Overview

Patty recently became a Creative Memories consultant, and so she needed a headshot to post on their website.  So on December 24, 2017, I set up the camera, lights, reflectors and backdrop to capture her in flattering portraiture.

Equipment Setup

My setup was similar to the one I used back in November.  It is shown in the photo below.

The components in each assembly of this setup were as listed below:

Main Light Stand

1. (1) Avenger C-Stand 33
2. (1) Nikon SB-5000 AF Speedlight
3. (1) Westcott Rapid Box Octa 26″ Softbox

Reflector Stand

1. (1) Avenger C-Stand 33
2. (1) Patuo Camera Clip Clamp with Ball Head
3. (1) SmallRig Clamp Mount
4. (1) 40″ x 60″ x 3/16″ White Foam Core

Background Rack

1. (2) Avenger C1575B Super Clamps
2. (2) Manfrotto 039 U-Hook Crossbar Holders
3. (2) Manfrotto AutoPoles (82.7″ – 145.7″)
4. (1) Savage Universal 53″ Roll of Thunder Grey Backdrop Paper
5. (1) Custom Pipe

Background Light Stand

1. (1) Fotodiox 20″ Quick-Collapse Flash Softbox
2. (1) LumoPro LP605s 7.5′ Compact Lightstand
3. (1) Manfrotto 119 Short (16mm) Adapter Spigot with 1/4″-20 & 3/8″ Female Threads
4. (1) Nikon SB-5000 AF Speedlight

Ring Light / Reflector Stand

1. (1) Avenger D230 Super Clamp Grip Head
2. (1) Avenger F1504 Foam Core Fork with 5/8″ Pin
3. (1) LumoPro LP605s 7.5′ Compact Lightstand
4. (1) Manfrotto 119 Short (16mm) Adapter Spigot with 1/4″-20 & 3/8″ Female Threads
5. (1) Savage Universal Luminous Pro LED Ringlight Plus
6. (1) 20″ x 30″ x 1/2″ White Foam Core

Camera Tripod

1. (1) LimoStudio AGG1983 Dual L Shape Camera Flash Bracket
2. (1) Manfrotto Compact Advanced Aluminum Tripod with 3-Way Head
3. (1) NIKKOR AF-S 85 mm f/1.4G Prime Lens
4. (1) Nikon D850 Full Frame Digital SLR Camera
5. (1) Nikon WR-R10/WR-T10/WR-A10 Wireless Remote Adapter Set
6. (1) Sony 128 GB XQD G Series Memory Card
7. (1) Sony 128 GB SD UHS-II SF-M Series Memory Card

Posing & Shooting

The headshot that Creative Memories was looking for was very specific (shoulders and up, and square aspect ratio), so posing wasn’t very difficult.  I did give Patty the standard instruction for portraits, to press her head toward the camera to make sure that her jaw line was distinct.  The biggest challenge was in getting highlights in her eyes, but avoiding the reflections from her glasses.

In shooting, I used the same technique I used in my recent outdoor family photos – manual settings for flash power, shutter speed, lens aperture, and ISO; and manual focusing using a zoomed-in portion of the D850 Live View video feedback to the camera’s rear LED display.  I used ISO 64, the lowest setting available on the D850, to get the maximum dynamic range.  I used the Ring Light to constrict her pupils, but I turned it off before shooting to avoid unwanted reflections from her glasses.

Post Processing

I had already setup Adobe Lightroom Classic CC to use Anthropics Technology PortraitPro 17 as a photo editing plugin.  Now, because Lightroom is pretty slow in importing photos, I wanted to configure Camerabits Photo Mechanic 5 to act as a front-end, to allow me to delete and rank photos as they are read off the memory card.

To do this, first you configure Photo Mechanic to launch when a camera disk is inserted in your computer (Edit / Preferences / General / On mount of Camera Disk:  “Show Ingest dialog”).  Then you set up Lightroom as Photo Mechanic’s default application for editing photos (Edit / Preferences / Launching / Default application to edit photos / Assign default application: lightroom.exe).

Then, it makes sense to change the default color labels that Photo Mechanic uses to match those used by Lightroom (Edit / Preferences / General / lightning bolt / [Adobe Lightroom]), and change the default keyboard shortcuts for rating photos to Lightroom’s standard of 0-5 stars (Edit / Preferences / Accessibility / Single key shortcuts:  “0-5 sets Rating”).  With these adjustments, if you apply color labels and star ratings in Photo Mechanic, those selections will be passed seamlessly to Lightroom through the photo’s metadata (Note that Accept/Reject flags that are set in Photo Mechanic are not read by Lightroom.).

The Photo Mechanic keyboard shortcuts for color labels are “Cmd-1” through “Cmd-5”, and the keyboard shortcuts for star ratings are just “1” through “5”.  To filter for these criteria, just hold “Alt” while clicking on the criteria shown at the bottom of the Contact Sheet view.  Additional criteria can be added to the filter by just clicking on the criteria (without holding “Alt”).  At that point, you just need to press “Ctrl-A”, to select all of the images that are shown, then go to the Image menu and select Edit Photos.  After pressing Ok in the resulting dialog box, Lightroom will open in its Library view, and the entire set of photos from Photo Mechanic will be displayed, but only the ones that were selected for editing will be checked.  Then simply press Import, and only the selected photos will be imported into Lightroom.  There is a pretty good article on how to do all this here.

The adjustments I did in Lightroom Classic CC were just exposure related.  In PortraitPro, I did some skin smoothing and I gave her a little lipstick.  When the TIFF file came back into Lightroom from PortraitPro, it seemed to be a little over-exposed, so I reduced the exposure before saving.

Result

Here is the resulting photo. ‘Obviously my better half. 🙂

Lessons Learned

1.  The 50 mm would have worked a little better in that space.

The 85 mm f/1.4 prime worked out in this space, but it was pretty tight.  Next time I’ll try the 50 mm f/1.4 instead.

2.  The background light works better than the accent light for business headshots

Especially for women, I think the the glow from the background light was a more subtle way to separate the subject from the background than using a harsh accent light directly on her.

3.  PortraitPro can over-do it

As I get more comfortable in using PortraitPro, I’m learning to turn off its default settings, because they are a little extreme.  In particular, the facial structure settings should only be used for images that are idealized, not for real people.  The skin smoothing settings also need to be dialed down.  I also have a lot more to learn about what I can do in Lightroom.

4.  I still need to get SnapBridge working so I don’t have to review photos on the camera screen

Yep.  That’s what I need to do.