January 5, 2012 - Cynthia K.

January 5, 2012 - Cynthia K.. My very patient wife, partner, roommate, and part time photo model.

Canon 5dII + Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8. Exposure, 1/60th @ f2.8 ISO 100. Lit with a Canon 550EX speedlight gelled with 1/4 CTO (never heard that before) to the left and slightly behind the camera, triggered with the ST-E2. There was also a floor lamp with 2 halogens bulbs, out of the left side of the frame, aimed at the wall. Flash was set at -1ev and had the built in diffusion screen pulled over the front. Retouched in Lightroom - light balance adjusted, contrast and highlights increased, saturation dropped slightly. There's a gradient shadow across the bottom right corner, plus and a slight post-crop vignette added.

This was a quick portrait after we got home from dinner this evening. I was enjoying how she looked in the scarf.

What could I have done better? Lots. Lights could/should have been more diffuse - note the hard shadows. Needed a bit different place to take the picture - the couch isn't very conducive to a good seating position to pose for a photo. And, we have the odd corner of the window sill in the background. I had to do a bunch of cropping in Lightroom, which indicates to me that I needed to spend a bit more time setting up the picture and then composing in camera.