Garage Studio Shoot (Pictures Added)

[MarkBarbieri]

I just finished another garage studio shoot. 8 groups in about 8 hours. Just over 1,000 shots. I'm tired.

I planned to use my new Cyber Commander (http://www.alienbees.com/cybersyncplus.html) thingy, but I couldn't get it to work right. I don't know if it isn't working right or if I just don't understand how to use it. I gave up and went to manual adjustment for the day.

Someone recently asked for a shot of people's studios. Here's mine.
http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/726191872_ocL2T-L.jpg

We have a three car garage. It's two cars wide and has one side that is two cars long. We used 9' white and black paper backdrops. We hung them from dowel rods clipped to our storage racks. We unplugged the garage door opener just to be sure that no one accidentally opened the door.

For lights, I used two Alien Bee AB800s and three AB400s. I used the AB800s in large softboxes for my main and fill lights. I used an AB400 on a boom as a hair light. When I had white paper, I used a pair of AB400s as background lights to blow out the background. When I had the black backdrop, I used an AB400 with a honeycomb and sometimes with a gel as a background light. I used the other AB400 as an extra hair light/rim light in a few shots. I had a 3'x6' diffuser panel and a ring softbox set up but didn't use them. I shot with a 70mm-200mm lens at f8 to f11.

For posing, we used the posing stool in the picture. We also used a posing table, but I didn't really understand how to pose people with it, so we didn't use it much. We also had a few kid sized rocking chairs as props.

It was fun. It was exhausting. I'm OK with the results that I've seen so far. I've done a fair amount of reading on portrait shooting, but it isn't helping me as much as I'd like. With the pressure of impatient kids to shoot, I fall back on what works rather than trying to learn new things.

I'm trying to decide how to get better. One option I'm thinking of is to invite a couple of similarly skilled photographers over and hire a professional model for a few hours. We can take our time, learn from each other, and experiment. The model might even be able to help us with poses.

Another option I'm thinking of is to take a few studio shooting classes. I think I'll learn better from an instructor than I will reading books.

The biggest challenge that I face is with the subjects. I'm inept at posing them. My wife helps, but she's not much better than I am. Neither of us knows anything about make-up, so its a good thing that I primarily shoot kids.

I'm also thinking that I want to get out of the garage. I want to start doing some location shoots. I might invite all the moms with preschoolers to the local arboretum this spring and just shoot the little buggers as they rove around. I won't be able to drag along a stack of lights, but a diffuser and a reflector will probably be enough to work with. I'm planning on getting a better portrait lens (I'm thinking the 85mm f/1.8 but my wife wants me to get the 85mm f/1.2).

I'll get around to posting some of the resulting pictures in this thread when I've post processed them.

[jann1033]

just a fyi, just so you can check before hand, my local arboretum asks you to let them know if you are taking anything more than a tripod and camera. they don't care, just want to know what you are doing.( they may charge for weddings and for some commercial stuff at mine can't remember off hand now) some are more strict about photos though.
interested to see your shots, loved the three blue eyed girls laying in a circle from i think the last batch you did.
some day i'm setting up a studio but first need to get rid of junk so i have a room to do it in:rotfl:

[wenrob]

*Whistles* that's some snazzy set up! Looking forward to seeing your results.

[IndyShutterbug]

(I'm thinking the 85mm f/1.8 but my wife wants me to get the 85mm f/1.2).

That's one great wife!! The 85 1.8 is a great lens! I need to use mine a little more, but I am at a loss why it didn't receive a red circle as the 1.2 did.
Nice setup as well, I have been contemplating trying out some of the Paul Buff strobes. Do you find they are constant in their settings? I know most need to be checked often during a shoot, but I have heard these stay true.

[MarkBarbieri]

I'm amazed that these people can walk around without hurting themselves. It seems that their eyes are closed most of the time. Maybe I used too many lights and they were all constantly blinking in self defense. It's not that bad for solo shots where I can just pick one with open eyes. With groups, however, it is annoying when you have five shots of five people and each has their eyes closed in a different frame.

[MarkBarbieri]

I noticed that most of the kids I photographed have blue eyes. That surprised me because I thought that blue eyed people are in the minority.

The vast majority of people in the world have brown eyes. Blue eyes are relatively common amongst people in Europe and in North America. It is thought by some scientists that blue eyed people all descend from a common ancestor born about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

American's born in 1900 had a slightly greater than 50% chance of having blue eyes. By 1950, that decreased to about 30%. It is currently down to 15%. The decline is probably because of increased brown eyed immigration and increased marriages between ethnic groups. Although I wouldn't be surprised to see a study linking it to global warming.

Many people have blue eyes when they are younger but have their eyes shift to brown (or a darker, muddier blue) as they get older. That is certainly the case with me.

So my guess as to why the majority of my subjects had blue eyes is a combination of factors. Everyone I shot yesterday is of European ancestry, so they are much more likely to have blue eyes than a human selected at random from the world population. Also, they were mostly children, so they may have brown eyes someday, but they have blue eyes today. They are also relatively affluent, which may correlate positively with blue eyes because of a relationship with immigration or ethnicity. Or maybe not.

[MarkBarbieri]

I want a Lightroom mixer board. I want a board with a bunch of sliders on it like a musical mixing board. I should be able to assign each slider to a different Lightroom control. Then I can make the adjustments using the sliders instead of having to mouse over to each slider on my screen. It would be much faster. Also, I could more easily watch the screen rather than watching where my mouse is.

Make one at a reasonable price and I'll buy it.

[handicap18]

I've done a fair amount of reading on portrait shooting, but it isn't helping me as much as I'd like. With the pressure of impatient kids to shoot, I fall back on what works rather than trying to learn new things.

I'm with you on this Mark. All of the portraits I've done to date are with kids. I've had a few with the parents in them too, but they've all been with kids.

For me I need a better lighting set up, but I don't have a lot of money to get the Alien Bee's, so I've been going with compact florescent bulbs and continuous lighting, but it needs to be a bit more powerful.

Posing isn't to much of an issue for me at this point as the kids I've been shooting are mostly 7 years old or under so its just a matter of getting them to look at the camera AND smile.... LOL.

Trying to figure out new things is hard with kids, so going with what works always seems to work out best.

[Suburbanmom]

I have been contemplating trying out some of the Paul Buff strobes. Do you find they are constant in their settings? I know most need to be checked often during a shoot, but I have heard these stay true.

I've had my AB-800 for about two years and find it to be very reliable. I may adjust the settings if I switch from a black backdrop to a white one, but that's the only time I bother checking.

[MarkBarbieri]

I've had my AB-800 for about two years and find it to be very reliable. I may adjust the settings if I switch from a black backdrop to a white one, but that's the only time I bother checking.

I see a bit of shot to shot variability, but not much. They certainly don't drift over time. They also have a bit of color difference at different power levels, but it's not too extreme.

[MarkBarbieri]

Processing pictures of little girls is sooooo much easier than adolescent males. The little girls are hard to get to pose properly, but they tend to have flawless skin and easy smiles. Boys with acne, braces, and unshaved stubble are much more difficult to deal with. I think I'm going to ban all boys from puberty until they outgrow their braces, their acne, and their thinking that a few scraggly facial hairs is cool.

[MarkBarbieri]

I saw a recommendation for a better white backdrop. They recommended using the underside of a long sheet of vinyl flooring. You can paint it white. It is much more durable than white paper. Having just finished off my first $80 roll of white background paper, I'm thinking about trying it. I wonder if I could do the same thing with black.

[MarkBarbieri]

Always double and triple check to make sure everyone's lips are clean. Nothing is more tedious than cleaning up a bit of spooge over and over and over again.

If camera makers can add facial recognition software and smile detectors, why can't Lightroom have a spooge detector? I'm not asking it to identify spooge without help. If I heal a bit of spooge on a face, it should try to heal the same spooge every time that it sees that face in a collection.

Maybe Topaz will make DeSpooge.

[Pooh_Girl]

Always double and triple check to make sure everyone's lips are clean. Nothing is more tedious than cleaning up a bit of spooge over and over and over again.

If camera makers can add facial recognition software and smile detectors, why can't Lightroom have a spooge detector? I'm not asking it to identify spooge without help. If I heal a bit of spooge on a face, it should try to heal the same spooge every time that it sees that face in a collection.

Maybe Topaz will make DeSpooge.


I don't think your out of line. Perfect example, they have a red-eye removal tool. Same thing! :thumbsup2 Patent it and then you can be rich!!

[MarkBarbieri]

I still can't resist the pull. When you see a group shot before I crop it, you can usually tell who I was looking at. The picture is pulled off center towards them. In any group, I'm constantly scanning for expressions and eyes. The one that is giving me the most trouble tends to get most of my attention. I can't resist the pull of drawing them towards the center or towards my focus point.

[JoeDif]

I planned to use my new Cyber Commander (http://www.alienbees.com/cybersyncplus.html) thingy, but I couldn't get it to work right. I don't know if it isn't working right or if I just don't understand how to use it. I gave up and went to manual adjustment for the day.


Hey Mark - I think there are some Cyber Commander tutorials on youtube

[IndyShutterbug]

Here is a great tutorial on white seamless backgrounds that I found interesting and very well written.

http://www.zarias.com/?p=71

[MarkBarbieri]

Not perfect, but good enough.

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/727242424_4vMkh-L.jpg

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/727309082_XsWsF-L.jpg

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/726873443_mXQhS-L.jpg

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/726878494_ZaYBh-L.jpg

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/726829849_mCdMQ-L.jpg

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/726835613_Q5Hx4-L.jpg

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/727075140_gLguZ-L.jpg

http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/727018341_Esrma-L.jpg

[jann1033]

like the first and last the best, the expression on the little girl in the center on 1 is priceless( reminds me of my cat when she wants you to stop what ever you are doing right now :)
i have a question, not a criticism or critique...are catch lights usually square or is that due to something on your equipment? i know nothing about lighting except to know that is something i really should learn it. i actually enjoyed playing around with it in the olden days( ie 30+yrs ago) but that was when they were just basically stationary spotlights.
mostly asking about the catch lights since presently i occasionally fudge them and probably am doing the wrong shape :rolleyes1

[wenrob]

like the first and last the best, the expression on the little girl in the center on 1 is priceless( reminds me of my cat when she wants you to stop what ever you are doing right now :)
i have a question, not a criticism or critique...are catch lights usually square or is that due to something on your equipment? i know nothing about lighting except to know that is something i really should learn it. i actually enjoyed playing around with it in the olden days( ie 30+yrs ago) but that was when they were just basically stationary spotlights.
mostly asking about the catch lights since presently i occasionally fudge them and probably am doing the wrong shape :rolleyes1
I'm not Mark but generally they're the shape of your light source. Mark's are square because he's using soft boxes. If he'd used umbrellas they'd most likely be round. Windows are generally square, if a lamp is on and you're not using a flash they'll likely be round. There really isn't a wrong shape for catch lights though some people will criticize if there's more then one while others will purposefully do "clam shell lighting" which will give two, one on top one on bottom.

Great pics Mark! So sweet of you to do those for families.

[My2Girls66]

Thanks for posting the picture of your setup:) The photos came out great!

[mabas9395]

Mark,

It looks like you used 5 AB's indoors with at most three close up subjects and two full body subjects. Do you think you could have done an equivalent job with the same number of Speedlites or did you actually need that much power?

Anything you learned about the lighting that you will do different next time?

[MarkBarbieri]

It looks like you used 5 AB's indoors with at most three close up subjects and two full body subjects. Do you think you could have done an equivalent job with the same number of Speedlites or did you actually need that much power?

I would easily have had enough power using only Speedlites. Three of the five strobes were AB400s and none of the five were ever driven past the half way point. I guess that the AB800s in the softboxes were probably outputting near the upper range of an SB800, but I could have used a slightly wider aperture with an SB600 and still been OK.

The primary advantages I had using the Bees over speedlights were the modelling lights, faster recycling times, and not needing to deal with batteries. The disadvantages, aside from having to own two sets of lights, were the power cords along the floor, and the reduced control over the lights at my shooting location. The Cyber Commander is supposed to counter that second problem, but I couldn't figure it out in the time I had before the shoot. It may be intuitive for someone with someone smarter or with more shooting experience, but I couldn't figure it out. Either that or mine wasn't working right.

The modelling lights are still really helpful to me. I struggle to visualize what will happen, so every bit helps. The recycle times aren't a big issue for the older kids that can pose. For the younger ones, you have to fire off a lot of shots quickly in the hopes that you'll catch a gas burp will contort their face into something that looks like a smile.

Anything you learned about the lighting that you will do different next time?

Let me start with lessons from the past that I applied this time.

First, we eliminated the light stands. Instead, I hung my background supports from the ceiling. It reduced floor clutter and was safer. My original plan was to semi-permanently mount them, but I scrubbed that because I changed locations.

I changed locations because of ambient light issues. With my old location in the garage, I needed to open the door to have enough shooting distance for groups. If you are shooting relatively wide angles, it is easy to get areas not covered by the background in the picture. That can be relatively easily cleaned up with content aware scaling in Photoshop CS4, but it's a pain to deal with in Lightroom. It's best to use a narrow field of view lens and move back until you get your entire subject. That didn't work when I was shooting in a single 20' garage bay.

There are two problems with opening the garage door. First, it subjects you to weather concerns. Second, it lets in a lot of ambient light. The ambient light isn't a problem during the exposure because the strobes are so much brighter. The problem with the ambient light is that it overwhelms the modeling lights. By having everything in the garage with the door closed, I could keep the garage lights off and see only the modeling lights. They aren't 100% WYSIWYG, but they are much closer.

With Speedlights, you won't have modeling lights, so you'll have to deal with the issue on your own. A good way to handle it would be to shoot tethered to a PC and review your shots that way.

Another big change was adding a fifth light. For a decent white background shot, you really want 3-4 lights. You need two on the background to white it out. You need a main light. You can use a reflector for a fill light, but I find it easier to work with an extra light. For a decent black background shot, you don't need the background lights, but you need a hair light. In the past, I would shift a light between background duty and hair light duty. Because the hair light is on a boom, that's a nuisance. Having five lights let me dedicate lights to tasks, so shifting from white to black backgrounds went quicker.


So what will I do different after this shoot? I'm going to try a bigger main light. I ordered a parabolic light from AB that can also be converted to a giant softbox. If that doesn't work well, I'll order a giant octabox. I think that a bigger light will give me a larger "sweet spot" for my lighting. That will help with group shots. It will also help with shooting very young kids that don't stay where you put them. I've lost a lot of shots because a kid with a perfect pose stepped to far forward or backward and ended up in ugly lighting.

I'd like a motorized backdrop holder. Changing backdrops is a pain. I'm guessing that motorized backdrops will be too expensive, but I'm going to look. Maybe I can make a manual chain driven system.

I'm looking at new backdrop and flooring options. I want to try using the painted underside of some vinyl flooring for a more durable backdrop. I want to try some new flooring options for a different flooring look. I also want to try some more creative backdrops. I'm tired of plain white and plain black (although several mom's commented on how much they prefer those to the school picture muslins).

I've learned a lot of retouching lessons since my last shoot. I used them on photos 5 & 6. The others haven't been retouched yet. I subscribed to the Kelby Training videos and have been working my way through the portrait retouching stuff. I'm also starting to look at the wedding stuff because a semi-pro photographer friend of mine has informed me that I'll be shooting his wedding this spring. It will either be in a small country church or in a flying B-17 bomber (he's been doing restoration work on one). I HATE shooting weddings, but it's hard to say no to a close friend. Besides, I like the irony of shooting his wedding using Canon gear since he's a big Nikon fan. He has an incredible collection of Nikon junk - D3, 600mm, 200-400mm, 14-24mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, and enough speedlights to be seen from space.

OK, I'm rambling now. The main things I learned are that I'm in a rut and need a new approach so that I'll learn more. I learned that I want to get the kids out of the studio and do some location shoots. I learned that I need to spend some time figuring out my Cyber Commander.