Location school portrait help?

[SteveM]

Hi guys,

Welp, Sunday Dec. 10th I'm off on another chaotic, high stress shoot in the midst of a martial arts tournament, trying to take as many posed portrait additions/retakes for the year-end photos and posters. I'm reasonably pleased (I say that loosely) with the first endeavor, and I'll post some examples below. I definitely have some issues I'm not happy about. One was that my seamless paper backdrop kept trying to unroll throughout the day, and in some shots you notice the "horizon line" looking pretty crooked. Buy clamps, problem fixed. My biggest issue with the last portrait session was, I was moving between full body shots/poses, and headshots, at least one of each per individual, and with my 50mm 1.4 that meant moving my tripod closer and further between shots, but I thought it would be way too time consuming and touch-and-go to move the lighting as well for each transition, especially for semi-high volume portrait shooting. So, the outcome was that on some shots, I have BAD cast shadows on the backdrop. Is it safe to say this is typically frowned upon? Suggestions on how to minimize or eliminate these? I spent quite a bit of time on some, during postprocessing, to eliminate these as best I could. The actual portraits I'm not too disappointed with, but the background, yeesh! I'm going to post some examples now and please remember, this isn't the whipping post, so critique gently and with solutions and ways to eliminate the problems you see.

Equip: Canon 20D, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 580EX speedlite (left key), Canon 430EX speedlite (right fill), both at about 7 feet on lightstands w/ 30"ish white umbrellas about 45 degrees from camera on either side, Canon ST-Whatever remote flash trigger.

http://www.downriverphotography.com/photos/111063728-L.jpg
Notice the very clearly defined cast shadows.

http://www.downriverphotography.com/photos/111060391-L.jpg

The 3/4 shots and most of the headshots came out okay, but you can still see the floor shadow cutting into the frame here.

http://www.downriverphotography.com/photos/111057486-L.jpg

Evil silhouette! This guy is so tall that I couldn't move him too far away from the background. Luckily, most of these are to be used in composites (magazine covers, posters, etc.) so the background isn't terribly important, but some are to be used for portrait packages. Any suggestions welcomed!

[Shay Stephens]

The shodow can be helped with three things, moving the people farther from the background, using a larger/closer softbox/umbrella, and feathering the light toward the feet.

The feather aspect basically means, don't point the light down, let it point parallel to the ground. The face will get the full brightness, the feet will receive less light, and the shadow coming from the feet will be less dense and noticable. Feathering also adds a bit more interest in that the light intensity changes from top to bottom.

The larger and closer the source light is, the more a distant shadow will mush out to nothing. And the farther the subject is from the background, the more "mushiness" it will get too.

One other thing that can help with background shadows is to light the background separately from the subject. And you will need adequate distance from the subject to the background there too.

[SteveM]

The shodow can be helped with three things, moving the people farther from the background, using a larger/closer softbox/umbrella, and feathering the light toward the feet.

The feather aspect basically means, don't point the light down, let it point parallel to the ground. The face will get the full brightness, the feet will receive less light, and the shadow coming from the feet will be less dense and noticable. Feathering also adds a bit more interest in that the light intensity changes from top to bottom.

The larger and closer the source light is, the more a distant shadow will mush out to nothing. And the farther the subject is from the background, the more "mushiness" it will get too.

One other thing that can help with background shadows is to light the background separately from the subject. And you will need adequate distance from the subject to the background there too.
Thanks so much, again, Shay. I meant to reply before this, but things have been insane. Between exams, finals, and photography, I got about 8 hours sleep in the last four days. Was up for 32 hours the day of the shoot.

I did put into place everything you suggested. I couldn't quite get the feathering right and with a line of people it was difficult to experiment with, but I think I'm onto it. I moved the lighting as close as I could without it being in the frame, and put considerable distance between the subject and the background and they were all improvements. I'll be posting some more examples after I get caught up, then hopefully progress from there as well.

My next dilema, how to use this #&&!)#*#& Sekonic L-358, with flash, without cord (since the Canon Speedlites don't have *(*&*# sync cord capabilities).

Anyhow, can't thank you enough,

[LiquidAir]

My setup works like this:

I have a single Pocket Wizard hooked up to trigger the shutter on my camera. I put the ST-E2 optical remote flash trigger in the shoe mount which then fires my 580EX and my 430EX (both on stands with umbrellas). That way I can wirelessly trigger both the shutter and the flash with the flash meter.