Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO 800 — image data
Lighting Test Shot
ストロボの設定の試し一枚目
入学式から帰って来た疲れた息子をヘルパーに使わせていただきました。
Setting up a bunch of flash units in the living room to take pictures of Fumie in her costume for her recent part in her ballet school's production of The Nutcracker, I asked Anthony to step in so that I could take a test shot to gauge the initial flash settings I'd guessed at. He'd just come home from a short day at school and wanted to relax with his ice-cream snack, so he wasn't really in the mood to be a prop.
I was happy that I'd at least landed in the ballpark for the settings (they were a bit hot), but this kind of slightly washed out “high key” look, combined with his ice cream and his general look, make this look like it could be an advertisement for the clothes he was wearing.
He was wearing sort of nicer clothes in honor of the special ceremony for the new batch of first graders starting school that day, a very big event in their life, as it was for Anthony five years ago when Anthony started school. On this special day, only the sixth graders attend (2nd through 5th have a day off) to welcome the new kids, and while some of the sixth graders get special helping tasks, for the most part the sixth graders just wait around on their feet, so he was pretty tired by the time he got home.
This B&H with Joey Quintero has pretty good information on lighting for portraiture using flashes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS_2fLkE8aw
It’s a bit long (2.5h), but a very good introduction. The first hour has a ‘lecture’ with the information, and the last ninety minutes they have a model come in and demo the principles.
There’s a shorter (90min) second “Intermediate” video which repeats a lot of the information, especially between 5 min and 45 min:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWhi4I20s10
In both he highly recommends a light meter to get the settings right: set the flash, trigger, measure. No guessing.
(There used to be another “Intro” video with him, but sadly it’s no longer viewable, being made ‘private’.)