test photo shoot - my cats

I did a photoshoot of my cats this weekend testing some jerry-rigged ND filters on a small background flash and a couple new backgrounds and thought I'd send a few pics I liked. The white is paper, the brown is a microsuede material.

The last photo, of the somali, there is obvious blue and magenta tones to the white paper (I did no editing of the background color). Does this look like its from the ambient light or from the strobes? (Alien Bees) I didn't think to turn off the overhead (incandescent) light for a test.

Rania - female Bengal (looking for a new home with someone in Southern CA)



Ravi - male Bengal



Luna - female Bengal




Bijou - cinnamon Somali


thanks, Diana

Very nice shots!

Regarding the pink...it looks like the white balance is off. So, what setting for white balance did you shoot with?

After setting up, I always take one shot without the flashes to be sure that no ambient light is visible with my chosen exposure.

Thanks Marie!

Thanks Preston, I have the WB set in the camera for "flash". Should I be using something else? Do you do custom WB? I do have the grey cards but have not tried that yet. The brown material is kind of a chocolate brown that probably has a very slight red tone to it but I'm thinking it is looking more magenta that it should too. Maybe I'll try playing with this some more this weekend, the white paper is a good test to really see what the lighting is doing.

Diana

Another reason to shoot RAW: when you open the shot on a white background, you just slide the color temp slider until the white is really white and that should work for all the images taken under those same lighting conditions.

I use Auto White Balance even when shooting with my Bees and seldom have to make any adjustments.

Jim

I set my White Balance to a certain degree Kelvin (white balance = K)based on the modifiers I'm using. My main softboxes are a little warmer than my octobox. And my older Bees are different than my newer Bees.

I'm a bit obsessive about it, I also shoot a GreytagMacbeth Color Checker with every sitting...just to be darn sure I have a reference.

Diana, great shots! I especially like #1 and #2, I love the eyes!

When I do stuff like this, I always take a white balance shot of my WhiBal card. Then in the raw workflow, I correct my white balance to the card. The corrections are as easy as cut and paste, and I rarely have a problem. However you have to be able to put the card into your scene which is difficult in landscapes, but not here.

Another issue you may have in that shot is a varying color temp across the photo. For example, if there was something red that reflected some of the flash into only the lower portion of the frame, it can be difficult to remove. In that case, you may want to selectively desaturate that portion of the “white” background.

Thanks Jeff. I was using a background flash with that white paper background and thinking I won't use it with the white paper. On the first image there was obviously a lot more light than in the last one. I had to clean out a very very slight bit of pink tones around the bottom but it very nearly was all white to begin with. Which in a way looks a little strange to me, cause you can't even see any difference between the platform and the background. Looks like the cat is floating. Guess I need to read up some more on high key techniques...
Diana