When I got to 500 posts a man wearing a DVi t-shirt turned up at the door offering to type all future posts for me. Now that's service . . .

Working great now.

Ok, to whomsoever is writing this:

Please let Ian know that I'm working on getting to 500 posts and then you can write my posts and Ian can find someone local to do his work for him :).

New Images Posted
 

Please find the images of the lightboxes here:

http://photoalbum.matlus.com//AlbumView.aspx/6

You'll see them after the pictures of the Merlin.

Thanks for those pictures, Shiv. Your softlight light looks very natural.

Though the white balance is a little bit off, it actually appears to me as if the ladies' faces are illuminated by a window. I'm having this idea of positioning my lights to simulate window lighting but I wonder if that makes any sense!

Attached is a white balanced version of the first pic you posted.

Seun,

I had white balanced for the Softbox before shooting. There was sunlight coming in via a window (with a white shade) from the right side of the subjects (looking at the photo, the left side). The window was about 20ft from the subjects. That's the light that caused a highlight on the side of their face.

How do you tell if the white balance is off and how did you fix it?

Hmmm, we can't possibly judge the quality of any lighting fixture using a picture taken with the windows open! I'm not sure that the white balancing was off; perhaps the CFLs had a natural magenta cast? Either that or the wall is light magenta in color rather than white. I assumed that the wall was a white one. I attempted to white balance it using a color balance filter in the GIMP app.

The light from the window was not coming into the area where the subjects were, plus the window was quite far from the subjects. The window had a (white) shade pulled over it (diffusing it).

The wall behind the subjects was illuminated by the softbox only indirectly. The wall is white in so far as a "white" wall in a home. A white foam core board, or a white sheet of paper is much whiter than the wall.

The megenta - don't Canon cameras have more of a magenta then normal?

I think the picture's beautiful regardless. I think the lighting is soft and great.

Shiv, I bought the same lights about 2 months ago and have used them on a shoot once. I love the quality of the light as well. Now I need to experiment on controlling spill so I can get good subject/background seperation.

Video cameras reaction to light, vis a vis white balancing, is different than film. Film reallly is setup for 3200 or 5600 K. Video cameras could care less what the color temperature is. Hitting the WB switch, the camera 'assumes' you are pointing it at white and will adjust its R, its G and its B amplifiers in such a way that they are cumilatively sending out a white signal.

If your camera always seems magenta to you, get an extremely unsataurated magenta gel, hold it up to your lens when you do a white balance, and it will take the magenta down. If they still have them, a LEE or ROSCO color correction swatch book, with little sample gels all pinned together, is a great resource, as is a color accurate field monitor.

As to the Kaiser lights, I'm trying to figure out a way to carry them and set them up with lights screwed in, otherwise the setup time gets too long. But for the money, they are a good light.

Eric,

Thanks for the info.

I used a white foam core board to do the white balance for that clip. I'm planning on buying a swatch book because at a shoot I had a very difficult time finding a "white" something and then the camera wouldn't white balance for some reason. It took about 20 minutes of trying various angles/distances etc. to achieve white balance.


Yes, I love the lights too. They are cumbersome to transport in a way that they are ready to go. In my last shoot and carried one mounted while the other dismantled. That was the only way I could do it given the space in the rented SUV along with all the other stuff and equipment I had with me.

The whitest material I've been able to find is table salt. :-o