I work for a large company and often I need to take on location head shots in different locations that are all going to be used for the same project. I'm often limited on the space I have available and a lot of the time I am not able to control the ambient light. I'm having troubles creating consistent images throughout the series. So here are my questions.
Anyone have any suggestions on keeping a consistent lighting setup? Do you measure the distances from the lights to subject to background etc?
How do you compensate for different ambient lighting situations?
The last question is just something I need to work on. Anyone have a suggestions on creating consistent crops for headshots? The sizes are correct and I try to keep the proper balance with head room, torso length, etc... but I still don't think they all look the same.
Thank you
If you want to have consistent results you have to use consistent setups. If ambient light is what breaks that workflow then isolate it completely with your camera settings.
Consistent images doesn't always mean "the same background" but the same style the images represent.
Consistency in crop is just consistency in crop. You can decide to have a vertical shot always cropping from the knees and the top of the head. "Wrong" or not if you are consistent in this cropping your images would be consistent.
In my opinion it's greater to have consistency in style than in cropping or light setups. This liberates you to work creatively... unless the client wants to have the same types of photos of everyone.
Thanks for the response! Yes, they want very consistent images throughout. They are going to be used on a boardroom display and they want them to be the same.
So create 100% flash lit setups, measure them or even bring a piece of cardboard on the ground and mark where the light stands are and where the subject is.
On an overall opinion tip and not specific to you, don't get bored easily like I do from seeing the same type of image over and over. That's my weakness but its my strength as well since I provide heavy diversity in my images.
As for your specific situation, depending on your style or what type of portraits you're shooting studio style or environmental. Studio shouldn't be hard to be consistent as its the same setup just in different locations, as for environmental it'd be hard since the background and environment may differ largely or slightly.
"The last question is just something I need to work on. Anyone have a suggestions on creating consistent crops for headshots? " - Tripod, of course depending if you doing full body, half body or headshots if just headshots or specific other type of crop you'd adjust with your lens/tripod etc. for that crop.
Hey Ryan! Sounds like a nice challenge :) for consistent light setups, the simpler you keep it the better in this situation most likely, I would say two lights and a reflector is always a simple go to, but at minimum 1 light and a reflector. As for keeping it consistent, just do the same setup for everyone...the tough part is depending on where you are shooting all these, and the clients skin types and facial features, they all probably won't come out the same, the workflow for getting them looking fairly consistent is going to stretch all the way into post production too. Due to people's varying necklines, sized, heads, eyes etc....they are all going to look a little different just because everyone is a little different. Don't fight it just embrace it and try to keep it as consistent as possible. You also may need to gel your lights, to match the ambient interior, and if you want to keep the room all the same it might be a good idea to travel with light bulbs as some places have all different types of bulbs installed