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We did actually get the opportunity at Wendell's tutorial to try our hand.

This is the first one I tried.

After our basic photoshop tutorial from Wendell I did a small amount of work on this image.

Everyone wants to talk to the model.


Suren behind the ring.

Looks a little like the red channel has blown in your first shot Colin. Dial the EV back a third to half a stop, and see if it recovers

Nice timing on the last Colin. Were you using the Atlas to trigger your camera?

surenj wrote:Nice timing on the last Colin. Were you using the Atlas to trigger your camera?

Actually I think he was using his trigger to fire your ringflash - sneaky

Pretty sure there weren't any misfires that I noticed.

surenj wrote:Pretty sure there weren't any misfires that I noticed.

There were lots

Colin and I were both doing it

Colin, one of the tricks to this sort of photography is getting the exposure right.

As has already been mentioned, the first image seems to be a tad hot; do you have the histogram for this image that you could post? I'd be interested to see this.

And how did you meter for this shot?

gstark wrote:And how did you meter for this shot?

We didn't use a light meter if that's what youa re asking. Just adjusted things untils the histogram was to the right..

Also would be good to see the histograms for each color.

surenj wrote:

gstark wrote:And how did you meter for this shot?

We didn't use a light meter if that's what youa re asking. Just adjusted things untils the histogram was to the right..

That's why I'd like to see the histogram for this image. I suspect that it may still be a bit too far too the right.

It is just a bit to the right


Gary,
And how did you meter for this shot? I didn,t really. I used roughly the settings Wendell was, F4.5, 250th, but my iso was a little higher than Wendell had as I forgot to change that. We were adjusting the output of the strobes to suit his camera settings to get the look he wanted. (very little colour in the skin, but no blown hair, etc)
I have actually darkened her legs as they were coming up very white in all shots when lit.
We were really trying more to work with the model than get the shots when we were taking pics.

Suren,
The histogram for the individual colours was not very different to the rgb one.
The strobes never misfired but there were at least three Atlas triggers active at times. I was trying to make sure that I did not interfere with others shots but utilised the ring when you had it pointed in the right direction. The Atlas triggers worked perfectly.
I think David has a similar shot of Gerry.

colin_12 wrote:It is just a bit to the right

Thanks Colin.

Yes, just a bit.

While my preference is to have the histogram tending towards the right, I like it to be a little to the right of centre, rather than almost falling off the right edge.

Without wanting to impose upon what Wendell was doing (and I wasn't there, and you were) I think that this confirms that the exposure here is a little too hot. f/6.3 - f/8.0 is probably where I think this should have been shot, but that's very east for me to say in hindsight.

One point about this sort of shooting though is that once you have your lighting and exposure set, you should be on manual everything with static settings, and then you can concentrate on getting the images.

gstark wrote:One point about this sort of shooting though is that once you have your lighting and exposure set, you should be on manual everything with static settings, and then you can concentrate on getting the images.

This is correct to an extent, however as your composition changes, for example change the distance from the model you have to revise your settings to achieve the correct exposure - an aspect that you need to keep on the back of your mind

biggerry wrote:

gstark wrote:One point about this sort of shooting though is that once you have your lighting and exposure set, you should be on manual everything with static settings, and then you can concentrate on getting the images.

This is correct to an extent, however as your composition changes, for example change the distance from the model you have to revise your settings to achieve the correct exposure - an aspect that you need to keep on the back of your mind

I'm going to be pedantic here.

First of all, yes - if the distance from the light source to the model changes, then yes, you have to change your exposure settings ... but as I said, "once you have your lighting and exposure set"; making such a change means that your previous setting have been now unset ...

I rest my (lighting) case.

As long as the distance between the model and the lighting remains the same, you should be free to change your distance between yourself and the model (unless the light source, or a light source, is coming from a speedlight attached to your camera...which would then have some effect to the lighting outcome, and thus the settings used).

Looks like a very worthwhile exercise for all who attended. Must have been a great learning experience for you all!

Dave

Aussie Dave wrote:unless the light source, or a light source, is coming from a speedlight attached to your camera...which would then have some effect to the lighting outcome, and thus the settings used

In this case, the ring light goes with the camera though.

surenj wrote:In this case, the ring light goes with the camera though.

Then it was correct that the lighting/exposure settings would need to be altered when changing distance from model.

Aussie Dave wrote:Then it was correct that the lighting/exposure settings would need to be altered when changing distance from model.

Which is why it would be great to have a TTL ring light.

There are always a number of factors to take into account in any setup.

Whilst a studio is somewhat more controlled than other situations, the setup at each point on the day was largely done by feel by Wendell, with equipment and an environment he knew quite well. He is less technical and more intuitive in his approach (an observation not a critisism). Indescrimiment shots by the rest of us on the day without the same tweeking and adjustment would never yield a quality result. Keep in mind also that the model was someone Wendell knew quite well so there was a connection that would translate in his shots but not others. This is also a point that he made during the day.

However the point of the day was to understand the process and approach that Wendell uses in his work. In that regard I think the day was very much a great success.

It would be interesting to post some of the images after some PP that Wendell captured on the day I think.

oh... p.s. I thought Gemma was very patient with us all... makes a change from some of the models I've worked with !!!