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Help on camera settings!
Hi everyone! Thanks to many of you I have made my choice and bought a Canon rebel T7i and I’m having fun with it right now but I would like to focus on portraits- face to 3/4. I bought the soft box pair by HPUSN. I also bought a backdrop with the white fabric. I tried to take photos but I am having some issues here. The room I put this in is approximately 12 x 12. My camera is reading more of a blue tint and I adjusted the white balance too different settings and still nothing is right on as if I were to photograph in natural light outside. Also when I took a self portrait I have 2/ half moons on my for head Maybe the lights of the soft box reflecting? or the lights are too close? So my question is how to match these lights to my camera and how far from the subject should the soft box be and at what angle? I am just starting out photographing so I’m going to have an awful lot of questions for all of you if you’ll just help me out here. I am and have been a very accomplished commercial model in New York but now I am exploring the other side of the camera and I’m very excited about it Mar 25 21 04:12 pm Link In the studio, you are shooting in manual mode, right? Flashes are in manual mode also, but you are using constant light. Your exposure depends on the distance of the lights to the subject, not the distance of the camera to the subject. Can your camera set a custom white balance? I use a digital target for white balance and for checking exposure. If you can borrow an incident meter, that would really help. I don't understand the 2/2 moons. Edit: Hot spots? Mar 25 21 04:42 pm Link I once bought a cheap softbox and its colour was not perfectly neutral. Using it on one light in several-light setups, the colour would always be a little bit off somewhere in the image and impossible to correct. Took a while to figure out the cause as the thing looked white to the eye. Are your results any better if you shoot without any light modifiers (and the appropriate colour balance)? If you shoot RAW, you should be able to change the colour balance while editing. Are your walls a vivid colour? Reflected light could be a problem. Try flash (without softbox) bounced from a white ceiling: set the light on a stand somewhere near the camera position and direct it to a point on the ceiling about half way between camera and subject. Not dramatic lighting, exactly, but good for portraits. Try with the flash at different distances from the subject. Mar 25 21 07:59 pm Link Read Your Cameras manual, set and use custom white balance while indoors. There are literally thousands of tutorials online as to how to go about this. * Your modifiers (softboxs) although somewhat important are not as important as the lights themselves. Mar 26 21 01:00 am Link First Rule of Flash Photography: The closer the light, the softer the light. Angle? Maybe 45 degrees from above, but avoid Racoon Eyes and try to capture that Catch Light in the eyes. Feather the light also. Maybe off to the side so that just the edge of the subject hits the subject. Mar 26 21 07:45 am Link You did not say what is your light source. Is it LED, flash, continuous light ? Flash, unless it's really old or really cheap, are balanced for daylight. Most LEDs have variable white balance so you have to check your settings, and if it's continuous light (regular bulbs or even LED bulbs) you have to check their white balance as tungsten gives you yellow light and not just what uncorrected LED does. And yes, cheap or old softbox material can change the light color. The last thing is, what color are the walls and ceiling ? If you shoot in a blue room and there is light bouncing off the walls to your subject you will get a blue tint on your subject. Don't know if it's the First Rule of Photography but the closer the source the softer the light. The problem is a flash or hot light that close you'll have too much light as you can't cut the power down that much and you may not want to adjust your aperture and disturb your desired depth of field. Mar 26 21 08:33 am Link First question is what color are the walls? if they are blue that is probably your problem. Second question is what are your exposure setting in manual. Take a photo at those setting but without the flash--the result should be black image or close to black. if not make it back by covering any windows. Third question is take a photo without the soft box but with the flash. If you still have color shift set custom WB Fourth take photo with Soft box and if you now have blue cast that is your problem, either put a warming filter on flash or get a better soft box Mar 26 21 11:51 am Link Congratulations on the new camera! The color temperature of light varies and you need to be aware that it can change from location to location and even in a large room. In addition, you will run into mixed color temperature situations where you have different sources of light providing different color temperatures. If you have no control over a situation like that, the best solution is to pull out a white card and have the model put it in front of them. Take an image and set a custom white balance for that lighting situation. Here's the Canon knowledgebase article that will help. https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index? … =ART173817 Learning this skill will help you in many situations where you are unsure of the correct WB. Mar 27 21 07:57 am Link Thanks everyone! Sounds a bit overwhelming but I will keep moving forward with your very welcomed suggestions. Thinking it may be the new soft lights I bought on Amazon, I experimented with some self portraits against my white cloth background in auto mode and self timer in my enclosed porch with natural lighting.. You can imagine the focus results in auto but the photos were still blue. I did play around with the white balance except for the custom mode. I posted two of the photos in my profile. They are the pics with me wearing a black t-shirt. I would like to get really good focus on my 63 year old skin also. Mar 27 21 09:56 am Link Here's a handy set of camera settings for the T7i. https://photographylife.com/recommended … i-settings It would be good to know if you are shooting in Canon Raw or JPG file format for your photos. Also, what post processing software are you using? Lightroom or other?? Apr 03 21 08:02 am Link Storytelling-Images wrote: Just going to reiterate the above point since it's not only sound but most likely the fix for the issue you are experiencing in terms of the color variance. Apr 03 21 10:01 am Link I'll chime in and mention that some soft boxes and sundry umbrellas use fabrics that have UV brighteners in them. I discovered one of my umbrellas was almost 1,000 Kelvin higher (bluer) than using the flash direct as read by a color temperature meter. I have a black-light and some of the reflector fabrics really glow under it. My really old (~30yrs.) Lighthouse Moonlight softbox covers have turned to what appears as yellow/orange, but they are more neutral than newer ones that are far too blue and need a 1/8 CTO (orange) gel. There is a spray (i.e. "U-V Killer") that helps to get rid of the U-V brightener effect if it is too prevalent and giving you issues with white balance. Some hunters use it on their clothing as the U-V tips off birds and deer who see it easily. Apr 03 21 09:12 pm Link Doesn't anyone use a neutral grey card anymore? Wouldn't that suffice to correct in post all colors that are off? Apr 04 21 11:38 am Link fotopfw wrote: In most cases, it would. It certainly shouldn't affect skintones unless some strange makeup was being used. Apr 04 21 10:03 pm Link Congratulations on your purchase of a Canon Rebel T7i. Below is a link that you should find helpful. https://photographylife.com/recommended … i-settings mbdee wrote: Your white balance settings look balanced for your skin tone. The slight blue colour of the background could be from your lights, or in the white fabric itself, or possibly light reflecting off the walls and/or floor coverings in your room. Apr 04 21 11:51 pm Link Hi! Can I offer an alternative suggestion, for the short term? Since both the camera itself AND the lighting -- two entirely separate things -- are new to you, I'd recommend getting comfortable using the camera with available light only. This won't be a permanent solution, but to me, it gives you a chance to begin to find your comfort zone, and begin to incorporate control on some of the things you mentioned, like White Balance and overall exposure control, without the complication of portable or studio lighting. Lighting is a craft, and there are many here on MM, and of course elsewhere, who have mastered it. But it's yet another layer of stuff to think about, become cognizant of, and learn. I think trying to get the hang of both, simultaneously, can lead to a bit of possible overload, and frustration. Even if the lens(es) you own now aren't wide-aperture, "fast" lenses that excel in available light, with the high ISO capabilities of modern DSLRs, you'll be able to start to take control and find your rhythm in your vision and your camera control. Once that's in-place, and you're confident in working the camera with the available light you can see (that last point is an important one!), you can then turn your attention to beginning to bring in and control artificial light -- whether it's continuous lighting, or flash. Good luck with this. It's a journey, and there will always be bumps in the road. One reason so many portfolios on a site like MM look so good is because you never see the shutter clicks that didn't produce cover-shot results. All of us had to go through a learning process. I think if you distill it down to those two elements (working with the camera, and then working with lighting), you'll go a long way, and ultimately do it faster. Enjoy the journey! -- Rudy Winston Apr 07 21 05:53 pm Link When photographing against a white background I've always found it better to add some distance between the subject and background then overexpose the background with another pair of lights from the sides. Blows out any ambient light color cast on the background. Apr 07 21 10:54 pm Link In looking at her two images - She doesn't show the blue on her - only on the "white" background. It also has a gradient from white at the top to blue at the bottom. This looks more likely light reflecting off something blue. I agree with lighting the background separately from the subject. Really, the recommendation would be to find a local talented photographer for some tutoring sessions. Jun 09 21 09:46 am Link If the blue is only on the BG it could be in the BG itself as many white materials contain brightners that photograph bluish, especially with flashes that have UV. That is why Savage makes two types of White paper BG, White and Super White. Try shooting the BG outdoors in sunlight or overcast sky Jun 09 21 02:49 pm Link Get wheels for your c-stand. You'll thank me later, makes moving your light source so much easier so you can experiment subtle movements EASILY. White balance is easy to change but if you shoot RAW, it's not very important as you can change everything in post via Lightroom or Photoshop. Snap away! Aug 02 21 09:37 am Link |
