Lighting feedback

CarBennly

Member
What do you pholks think about this lighting? do the flags distract you? We didn't put them there. How would you guys get around them if in fact you were in this situation? Add a bunch of netural density and crank the front light? suggestions? oppinions?

I know. I know. My friend Brad Pitt said never to drop names.... sorry about the famous face.... im asking more about the lighting.

thanks
-Tommy
 

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Baltimore's Finest Fotog

Well-known member
Initial reaction:

Key-light looks good.

Hair-light might be a tad harsh.

(If possible) Physically move his chair away from those flags. Nino just posted something in another critique about setting the distance between camera and subject...and then doubling that distance between subject and background. I dunno how big that room is, but even if you can't move his chair, moving your camera WAAAAY back should help a lot.
 

redcoat

Well-known member
As stated, adding more distance between the camera and barack would force you to zoom in, shallowing the depth of field and knocking the background more out of focus. Then the further the background is away, the more out of focus it would be and the greater the separation between barack and the background. It also may have helped to use one flag instead of two or maybe put the two flags next to each other in the interviews lead room space, rather than have them on each side of him.
 
DOF is a function of aperture and focus distance, NOT, as is commonly believed, focal length. Here are a few technical and visual illustrations of the effect of aperture, focus distance and focal length on DOF :
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/dof2.shtml

So, put the camera as far away from the background as possible ( think diagonal in small rooms)
For my taste I would have had the key more off-center and had a kiss-of-grease on the fill side.
 

Nino

Well-known member
To create depth and separation you have to physically increase the distance of the subject from the background, if you just increase the distance from the camera to the subject and extend the focal length of you lens in order to reduce depth of field you will compress the image giving the subject the effect called “pasted” against the background, by doing so you will also substantially reduce the angle and lose a lot of the background. The ideal formula for interviews and portraitures is to have the subject placed at one third the distance between the camera and background. My minimum optimum distance is to have the camera at 8’ from the subject and the background 16’ behind the subject, more is better, preferably more distance behind the subject. Also creating separation and depth with lighting is equally important as depth of field.
 

redcoat

Well-known member
DOF is a function of aperture and focus distance, NOT, as is commonly believed, focal length. Here are a few technical and visual illustrations of the effect of aperture, focus distance and focal length on DOF :
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/dof2.shtml
That's an interesting clarification. So according to you, what accounts for it being much more difficult to keep things in focus at longer focal lengths? Why does zooming in seem to exaggerate the apparent difference between separate focal points?
 
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