cheshiredave wrote:
These are all quite a bit better. C and D are particularly successful -- in C it doesn't even look like a flash was used. Shot A is not bad bad but it's easily my least favorite, with the harsher shadows, and the cold light of the flash is more apparent there -- you'll want to warm that up in post or gel the flash. But at least you did a good job of separating her from the background.

Are you shooting through the umbrella or pointing the flash away and bouncing off the umbrella, or trying both ways? You'll also want to experiment with distance of light to your subject. With the small flash head, it leads pretty quickly to harder shadows. Quality of your softbox will also make a big difference of how much it overcomes the nature of the speedlight.

Good improvements overall, though!

Thanks!  I was shooting through the umbrella.  I didn't even think of bouncing it because I thought I would lose too much power.  For example A I just wanted something dramatic looking so I went with all the power i could get in there.  For the other ones I tried really hard to listen to what everyone said and make things look as natural as possible.  The light overall was probably about 4 feet away from her with the exception of A, that was like 2 feet away and really high up.  It was really windy and even though I had a sandbag with me (that viciously cut me and made me bleed btw lol, there was a hidden staple on there from a tag) I didn't really trust things to be too far from me.  It was pretty bad.

Anyway, I'm going to keep at it.  Glad to know the direction I'm going in is getting better :-)  Thanks again for the help.  I will keep the things you just said in mind for next time.  I'm supposed to do a paid shoot Thursday or Saturday, depending on the rain, and my next buy will be some filters.  If you have any recommendations let me know.  I usually buy everything from B&H since it's so close to me and gets here in like a day.

martin b wrote:
You are missing a few things that keep your pictures from looking professional.  You need to learn to dress the model so she looks appropriate for the portrait.  You also can use a little powder for her face.  Last you can use some posing techniques for your model.

Hi there.  This is a test not a modeling thing.  That's my friend.  The whole purpose was for me to test my flash because I'm not familiar with it.  Disregard what she is wearing, the poses, and the shinny skin and please focus on the lighting more and the direction it's coming from and if things blend with the background well or not.  My goal is to master my flash.  If you look at my port, I dressed all of the models, posed them, and used natural light with all of them really.  I just got two flashes so this is all about the light now.  Thanks.

DespayreFX wrote:
C is getting quite good, as said above, can't tell the flash was used, that's a good fill. Definitely better if you look at that one and the first one you posted.

Yeah I think the first one is ok if I was actually going for that look, like maybe i wanted a fashion fantasy look or something, but for every day fill-in flash hell no.  That's why I needed to keep going.  Now I need to get some gels :-)  Thanks!

Lee_Photography wrote:
From a lighting perspective “C” gets my vote, “by George I think you have got it”

I think the umbrella produces a larger light source which is producing softer shadows, look under chin at the shadow in photo “C”. Now compare that to the chin shadow in photo “D”, quite a difference.

Wish you well

Yeah that's the first thing i noticed.  The mini soft box does create distinct shadow a bit and the umbrella is much softer.  I'll use the umbrella mostly.  The issue now will be me carrying a tripod, my camera, a sandbag, a light stand, and the flash.  It's gonna start getting really heavy lol.  Gotta do what I gotta do though.