Please Critique My Work!

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Once you start using softboxes you'll find you can't get that far away from the subject unless you have powerful lights. In most residential situations you just don't have the room to move back far. Everyone has their own preferences but most would agree the closer the better in terms of light quality.

Here you can see my setup for the previous stills that was filmed in my living room. (the light shade was obviously closed while filming). The d-fuse on the left and the Fovitec on the right.

[Josh Bass]

Closer the better for sure in terms of softness, but even with a softbox you start to get the obvious hot spots once too close (forehead noticeably brighter than the face right below it), with the typical overhead angle.

My lights aren't super powerful; they are 1x1 Dracast bicolor panels that were about $280 USD on sale, but even with those I can get decent exposure with them backed off a bit.

Don't shoot in homes too often so yes, cramped quarters are what they are. Mostly stuff I do is in a corporate/office setting.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

Closer the better for sure in terms of softness, but even with a softbox you start to get the obvious hot spots once too close (forehead noticeably brighter than the face right below it),

With a proper softbox you don't get those hot spots. Like I said those D-Fuse are too shallow. I get it for corporate jobs that required quick portable setup, you just do whatever is needed and no more. I've found even panel lights with the plastic diffuser is often good enough. Here's a shot with just the plastic panel diffuser not bad compared to a softbox.

[Steven Digges]

Sometimes its all a compromise. Yes the physics are the larger and closer the softer. But it all has to be reasonable. I cant even imagine a subject facing key 24 inches in front of a face.

Keep in mind light rays do not bend, period. So when we talk about soft boxes "wrapping around the face" that is a function of the size and diffusion. We can never bend a light ray, we can only reflect it.

PS I deleted a couple lines from my first post because they were misleading.

Kind Regards,

Steve

[Ed Roo]

Your comments are exactly what I want to hear.

I do have one Chimera soft box for the LitePanels 1x1. I also have the barndoor frames and diffusion panels. Should I acquire another Chimera softbox so that I have one for each 1x1? The Chimeras require some additional time to set up, so I will plan ahead. I do set up my lights ~ 4 to 6 feet from the subject.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...Lightbank.html

I also have a 4 ft diameter, collapsealbe diffuser and arm, but I haven't purchased a C-stand, yet. :-)

I was wondering how to eliminate the droopy eye/dropped head shadows. Thank you! I will adjust the height of my lights accordingly.

i will definitely shoot into a deeper room instead of across the width, as suggested.

I do have a Sennheiser MD46 dynamic mic. Is that comparable to the Shure SM58? Should I mount it overhead on the boom in place of the MKH416 or on a low stand below the bottom of the frame?

I am self taught, so these little technique suggestions are golden to me.

[Bryan Worsley]

Originally Posted by Ed Roo

This is as good as I can get it using the vectorscopes...

A Paul Story 24P CC on Vimeo

A teeny bit too cool for me, but like Josh said, at certain point it comes down to personal taste. I'd also be tempted to drop the black point (Lift) or shadows a bit; the CC made noise (pixelation) on the background more conspicuous and darkening it would help to mask that. Not too much though as it will accentuate the blemishes on his skin.

Had a crack at treating those shiny patches on his head in Resolve using a blurred HSL key, but it always left a hot spot at the core that looked like he had some rather nasty ulcers. That said, the highlights were clamped to 100 IRE in the Vimeo download (so presumably the FCP X export also), leaving no scope for pull-down of any usable data in the 'super-white' domain. Resolve preserves super-white and super-black data on import so it can be brought into range and manipulated on the timeline; and gives the option to retain the super-whites/blacks when exporting at 'video' ('broadcast safe') levels. Maybe I could get a better result with the original footage, but maybe not.

Best I could do in this case do was to apply a 'soft clip' to the highlights, but the improvement is barely noticeable.

Original:
http://i.imgur.com/ciOY1dg.png

Corrected:
http://i.imgur.com/NLrJ92s.png

Too dark ?

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Originally Posted by Ed Roo

Your comments are exactly what I want to hear.

I was wondering how to eliminate the droopy eye/dropped head shadows. Thank you! I will adjust the height of my lights accordingly.

This is a combination of an older subject, the height, size, distance and diffusion of your key. Each interview will have its own challenges, sometimes you have to accept there will be limitations.

[Greg Smith]

Originally Posted by Ed Roo

I do have a Sennheiser MD46 dynamic mic. Is that comparable to the Shure SM58? Should I mount it overhead on the boom in place of the MKH416 or on a low stand below the bottom of the frame?

The MD46 sounds a little different but, yes, is comparable to the SM58 for this purpose and would work fine. (I replaced all my old SM58s with Sennheiser E835s and an MD46, which have the same capsule and similar sound, a few years ago and have been very pleased.) I think the intent of the earlier suggestion was to use it as a second mic for the interviewer, not to use it on a boom for the main subject - cardioid dynamics are not sensitive or directional enough for that purpose. The best bet for the boom mic would be a condenser hypercardioid like the Audio-Technica AT4053b, Audix SCX1-HC or similar. Short shotguns aren't generally well liked for indoor booming because they can create weird comb filtering effects with reflected sound from the environment. The only one that's sometimes considered suitable for this is the Sanken CS-3E (which I also have - great mic), but it's very expensive relative to the rest of your setup.

And the MD46 can double as a great bludgeon if you have to travel through any rough neighborhoods on the way to or from the gig. :-)

- Greg

[Steven Digges]

YES! what Greg said above.

"And the MD46 can double as a great bludgeon if you have to travel through any rough neighborhoods on the way to or from the gig. :-)"

I would bet my money a SM58 might be more likely to still work after doing its job as a weapon. But who knows, it might all come down to proper proximity ;-)

Steve

[Ed Roo]

Received my DataColor Spyder X Pro today.

Calibrated my monitor... on the blue side.

Much better now!


Calibrated my laptop, also.

Interesting that it was set approximately the same.

[Paul Mailath]

since no one else seems to have mentioned it - I would have had the talent slightly off centre to give him more room where he's looking and perhaps throwing some pattern on the back wall with a cookie.

Also you don't need to hear your voice, just the answer & perhaps a lower 3rd explaining who is is & who he's talking about

apart from that - great!