Well, as long as I'm showing cheap lighting alternatives...this was shot in her home while I was on the road.



4ft directly in front of model, a Vivitar 285HV, set at 3/4 power & bounced off of a Photogenic 60" Eclipse white convertable umbrella. Above the rear of her head at about 50 degrees, a 100W halogen hot lamp reflected off of a silver umbrella with a 12" gold disc inserted between the upper ribs (the gold gives blondes & redheads brighter highlights). Shot with a Canon D30 on a tripod directly under the 60" umbrella.

Quick question for you guys. How do you get your models so natural looking? I am tinkering around with some lighting and the subjects come out kinda yellow. Any tips?

I am using a halogen work light shining through a white sheet (sort of a soft box :lol and a desk lamp with no reflector.

Hi,
Colorbalance.

I shoot RAW and afterwards I will collorcorrect the RAW's with or PS or C1 (for archiving JPG's, I archive both Raw's and a JPEG version).

When using tungsten light you will get a yellow cast, set your camera on tungsten and it should be better.

Greetings,
Frank

I am talking about color. My people pics in front of lighting come out a bit yellow.

Now the newbie question. I know how to set the white balance on my camera. What I don't know is what to set it to. I have a auto settings I can try, but if I wanted to manually set the white balance, what do you suggest I point the camera at to set it? And I am assuming whatever I point the camera at should be lit under the lighting I am using, correct?

You should set your white balance using something that's a solid white in the light you are going to be shooting in. However, as Frank said, halogen lamps are tungsten & setting your camera to the tungsten white balance should fix the yellow cast.

If I remember correctly, you are using a Canon G3 & will have the option of shooting in RAW. Doing so eliminates any white balance corrections your camera would try to make anyway. You then set the white balance in your computer software in post processing (what I would recommend anyway). As long as I'm posting...

Two halogen hot lights, one reflecting directly off the background to her rear right. The other reflecting off of a 42" silver umbrella in front. Shot RAW with a Dimage 7i, with a white diffuse glow added in Photoshop later.

Thanks Kalypso & Frank.

I will try shooting some images in RAW. I am not farmiliar with changing white balance in editing. Any pointers? I am using PhotoShop Elements 2.0.

Hi,
In PS you will find an autocolor sometimes that works.
Otherwise go to levels and get the white dropper and click on something solid white, try this on a few locations untill you like the effect.

Otherwise use colorbalance under adjustments.

If you shoot RAW the RAW convertor should take care of it when using tungsten.

Greetings,
Frank

These 3 were pretty much straighforward studio lighting with 3 strobes.

First was Main thru ripstop nylon panel at 45degrees camera left and slightly above model, light fill directly above camera center thru small brolly and a subtle hair light about 30 degree behind model camera right using a honeycomb grid to control spill into face shadow area. Model was about 6ft in front of mottled gray muslin.



This one had Main in same position but lower, somewhat higher power fill bounced off white umbrella slightly above camera andlowpower hair light aboveto catch the blowing hair tips from a simple fan placed camera front left and low at about 75 degrees.



This last one was a direct steal from one of Frank's setups (sorry Frank, but I only steal from the best). Lighting almost equivalent angles to camera (almost glamour style) with low camera angle and subtle hair light camer left and high, again with honeycomb to avoid spill and reflections. (There are catchlights in her eyes, but hard to see at this size).

Kalypso wrote:

I perfer to shoot RAW and white balance post production, however if you do want to have the camera white balance or if you are shooting film you don't have to white balance with white. You can use a gray card or even a warm card. A gray card is just as it sounds, a 50% gray card. Warm cards produce better skin tones than using just plain white. Check out this site for more information.

http://www.studio1productions.com/warm_cards.htm




I would like to setup a studio but have no idea what to get. Currently I don't have any studio equipment except for a camera. If you had a limited budget what would be the first thing you would purchase?

All the photos were super but I love that last one with reflection off the glass. Great imagination.

Phil