Help! portrait by candle ?

[djon]

A little family (young mom, old dad, baby) wants a boring Christmas portrait...

I like them, I'll do it, but for myself I also want to shoot very tight, lit by candle (or simulation). No background details, just faces/heads.

How would you make this work best ?

Suggestions for increasing the candle light?

FILM...I'll scan and print... grain's no problem....for context, my normal B&W is Neopan 400 @1000 and I shoot NPZ 800 @ 800...

But, what film/process would you use?

Got examples, links?

HELP...needs to be done in the next couple of weeks for some reason 😉

 

[FrankS]

I'd place a candle in the frame with the family, but light the image with a stronger source just outside the frame. Lighting a single subject with a candle is not a problem, but 3 would be. Giving each their own candle loses that unifying feeling of a single candle - symbolic of family unity.

 

[djon]

Giving each their own candle loses that unifying feeling of a single candle - symbolic of family unity.

Plus, the 1-yr-old might not be reliable.

I like your observations.

But I do want a vignetted light that fills the faces from below...if I can get it...that's asking a lot from my Photoshop skills and I'd rather do most of it in camera...

 

[wlewisiii]

Consider a small candellabra - say three candles for symbolism, longest in the center - to provide a bit more light? Have it on a small table so that the family can stand behind it with the flames near chin level. Mom and Dad on each side baby held between.

Myself, I'd do it on Tri-X @ 1600 for souping in Diafine. I'd also try it with two different lenses; in my case the Canon 50/1.8 and the Jupiter 8, both wide open, shutterspeed as appropriate. Definately tripod time & cable relase though 🙂 Then scan or print as desired.

Mind I'm hardly a pro and have little experiance with this, but if I were to give it a shot (er, sorry) that's what I'd try.

William

 

[RayPA]

Are you planning on having the candles in the shot? Are you trying to simulate a soft candle light?

I'm by no means a portrait photographer, but it seems that for any staged-type portrait, you'd want to stick with 3-point lighting. Of course you don't have to, but I'd imagine that controlling shadows on the faces of three people with one light source, you could get some unflattering shdows.

Looking forward to the pro's replies.

 

[jlw]

-- Get them close and equal distances from the candle -- maybe put the candle in the foreground and group them around it on three sides, shooting from the fourth side.

-- Audition some candles to pick the brightest one. Some candles are designed to burn a long time, others to put out a lot of light. In my experience, the tall, thin candles -- like you'd use for a candlelight dinner -- are brighter than wide, flat ones -- such as votive or scented candles, which are designed to burn for a long time.

-- Assuming you can find a fairly bright candle and position your subject's faces about 12 inches away from it, each face will receive an illumination of very approximately one footcandle (an old measurement unit based on a "standard" candle at a distance of one foot away.)

According to this chart , an illumination of about one footcandle will require an exposure of EV 2 at ISO 100. EV2 corresponds to an exposure of 1/2 second at f/1.4. Of course, you're not gonna use ISO 100 film for this picture!... so for ISO 800, you could shoot at 1/15 @ f/1.4, or with ISO 1600 film you could get up to 1/30 @ f/1.4.

Of course, it's a lot safer to take an incident reading off the subjects' faces, but at least this rough calculation will give you some idea of what kind of territory you'll be facing. Maybe this is a good time to convince yourself you really need that Noctilux or Canon 0.95!

-- Suggestion, if you don't mind doing some image editing on the final result: An exposure that will make the faces look good will overexpose the candle itself. So (since your camera is mounted on a tripod) shoot your people pic, then clear them out and shoot a couple more shots at lesser exposures (I'd try 2 and 3 stops less) to get good detail in the candle flame. Then strip the two images together.


Good luck and have fun!

 

[djon]

Yep, I want the flames in the image..might imply a longish lens, so as to get them closer to faces without burning...

I like the candelabra idea...I can probably find something that looks like Old New Mexico...

btw, how do I re-link my Gallery ? I somehow vanished the link...

 

[RayPA]

I think having the candle(s) in the shot, simulating it as the primary light source, and bringing in some other lights is the way I would do it.

🙂

 

[djon]

-- Audition some candles to pick the brightest one.

And some other great ideas/information.. WOW! Thanks! 😀

I'm thinking in terms of (sorry, but at least it's Canon F1) SLR with 100 2.8 stopped to f5,6 for just a little DOF...don't want baby in focus and mom/pop out of focus...wait a minute,maybe I do...pop's a bit gnarly looking, mom's a runner so is probably scrawney (I've not met her) so maybe it'd be good to have baby sharp and parents soft, allowing me a big aperture... 😉

I should practice for this with my Nokton 1.5...I've actually not made much use of it. With anything shorter than 100mm I'd definitely prefer RFDR in low light.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

A single candle, or closely-grouped set of candles, is going to give a very strange light. Just the family members lit from the front.

Think about a fairly conventional shot which just happens to have a candle in the frame.

 

[kmack]

Mirrors are your friend. If you insist on only candle light, place a few large mirrors behind you and to the sides, reflect some of that light back.

 

[djon]

Jon.. that's the easy answer. But I want/need to do something interesting...otherwise why bother?

... faces warmly lit from below, candles, hands... the background is dark... an emotional image...bees invented candles for light like this, centuries ago. Easy enough to "do," harder to do well.

I'll test a pair of New Mexican tin holders with beeswax candles.. maybe they can can light the three faces at 1600ei, easy push of Neopan 400 with Emofin, easy one-stop push with NPZ 800 color neg. I'll play with this over the weekend.

The baby was fat and slow the last time I saw her, maybe I really can use a slow shutter and tripod...

 

[ywenz]

If you're unsure of the lighting, then this is a good project to do with a digital camera. That way, you can shot and review, until you have find the ideal setup.

 

[Stu W]

Djon, Start at 1/15 @ f2 for asa 400. I would bracket. Stu

 

[Hektor]

I'd use a big fat candle hiding a small flash unit with a yellow handkerchief/diffuser on it.

 

[djon]

Thanks for all your ideas...here's a related P.N link mixing flash and candle (thanks to Joseph Moniz): http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009bC3

Two camera distances will be known in advance because there are two ways I want to frame the shot and I know the lenses at each distance: Canon FD SSC 100 2.8 or SSC 50 1.4...I'd use Canon P rangefinder instead except I don't have a short tele for it.

I'll know two camera distances and I'll be working indoors at night, with no uncontrolled ambient light, so I'll be able to use exposures figured in advance by bracketing/experimenting. Supposedly, anyway.

I'm thinking tungsten light fill, not flash, making no correction for the warm results. Exposures 1/4 th or less will be possible... just crudely checked: 1/4, 5.6 with 1600ei with mere 100watt household lamp in shade... maybe in tests this low level lighting will allow defined candle flames and nicely lit faces in one simple shot...I can lower tungsten lighting by distancing the lamp, using slower exposure to emphasize the candle light...lamp distance will be important.

I'd rather use a slow shutter and tripod, shooting many frames with the same exposure in order to get good expressions and stopped movement, rather than confusing the whole thing with bracketing. Color neg has lots of latitude, even pushed a stop, but I need to confirm that idea too...

 

[FrankS]

Make sure the tungsten light source does not cause the shadow of the candle to fall on any of the subjects' faces.

 

[djon]

Right about that shadow... Maybe the fill can be high, candles can add light from below to make the facial effect I'm after, if I can get my lighting properly balanced.

I could use a plain old household lamp with shade for diffuser if I had to, but I don't really want to bring a household lamp to location...hmmm..could use a recently auction-scored Larson umbrella & stand and a small 250w tungsten reflector flood lamp (the Larson's translucent and passes as much as it reflects). Might look more "professional." so more worth hauling to location 😉

 

[FrankS]

John, I think you'd want the tungsten light source to look like it was coming from the candle, so I wouldn't use an umbrella (light source too large) and I wouldn't place the tungsten light source too far away (side to side, up or down) from the candle. I also wouldn't use a white candlestick, because the tungsten source will over-illuminate it compared to the faces, but that is something you may be able to fix in photoshop after.

 

[djon]

Frank, dang, you are a font of wisdom. No umbrella...so how will I get soft illuminated faces f out of the adults? Sounds like I need some kind of very soft spot, from somewhere above the camera but not too high... How about an umbrella with a circular mask? Maybe a gold metalic umbrella with a circular mask?