow indicating a strong light source, that more light was not reflected off the glass opening up the short side a bit more. But after reviewing it closer I can see that the angle of the light would have reflected away toward the camera.

Nicely done Elaine, and I do not know where this is. :o) What am I forgetting? #10685260

This station used a soft box aimed from the above right. To be honest, she positioned herself, all I had to do was press the button. Now I know the beauty of using a model-they want to pose for you! She really made it easy for us.

We were told what settings to use with each station. We were told with this one to use an ISO of 1600. For those of you that know what you are doing, do you think this is because some light from the flash is lost using the soft box? I'll post some other pictures later-we used much lower ISOs for those that used umbrellas as a reflector.

So here's the BW conversion-nice call on that all of you. I used the "portrait" setting on PSE. Let me know what you think. #10686008

The second photo has the same setup, but there was a flash behind the model with a blue gel (two flashes).

There were 30 people at the workshop, so we didn't get a lot of time to spend taking pictures.

Again, we were told what settings to use on our cameras. Can someone please school me on the logic of the different settings used and why? Thanks! #10686026

I don't mean to sound negative, but truly don't understand the benefit of paying for "lessons" with 30 other people and getting no technical instruction. Am I missing something? #10686037

There are tree things in a camera that control exposure: f stop which determines how much light comes in through the lens and of course also controls DOF. Shutter speed which controls how long that light is going to hit the film or sensor and also controls motion both subject blur if your subject is moving and camera blur how steady your camera is held. ISO which is sensor or film sensitivity or how reactive your medium is to the amount of light that strikes it. The trade off for higher sensor or film sensitivity is noise or grain at higher settings. Photography is all about balancing act utilizing these three. In your posted photo you had the following settings f5.6 1/160 second and ISO 1600. The settings allow for small DOF plenty of speed to stop a slightly moving subject and I think you were using a tripod so no camera movement issues. The ISO reading of 1600 is high and you were bound to get a little noise but from the result it was the only variable that could be changed much to allow the proper amount of light for the exposure. However, I might have shot at 1/80 of a second at ISO 800 which would be exactly the same exposure and I think 1/80 would have been plenty of speed to catch a relatively motionless model and reduced the chance of noise significantly. So the trade offs are double the ISO double the shutter speed. One full f stop open double the shutter speed - note that your f stop settings are probably 1/3 stop increments so you need to move two to get a full stop in either direction. #10686248

This was a crash course in speed lights (3.5 hrs after work), and I really did learn A LOT (more than in my last few BP courses, unfortunately). I think he covered way too much info on the lighting equipment and placement in his talk, to the point I was so overwhelmed by the time we got to play. I may have not heard the reasoning for the settings, and yes, there were too many people, so we didn't have a lot of time to fiddle. And no, they didn't make much $ on the class-I think they were expecting to do that when we bought equipment from the store. It was tempting, but I am waiting before I buy anything. I don't mean to defend this type of instruction, but it was a good intro to this subject. I still have a lot to learn and the best way to figure out how to use this stuff is to use it...

Oh, and thanks Mike for the last reminder about the increments-I'll check my camera.

Thanks all for the comments! #10686368

Depending on the distance from the subject, there is also a difference in the softness of the light between the two. The umbrella tends to scatter light all over while the soft box is more directional due to it's enclosed nature.

Scattering light is not always a bad thing because it tends to wrap the light around the subject more, due in part to reflections on object in the vicinity. #10686402

When I signed up for this workshop, I was expecting it to be more basic speed light instruction without the fancy equipment. I'm still glad I went, I did learn a lot.

Thanks guys for the detailed explanations:) Very much appreciated. #10686418

Elaine, I really like the portrait! Wish my seniors just posed themselves! lol #10686503