A photo session using my reflector

Last night I had my first frustrating session of the year so far. I was trying to duplicate a photo shoot that I had read in this months Practical Photography about setting up a small studio in your home.

I used my friends conservatory as it is a nice space to set up a shoot and has enough room for my equipment. The set up went well. I hung my cream background on the french doors for my model to stand in front of, had my flashgun behind me and to the left of me to help play with shadows and my camera with my new portrait lens, Sony 50mm f/1.8 SAM, to try and get used to using it. As I was following an article out of my monthly magazine I had to choose the most relevant equipment from what I own to match as closely as possible that of the kit used in the article.  I do not possess a soft box or a flash light powered by electricity so I had to use my flashgun with a diffuser.  I only have one reflector so tried to use that in the most beneficial way to try and duplicate what I had read in the article. 

The set up turned to be the only part that went well. I set my aperture to f/2 to get lovely clear shots of my models face, shutter speed to 1/160sec which is my camera shutter sync speed and my ISO to 100. I used my flash on manual set to 50mm zoom, ISO 100, aperture to f/2 and on full power to start with. I positioned my model in front of my background and took a test shot. The result was completely dark, I could not see any of my model in the review. I tried a few more times and only had the same disappointing results. I decided to add my second flash attached to the cameras hot shoe and although it was a little brighter it was still a very poor shot. I experimented with different flash power but with a very frustrated head I gave up as I was unable to understand why it wasn't coming out with 2 flashguns.

I took a test shot with the built in flash and it was crystal clear - I had done nothing different with the camera setting so was at a complete loss as to what had gone wrong with using the better flashguns. I set up the 2 guns again but the results were the same. I will be asking Steve on Thursday for some ideas as to what I was doing wrong.

To rescue the session so that I had some shots showing the effect the different surfaces of my reflectors I positioned my model in front of the background and took a test shot using the ceiling light to light the scene and no flash. I then took a series of pictures using the silver, black, gold and white sides of the reflector.

To see the photos showing the effects reflectors have on shots please click HERE

Looking at the photos I feel you definitely see the effect the different reflectors have at either lifting or increasing the shadows. I cannot see a lot of difference between the silver and the white reflector other than the fact the silver has a slightly shinier look. The black one seems to increase the shadow of the left side of the model whilst the gold reflector gives the models skin a much warmer feel.

I am looking forward to experimenting with the reflectors and will try and do an outside shoot using the different reflectors to see if using natural light has a similar effect than that of ceiling lights.