my first ever beauty dish - test shot 1
I am not sure this shot quite fits here, hopefully it does, but I am keen to learn from your specific skills in photo-editing and so, well, read on please.
This is a test shot done using my new and first ever beauty dish. My old Elinchrom 66 head, a 1982 model, has just 3 stops of power reduction available, so even at 4 feet or so the widest aperture available was f10. I now have a newly arrive ELB 400 HS, so in the future will be able to reduce the power and open up as required. However, this is a first test, I have played in Photoshop, a bit, but I think the next stage should be D&B, please correct me if that is wrong, and there I am out of my depth. So now am looking for expert advice as to the best posible workflow for such shots, be it for portraits, headshots or beauty shots. And specifically regarding beauty workflows and D& B. Any expert training films on YouTube etc, that you can recommend as best in class, or at least very good, would very helpful. Much to learn and so little time.
Early stage development practice piece
3 Comments
This is now a bit more developed. I suspect D&B next but all advice on workflow and more critically on D&B techniques is welcome. It is all a bit of a mystery to me. So much to learn and so little time.
I'm no expert but the beauty dish is my favorite modifier so far. I think it's a fair shot but I think you lost some of the benefits of the beauty dish, if that's what we're focusing on. How far away did you have it? It seems to have lost some of its sculpting and shadow creating ability, maybe by being too far away. It also may be the model not being ideal for it.
Lindsay Adler and Aaron Nace (phlearn) both have segments out on youtube about using a beauty dish that might be helpful to watch!
There was a large wall just to the right. It is a pale cream, so is a soft fill reflector. There is also a cream carpet on the floor and a white ceiling. All becoming more of an issue due to the extra distance. I also had a small white reflector at chest level. She was too far away, as I did not want to work at smaller than about f10 so I could capture a sense of the room 0.4 of a second, hand-held at 110mm and the flash could not be turned down further.
So now I have 3 stops less power available with my new flash, I can move her in a bit, and still balance the room light a bit more easily.
I'll check out the tutorials you mention, thank you.