[JMitchell]

Right. I had an idea! With Dave buying his lights, providing shots, and a link to a model program just to rub it in on all our lovely lightless members, I thought I'd try and 'make' a softbox and light setup with what equipment I already had.
I used my 50cm (I think) lightbox (the thing you do product shots / studio macros in), and put the SB-800 inside it with the IR trigger on. I set the exposure manually, and got me dad to come and sit for me I also used a table lamp on the other side to provide fill in.
Here is my offering for now, I wondered what you thought of this. Bear in mind that the D300's results at low ISO are stunning, and produce brilliant images almost straight from RAW from camera, so that's part of the goodness, not all down to the user





TFL

Jack

[JMitchell]

Update: Have done the new shots with fill on other side and flat bg, will process and post later tonight, for you all to comment on tomorrow! Sorry about that

UPDATE 2: Have now done the shot, and changed it accordingly, so the one you see above is the right one!

[Angela]

I thiink that works really well Jack. A little bright on the RHS but nothing that drags you're attention away.

Good old Dad eh!?

[JMitchell]

New shot up as above

[Steve]

Being very critical here (as its a good shot but you want feedback anyway) the lighting is good to show and bring out the face texture and show how rugged your dad is but its also not quite correctly balanced as its still just a little to dark on the left hand side. Also the dof is very slightly out, you have the nose, chin, lips and right eye (as we look at the shot) in focus and then it all blurs out nicely, however he has his head very slightly turned and because the dof is shallow and the focus slightly forward, the left eyebrow is not as sharp. The remedy is to have him straight on or use a dof that is a tiny bit larger and make sure it covers the important parts perfectly.

As I said its a great shot, especially with the lighting equipment setup you are using, but I still think there is a small amount of technical improvement to be found

Hope that helps

[Steve]

Sorry Jack, I just realised after I had written out the above that you put this shot in Photo sharing, I thought that I was in critique.

I'll leave the post there for now and if you want it removing just shout.

[JMitchell]

Not at all Steve, I appreciate your comments, and agree with them. I always like to have detailed crit wherever the post
will try out the tips you gave me as I think you're right. Not sure my dad'd me too pleased about his being called rugged.

[Dave]

Good shot Jack. I did look in to Nikon CLS system , but to be honest by the time you bought all the flashes, softboxes , stands etc it cost way more than the kit I ended up buying

[JMitchell]

Thanks Dave, although I wouldn't put this down to the CLS. The flash exp was set manually, with the IR trigger, so nothing really to do with CLS. I think more or less you either need the Nikon trigger or another speedlight to exploit the Nikon system.

[Dave]

Try this out Jack :- What does the Nikon SU-800 give over Commander mode on D200 ? . I'm assuming D300 will work in similar fashion. I had TTL working a treat remotely on my SB800, using the commander mode

[JMitchell]

Thanks Dave, I found commander mode on the D300 before, but didn't know how you could get it to operate without the flash on the camera contributing to the exposure, now I've worked it out. That would have saved time Good thread btw