lighting portraits

from Douglas wrote:
Portrait of a cat...
Lighting is the key to portraiture. Hi-key basically blows away the
highlights. What is white if not the paper a photo is printed on? What
colour is white anyway? 255.255.255 in Photoshop? A hi-key image then,
relies on the paper it is printed on for it's effect.

You obviously have a different understanding of what high-key and low-key
means. I thought high-key meant the majority of the tones (ie. detail) in an
image were in the mid-to-upper range, whereas low-key has most of the detail
and tonal range in the mid-to-lower range. High-key does not imply blown-out
highlights.

Low key lighting is harder to use. It is even harder to use with a
speedlite and room lighting as the sole source of light. Some
speedlites (Nikon, Olympus, Metz) can control exposure quite well,
some (Like Canon's new 580) can only do it occasionally or on some
EOS cameras. The 20D, for example does not interact well with this
flash but the 5D does. Spot metering has a lot to do with it.

I assume by "speedlite" you mean "flash"?

I used Olympus for this exercise. A GN30 speedlite with some styrene
foam packaging (1mm thick) as a diffuser for this pictu
http://www.photosbydouglas.com/cat.htm. I (spot) metered on the white
fur, knowing it would render the room interior black enough to produce
the effect I sought.

To me, your cat photo is high key - the detail in the shot is pretty much
all between midtones and highlights.

I'd suggest that you think about trying to add a little dimension by using
a backlight or reflector - that would avoid the "cutout" look. You might
consider a little more softening for the key light source as well.

You also need to consider your lighting ratios and the latitude of your
camera and what you are shooting against - the background of the shot has
some distracting elements.

Other brands of (digital) cameras require Photoshop post processing to
produce such effects. Canon 5D for example, can take this sort of
picture relatively easily but it's (relatively) wide dynamic range is
detrimental to the picture. You need to post process to get rid of
detail from the shadows. I can't help but pose the question? What's
all the noise about dynamic range? If you know the capabilities of
your gear, it matters little, does it not?

You can always gain contrast in post-processing - both in film and digital.
You can not gain dynamic range after the image is shot. Thus is makes sense
to seek as much dynamic range as possible, particularly with digital where
contrast adjustment is so easy.

Hope this helps.

Poxy wrote:
from Douglas wrote:

Portrait of a cat...
Lighting is the key to portraiture. Hi-key basically blows away the
highlights. What is white if not the paper a photo is printed on? What
colour is white anyway? 255.255.255 in Photoshop? A hi-key image then,
relies on the paper it is printed on for it's effect.


You obviously have a different understanding of what high-key and low-key
means. I thought high-key meant the majority of the tones (ie. detail) in an
image were in the mid-to-upper range, whereas low-key has most of the detail
and tonal range in the mid-to-lower range. High-key does not imply blown-out
highlights.


Low key lighting is harder to use. It is even harder to use with a
speedlite and room lighting as the sole source of light. Some
speedlites (Nikon, Olympus, Metz) can control exposure quite well,
some (Like Canon's new 580) can only do it occasionally or on some
EOS cameras. The 20D, for example does not interact well with this
flash but the 5D does. Spot metering has a lot to do with it.


I assume by "speedlite" you mean "flash"?


I used Olympus for this exercise. A GN30 speedlite with some styrene
foam packaging (1mm thick) as a diffuser for this pictu
http://www.photosbydouglas.com/cat.htm. I (spot) metered on the white
fur, knowing it would render the room interior black enough to produce
the effect I sought.


To me, your cat photo is high key - the detail in the shot is pretty much
all between midtones and highlights.

I'd suggest that you think about trying to add a little dimension by using
a backlight or reflector - that would avoid the "cutout" look. You might
consider a little more softening for the key light source as well.

You also need to consider your lighting ratios and the latitude of your
camera and what you are shooting against - the background of the shot has
some distracting elements.


Other brands of (digital) cameras require Photoshop post processing to
produce such effects. Canon 5D for example, can take this sort of
picture relatively easily but it's (relatively) wide dynamic range is
detrimental to the picture. You need to post process to get rid of
detail from the shadows. I can't help but pose the question? What's
all the noise about dynamic range? If you know the capabilities of
your gear, it matters little, does it not?


You can always gain contrast in post-processing - both in film and digital.
You can not gain dynamic range after the image is shot. Thus is makes sense
to seek as much dynamic range as possible, particularly with digital where
contrast adjustment is so easy.

Hope this helps.




Thanks for your input Poxy. I do indeed mean Speedlite as in a camera
mounted flash gun - called a speedlite by both Nikon and Canon. To me a
flash is a bloody big reflector with a FP flash bulb. These are true
flash guns. The little electronic gizmos you plug onto a camera are
Speedlites. I tried using a slave speedlite for back lighting but it lit
the background too much. And then of course the cat moved too which
makes things interesting.

Beth Conant has a lot of "High key" photos for sale on acclaims stock
photo site.
http://www.acclaimimages.com/_galler...2206-5447.html
I presumed (rightly or wrongly) that the opposite to a high key photo
like hers is low key. Alan always seems to have a different opinion to
me on these sort of matters and we can both summons up support for our
own views. I guess under those circumstances everyone is right.

I presume from your "distracting background elements" comment you are
viewing this picture on an Apple Mac? One of the problems of trying to
display a picture on someone else's screen is the difference in Gamma
between a Mac and a PC and also the difference in brightness of various
monitors and the widely varying colour balance of video cards along with
the notion many people have that "their" colour calibrated system should
mean someone else's "colour calibrated" system will display the same on
their screen...and they don't!

Microsoft's new operating system "Vista" is supposed address these
problems which have plagued print bureau's for years, given that my
image originate from a PC in a professional print centre using a quite
expensive 2D display card and even more expensive "Graphics" monitor
which is monthly calibrated to a standard reference chart... And no
prints from my picture result in background detail showing, I used to
say it's "your" monitor at fault. As if shifting the blame from person
to person is going to alter anything. It won't. It's the imperfect
nature of the Internet.

Before getting into the idea of posting pics on the Internet, I took a
CD with some pictures of mine to Hardley Normals Computer super store
and looked at them on about 16 different PCs. The most reliable were LCD
screens on Laptops. All the rest went from good to terrible, depending
on the video card and make of monitor. I then bought one of the laptops
and came home and made some more pictures to resemble about the middle
of what I remembered.

Then I went to the now defunct Myer Mega Mart and did the same exercise.
From that I now know many people will see my pictures a lot differently
than I do. All I can say to that is; They look right on 30 PC I tried
then on. They look right on my LG notebook. They print properly on my
Epson r2400, the dye ink HP designjets (both of them) and my new 60"
wide designjet, provided I use the ICC profile for the specific printer
and media in use, when I print from Photoshop.

Which brings me the the "colour calibration" subject of using a spyder
or similar. Nearly all monitors of any worth come with their own ICC
profile. This is supposed to produce a "natural looking" - as in
original look - RGB image on the screen. Spyders, generate their own ICC
monitor profile and may actually stuff up the possibility of seeing
anything but the reference they use, the way it was intended.

I know now that a wide variety of monitors see my pictures the way I do.
I know also that of the 20 or so image files I get to enlarge every day,
only an insignificant number result in the owner saying the "print" is
off colour when in fact it is their monitor which was off.

Life goes on.
Judge my photographs,
not my pictures.

"From Douglas" wrote in message
...

Thanks for your input Poxy. I do indeed mean Speedlite as in a camera
mounted flash gun - called a speedlite by both Nikon and Canon.

Its Speedlight by Nikon Doug.

=bob=

[BnH] wrote:
"From Douglas" wrote in message
...


Thanks for your input Poxy. I do indeed mean Speedlite as in a camera
mounted flash gun - called a speedlite by both Nikon and Canon.


Its Speedlight by Nikon Doug.

=bob=


Thank you Bob.
Nikon Speedlights and Canon speedlites
My, we are off to a good start this year, arn't we?

From Douglas wrote:
Which brings me the the "colour calibration" subject of using a spyder
or similar. Nearly all monitors of any worth come with their own ICC
profile. This is supposed to produce a "natural looking" - as in
original look - RGB image on the screen. Spyders, generate their own ICC
monitor profile and may actually stuff up the possibility of seeing
anything but the reference they use, the way it was intended.

Douglas, it sounds like you don't use any sort of hardware calibration
or profiling of your monitors -- is that right?

Peter Marquis-Kyle

Peter Marquis-Kyle wrote:
From Douglas wrote:

Which brings me the the "colour calibration" subject of using a spyder
or similar. Nearly all monitors of any worth come with their own ICC
profile. This is supposed to produce a "natural looking" - as in
original look - RGB image on the screen. Spyders, generate their own
ICC monitor profile and may actually stuff up the possibility of
seeing anything but the reference they use, the way it was intended.


Douglas, it sounds like you don't use any sort of hardware calibration
or profiling of your monitors -- is that right?

Peter Marquis-Kyle

No Peter, that is not right. I just have many, many instances where such
devices have interfered with, rather than improved, viewing of customers
pictures.

Kibo informs me that From Douglas stated that:

Which brings me the the "colour calibration" subject of using a spyder
or similar. Nearly all monitors of any worth come with their own ICC
profile. This is supposed to produce a "natural looking" - as in
original look - RGB image on the screen. Spyders, generate their own ICC
monitor profile and may actually stuff up the possibility of seeing
anything but the reference they use, the way it was intended.

Um, no, that's incorrect.
The ICC profile you get with your monitor is just a reference profile
that has only a vague relationship with the characteristics of *your*
actual monitor.
And even if the supplied profile was actually created specifically from
your monitor at the factory, it still wouldn't be useful for long,
because the response curves of the monitor change vary with the ambient
temperature, as well as drifting as the components & tube (if a CRT)
age, & even according to how long it's been turned on. (Which is why you
shouldn't do anything colour-critical until the monitor's been powered
up for an hour.)

A calibration device measures the *actual* response of your monitor for
that time, on that particular day, & will, if used correctly, generate a
profile that's dramatically more accurate than the canned ICC file that
you got on your driver disk. Correct colour calibration is difficult to
do, & easy to screw up, so it's vitally important to follow every step
in the manual. (Although that's more easily said than done if it's as
bad as the one that I got with my Spyder, which didn't even hint at what
colour temperatures are appropriate for typical purposes (6500K/G65 for
most photography), buried the Gamma stuff (2.2 for Windows) in a
Mac-specific appendix, & was very poorly written in general.)

I know now that a wide variety of monitors see my pictures the way I do.
I know also that of the 20 or so image files I get to enlarge every day,
only an insignificant number result in the owner saying the "print" is
off colour when in fact it is their monitor which was off.

Most people can't tell the difference at the best of times. Just look at
a few pub or domestic TVs to see what the average punter considers a
'good' saturation setting.
--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
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