waddya call that thing....???

[GazzaS]

Hi everyone,

    YOu remember when you had professional photos whether it was school photos or privately...  behind the cameraman was a thing that added more light?  It looked like a big umbrella....  sort of.

 

Anyone know?

 

Gaz

[TonyWills]

Do you mean a photo umbrella? It either diffuses light to soften it, if in between the flash & subject, or reflects light to enhance lighting, if placed behind the flash.

[Wumm]

Yes, that's what I was thinking too...

https://www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au/umbrella-reflector-black-and-silver-110-cm

S

[GazzaS]

Thank you!

 

[GazzaS]

 Maybe I didn;t really know what I wanted.  Here is my issue:

Outdoor lighting is too bright or too dark 99% of the day.  Flash is always too bright.  My bench lights are too bright as well.

Plus!  Plus...  I'm on a new background thing.  I can use images from the internet on my large screen TV for backgrounds instead of printing images and wasting paper.

Here are two attempts from today:

With flash:

 

 

Without  Flash:

 

So...maybe I need a solution for lighting behind me?

 

Gaz

[DocRob]

If your camera has spot metering and an AE lock, you can experiment with metering the correct light balance of the parts of the picture, which should be pronounced.
If that fails, you have to do something about the lightning, because mostly, the difference between light and dark parts of the setting is too harsh then.
If all this doesn't work out, you may be able to make a good pic of the foreground, a good pic of the background and melt them in a photo software.

Cheers Rob

[ScottsGT]

Umbrellas provide soft lighting.  Direct flash creates hard lighting.  Best way to explained this is go out side on a sunny day.  Look at your shadow.  See the hard outline?  Hard lighting.

Go out on a cloudy day.  Notice how it’s hard to define the shadow and see an edge?  Soft lighting.  

Now I won’t go into main, fill, background and hair lighting.  Or color temp.....

 

I was in Vegas one time and two couples asked me to take their pic with their cell phone camera.  I took the photo they wanted, then I had them step over about 15’ to a shadow area with a huge white wall (but out of the frame) next to them.  Positioned them just right and took the pic.  They were blown away and asked me if I was a pro.  Nope, just a hobbyist that has made a few bucks off of it.  

[GazzaS]

11 hours ago, DocRob said:

If your camera has spot metering and an AE lock, you can experiment with metering the correct light balance of the parts of the picture, which should be pronounced.
If that fails, you have to do something about the lightning, because mostly, the difference between light and dark parts of the setting is too harsh then.
If all this doesn't work out, you may be able to make a good pic of the foreground, a good pic of the background and melt them in a photo software.

Cheers Rob

Thank you for the sggestions.  I'm a camera dummy.  I've always used the auto settings.  And I haven;t had much experience with good photo editing software.

[GazzaS]

5 hours ago, ScottsGT said:

Umbrellas provide soft lighting.  Direct flash creates hard lighting.  Best way to explained this is go out side on a sunny day.  Look at your shadow.  See the hard outline?  Hard lighting.

Go out on a cloudy day.  Notice how it’s hard to define the shadow and see an edge?  Soft lighting.  

Now I won’t go into main, fill, background and hair lighting.  Or color temp.....

 

I was in Vegas one time and two couples asked me to take their pic with their cell phone camera.  I took the photo they wanted, then I had them step over about 15’ to a shadow area with a huge white wall (but out of the frame) next to them.  Positioned them just right and took the pic.  They were blown away and asked me if I was a pro.  Nope, just a hobbyist that has made a few bucks off of it.  

Great info!  I might be able to work something out!

[BradG]

I use to just sticky tape a piece of white paper over my flash, worked well.