We had our family shoot Saturday. It didn't go perfectly well because of having to deal with 3 small children and no wrangler but I think the family will be happy (I hope) with the result. Getting the kids to look at the lens was of course the hardest part. We had no baby wrangler but we had a Kindle Fire playing a cartoon on top of a TV that I was using to preview the images as they were taken. I thought that between the 2 screens in front they would be looking, but it was hard. I snapped about 50 shots and ended up having to comp a couple of images together in PS to get the result you see below.
I did experiment with some lighting setups before the day & ended up going with a 43" bounce umbrella about 6 feet in front either side of our set. The tops of the umbrellas were touching the 8 ft ceiling in my garage where we did the shoot. The lights were pointing pretty much straight on but feathered out towards the edges a bit. With an AB400 in each I was getting f11 +- 1/10th of a stop across the entire area of where everybody was going to be positioned. The strobes were a little less than full power. I was using an infrared remote with a 3 second delay to fire the camera from where I was standing, while holding my 4 year old son (that is me directly behind my father).The kids of course wanted nothing to do with sitting in my father's lap so what you see is how we were able to make it work. It was shot with a Pentax K20D at ISO 400 1/125th at f11 using a Sigma 50-150 lens at 55mm. I know that the lighting is pretty flat but I just didn't have enough time to play with different setups before I had to take the shot.
The image below is hopefully what will be the final. I processed the RAW file in LR3 and then did the rest of the editing in PS. I whitened teeth, eyes, did some dodging and burning, softened a little skin, removed a few blemishes and wrinkles, and did a curves adjustment and sharpened while soft proofing for my printer. I made (5) 4 x 7 test prints before getting what you see here. I will probably not look at the test prints for a few days before I make the final 8 x 10 on matte paper to go in the frame to be given to my father next Sunday..
I would appreciate any comments on the photo, lighting, or PP & retouching. This is the first time I have attempted anything like this and am always looking to learn and do it better.
Thanks again for looking!
George
Last edited by gsrokmix; 09-03-2012 at 12:31 PM.