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The learning curve keeps climbing as I start playing with studio strobes that I've had stashed away for a while.

Here are a couple that I consider "useable".

Beauty


Beast (self portrait)


Comments apprciated as always.

Cheers, John

Nice set of portraits

Thanks Glen.
The strobes are a bit trickier to set up than I thought they would be. Definetly need to get a flash meter in the future as my first guesstimate for exposure and power levels resulted in a slightly overexposed 'whiteout'. lol

Cheers, John

JED wrote:Definetly need to get a flash meter in the future

John,

While I certainly would not discourage your acquisition of a light meter (with flashmeter capabilities), there is no real need for that these days. At the various workshops that I've run, we've been able to acquire correct exposure within three images of starting the session, merely by chimping the histogram.

How many lights were you using for these images?

In looking at the first, I would suggest bring the primary (and only?) light source closer/further to a more frontal aspect on your model. You have quite heavy shadows on camera-right which would be eased through such an adjustment of the lighting location. Alternatively, a second light, positioned camera right, and maybe set to about 75% power compared with what you were shooting with the primary source.

For the second image (could you do something about the model? ) I'd perhaps move him further from the background to remove the background shadow.

Or maybe behind the background.

Thanks for the critique Gary.

Reading histograms is not my forte so I didnt think to look at them. Getting an understanding of them will be a lot cheaper than a light meter.

We were after a fairly dramatic look with the first image. Its very close to what was envisaged but I would have liked a little more light to show her left eye better. One light shooting into an umbrella was used. I can't remember exactly what power level was set but it was right down after blowing out the first couple.

Point taken re #2.

Cheers, John