3 light portrait test

[edG]

Sorry it's been a while gang, been out of town on different projects. Finally had a chance to try some strobe set-ups. For this one, the main light (sigma 530 DG super at full power with micro apollo soft box bounced into a 45" umbrella) positioned just off the lens axis about 7 ft up, background light is an optical slave fired from about 30" off the floor to my left and the fill/hair (not that I have much hair) is another optical slave up about 7ft and about 8ft back on my right, fired down with diffusion (aka foam wrapping "paper" doubled up). Camera D5000 with Nikkor 16-85mm at 70mm, f5.6 and 1/40 sec. fired via wirelss remote about 6feet from me and posted in Lr3. Debated whether to post this in critiques or here - your comments and critiques are most welcome.

[Marko]

This is some good experimentation for sure. I'll reserve a fuller critique/comment when I'm at my real monitor. First thing I notice is that your eyes are very very dark on my laptop..also they sharp but not tack sharp, perhaps a faster shutterspeed could have helped in that regard. More to come on this later on, and nice play again!

[edG]

Appreciate your feedback Marko, here is a crop from the original NEF file straight out of the camera, no processing other than NEF to TIFF to JPEG. Maybe this will help point out what I need to do to improve the shot. Thanks again!!

[Marko]

This does help Ed! I can clearly see colour in your eyes here which is good. So if you wanted it in BW I'd play with the conversion more so the black eyes in shot 1 are not pure black. The eyes are indeed somewhat soft and know in advance that often it is difficult to focus only on the eye. This is especially true with slower lenses that need to focus in lower indoor light. What can help is turning the room lights on for a sec, achieve tack sharp focus then turn them off.. Lastly for a pose like this, a bit more intensity would be nice and to my eye you are looking just above the lens. Directly into the lens would make this more intense. Hope that helps - Marko

[edG]

Thanks for the tips Marko very much appreciated. I went back to another NEF file and converted it to B&W, but this time with a lot less post - here is a crop of the eyes from that shot. I think part of the problem (other than the issues you had mentioned) is that I had lost some of the highlight or "shine" in the area of the cornea. Thanks again for your critical eye and input!!

Edouard

[Marko]

My pleasure and MUCH better ed!