![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/melissa-dennis\/2016\/families-2016_0351_edit.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When I posted photos from this session<\/a> on FB, there were questions about the lighting (and whether I had used off-camera flash), as well as camera settings. There were also questions about which lens I had used for this sequence – whether it was perhaps an 85mm lens. The surprise perhaps might be that this isn’t out of the ordinary from how I usually approach a photo session –\u00a0Checklist for portrait photography on location<\/a>. A systematic way to make sure I get images that look really good.<\/p>\n With kids being their usual\u00a0rambunctious\u00a0selves, I need to be able to concentrate\u00a0on them, and their expressions … rather than be overly concerned with camera settings.<\/p>\n My camera settings were fairly conservative for this sequence: The f\/4.5 aperture was still shallow enough for the 135mm focal length to give me separation from the autumn\u00a0foliage in the background. The 135mm focal length (on my 70-200mm lens) was tight enough to fill the background with colors. Had the patch of color in the background been smaller, I would’ve zoomed to a longer focal length – that would have “enlarged” the background because of the perspective compression with me moving even further back. This is a topic touched on in a related article –\u00a0Using tele-converters: Extra lens compression for tighter portraits<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lighting was done with my workhorse\u00a0Profoto B1 battery powered flash<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(B&H<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/em><\/a>). The softbox was the Westcott Rapid Box 36″ Octabox<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(B&H<\/a> \/ Amazon<\/a><\/em>), because it is so easy to set up and collapse. I used TTL mode here (with negative FEC) to get to the initial exposure, and then locked it in manual flash mode via the Profoto controller on my camera. Elegance … while laying flat on my stomach on the ground. The reason for shooting from so low down\u00a0…\u00a0a better perspective<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a sense then, there is nothing new here about shooting like this. It’s an accumulation of a few essential techniques, applied again. It works every time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This pull-back shot will place everything into context and give you a better sense of where we were shooting.<\/p>\n And two more photos from this sequence:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I used a powerful flash here. Would these results shown here be possible with a single speedlight and a softbox?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Outdoor photo session with kids, using off-camera flash When I posted photos from this session on FB, there were questions about the lighting (and whether I had used off-camera flash), as well as camera settings. There were also questions about which lens I had used for this sequence – whether it was perhaps an 85mm Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,110,31,33],"tags":[188,880,501,303],"yst_prominent_words":[9966,9960,9967,9961,9971,5863,9974,9964,9968,9973,9965,5864,9970,9962,3509,9969,9972,9963,3504,3499],"class_list":{"0":"post-36700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-photography","8":"category-off-camera-flash","9":"category-photo-shoot","10":"category-portraits","11":"tag-off-camera-lighting","12":"tag-off-camera-flash","13":"tag-photo-session-with-off-camera-flash","14":"tag-photographing-kids","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36700"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49248,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36700\/revisions\/49248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36700"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=36700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1\/250 \u00a0@ \u00a0f\/4.5 \u00a0@ \u00a0125 ISO<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/melissa-dennis\/2016\/NVN_8236.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCamera settings, and photo gear (or equivalents) used\u00a0for these photos<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/melissa-dennis\/2016\/families-2016_0357_edit.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/melissa-dennis\/2016\/families-2016_0395.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA little bit of homework<\/h2>\n
Related links<\/h2>\n
\n