Archive 2015 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

Gerry Szarek
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

Good evening all,

I need to take 3 teams worth of portraits, blue back ground, ISO 800 F4@ 1/120th using a canon 5d with 70-200F4 under Fluorescent lights. The boys need to have caps on, should I use fill in flash to get the shadows off the forehead under the bill? I tweaked everything in DPP last year and they came out ok, but they weren't great. Unfortunately they need to wear stark white shirts :-(. This is the only time I actually do anything approaching a formal portrait.

This needs to be done quickly in about 2 hours or so and I don't have any retake options :-(. I spend most of my time trying to get the kids to comb their hair and get rid of the lunch remains off their faces. The team shot is easier because it is done outside in the shaded side of the field.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,
Gerry

Mar 25, 2015 at 07:46 PM

glennh56
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

Any examples?

Mar 25, 2015 at 07:55 PM

Gerry Szarek
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

How do I post without doing the buy and sell?

Mar 25, 2015 at 08:16 PM

gene2632
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

First, forget bouncing off the ceiling, it won't fill the shadow under the cap. Second if you need to use some fill flash, gel the flash to match the flurocent and set your camera to the proper K setting for that main light source. Third, put some white paper down under them to get some kick under the caps. Fourth, buy my WL Ultra Zap kit and do the job right from the start.......

Mar 25, 2015 at 09:06 PM

P Alesse
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

What gene said... Ideally, if you want to do a professional job, in most cases, you'll need professional lighting. There are some exceptions when you are trying to create a mood and when that's the case, creative use of ambient lighting comes into play, but it sounds to me that you want to pretty much shoot this straight up. Fill under the caps, yes, but also get some catch light in the eye. Off camera lighting might work better, but if you're looking quick and portable, you can go with OCF, but I might rec'd a flash diffuser as well. The lighting is softer and the source is "bigger" which will create a better catch light in the eye.

Mar 26, 2015 at 04:14 AM

Gerry Szarek
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

All thanks for the suggestions I have a canon 520 with a Gary Fong diffuser and will give that a shot. Again thanks for all the suggestions!!!

Mar 26, 2015 at 07:09 AM

gene2632
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

Make sure you gel your flash to the ambient unless you are going to over ride it

Mar 26, 2015 at 12:11 PM

gene2632
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

Almost forgot, the problem with the Gary Fong diffuser. assuming it is the butter dish type, it eats up a lot of your power so recycle time goes way up and batteries die faster.

Mar 26, 2015 at 12:12 PM

Gerry Szarek
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

Thanks for the information I will by an 8 pack of disposables :-)

Mar 26, 2015 at 12:46 PM

Gerry Szarek
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Baseball portraits, yearbook Fluorescent light fill in flash?

So it worked out fine! I had one parent checking the boys in writing the shot number down checking name spelling. I had another parent fixing the shirts and hats. The blue background was taped to the wall, the kid stood 3 feet in front of it, I was 9 feet from the kid. Shot a 5D with canon 580EX 2 with Gary Fong diffuser, in Raw with center point focus one shot. I set camera to ISO 800 1/200 at F4 the lens was 70-200F4, without a flash this was about 2 stops under exposed. Camera settings, portrait, AWB, single shot center AF.

Pulled everything into lightroom hit the auto fix button the adjustment was 0.35 stops, did a custom white balance. The only issue I had was in post processing (not my strong suit) was getting the eyes horizontal, not that anybody else was going to notice. It took me 3 hours to go thru 190 photos, I am sure this could be shorter with somebody who new how to tweak the software and had a faster computer I have an 6 year old gateway gaming machine pre I3 type.

The big thing I noticed was the help needed to check the kids in and fix the shirts. Even with this help it took just under 2 hours for 60 kids. I went thru 4 AA batteries.

Gerry

Mar 29, 2015 at 06:26 AM


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