Ask Ray – Reply
Well the first ‘Ask Ray’ has come in from Louise Murnane and its not an easy one.
Here is the question…I was on one of your courses on the 19th March.
I have got a very basic lighting set up (all I could afford at the moment!!) its a digital bare bulb studio set with 3 flash lights. There is no way of changing the power output they are all the same. They came with clear and white dome covers and 45, 180, 310 refectors. One of the lights clips onto my back drop to to create high key. Can you tell me how I should have these lights set up to create a good photo. I have done one shoot with them and I got the high key back ground but my subjects faces are a little light and there is a burn out spot on the side of the face. What am I doing wrong?
The Answer…
I have not used or come across this lighting system, but as I explained on the beginners Photography course, first start off with your ‘MAIN LIGHT’ place this at 45 degrees to your subject (left or right side) get your perfect exposure (at the power of these heads I would expect that to be around F11 on 200 ISO) take a shot and check the ‘Histogram’ on the screen on the back of your camera. You can then either go up or down 1/2 a stop if its not right. This now gives you the correct lighting and exposure on the subjects faces.
The second light should now be your ‘FILL LIGHT’ (remember we used a reflector on the lesson as a FILL LIGHT) this should be on the opposite side to your ‘MAIN LIGHT’ and needs to be 1 & 1/2 stops less in light than your ‘MAIN LIGHT’ you will achieve this by moving the light back away from your subjects until its right (as you cannot adjust the power output of these type of lights, move them physically back and forth) to get ‘HIGH KEY’ your 3rd light on the background needs to be 1 stop more powerful than your ‘MAIN LIGHT’.
If you go back to the course notes there are lighting diagrams to refer to. Practice and it will come right, by all means send me a picture to look at.
Thanks Louise for the very first question on ‘ASK RAY’
regards
Ray Lowe
HI
I have only just seen your reply thank you. I will try moving the lights back abit.
Still having trouble with the back drop light it only goes high key on one side and I have to adjust it on the computer but I have to pull the light across so much it ruins the whole picture. How do I get it to cover the whole back drop? Also anyone on the side that the back drop light is on gets a light spot on the top or side of there head. How far away from the back drop should I have people?
Mid key is alot easier to achieve but you can see all the creases in my back drop!
These lights are hard work was much easier in the studio!!
I will email you a few pictures
Thanks
just keep trying till you get it right, but these are not easy to work with…
good luck
ray
Hi Ray
Me again, you will be sick of me….
I have another problem I wonder if you can help with. I have edited my images cropped etc but when I upload onto photobox to order prints they do not fit in the any of the print sizes and photobox wants to crop them which is ruining the photos. I have tried uploading the original photo and cropping it on there website but their crop is rubbish and doesn’t allow me to crop the right bits. Having a complete nightmare……
have also tried resizing the photos but that didn’t seem to help either!! don’t know where I am going wrong can you help?
Thanks
Hi Louise
That’s what I’m here for, now you must remember that Photobox have something like 3 million customers, therefore they have to have a standard set of sizes, although I think they have a lot of choice. What you should always do on your Photoshop cropping is crop your images to regular sizes, i.e. 5×7 – 8×6 – 10×8 etc then when you go over to Photobox they will ft their templates. The other way to do it is the choose a template closest to the size you want and click ‘fit to size’ then you will get your image with white borders on 2 sides…Hope this helps
regards
ray
With regards to the photobox issue, if your image is of a non-standard size you could always set your canvas size to be standard and your image can then be any size. You will then get a white border around it. I’ve tried the fit to size option and prefer the more control this method provides.
DSC Colour labs (www.dscolourlabs.co.uk) are also very good whilst offering a greater range of sizes.
Thank you.
your going to think I am really stupid now, but how do I know what size I have cropped it too? I get the dimensions of my shot but how do I know if I have cropped it to 7 x5 10×8?
I think thats part of my problem I just crop it to what I think looks nice! I think I took the shoot loose bit to the extreme….. and my back drop in rubbish so I have cropped them in quite abit.
I have just ordered a lastolite hilite so hopefully that will help with the overall image.
Hi Louise
I take it you are putting your images into Photoshop??? Open your image, on your tools palette on the left go to the 3rd one down (cropping tool) when you click on that icon at the top 2 boxes open up that says, width & height…If you type in there the size in inches you are after, then use your mouse to crop your image, it will only let you crop it to the size you have chosen…
Not sure if you have noticed but we do run an excellent Photoshop course, which would have you as good as me in just 3 hours.
Great news you have bought the new background we have the same that we use for schools and playgroups, really useful, Good Luck.
regards
ray
Thanks again Ray really helpful.
I would love to do some more course but still on maternity leave at the mo so moneys tight and the back ground was expensive(which arrived today giving it a whirl tomorrow at a baby shoot). As soon as I am back at my day job or I get a few more photography jobs I will be back to learn more.
Regards
Louise
Hi Ray,
Would you be willing to have alook at couple of my recent photos and tell me what you think/ where I can improve etc. Where is the best place to send them too.
Just really want to see if I am improving now I have my lastolite.
Thanks
Hi Ray,
I am starting to get some where with my business now. I have had a few jobs come in in the last few weeks including 3 weddings eek…
Just looking for a bit of proffessional feed back.
I have got my website up and running and facebook and twitter pages. Could you tell me what you think of my latest photos. I have put a link to my twitter and facebook pages below.
https://twitter.com/LMPhotography4
http://www.facebook.com/LouiseMurnanePhotography#!/LouiseMurnanePhotography/photos_stream
Thanks