Kid Bedroom Environmental OCF
I did some practice in both of my kids' rooms today to show some of the ways we can approach and troubleshoot these setups while trying to maintain some special ambient light (in her case it was a fish-tank. We don't have one but my kids both have some LED lights around their windows so I used that to gauge if I was washing out the lights).
Room #1: Here is Riley's room. I absolutely hate her room and can't wait to paint it. It's on the darkest side of the house and the the pink walls cast an awful color every time I use flash in there so it's the most challenging room I have. I tried 3 setups in here. This one was probably my favorite which was the last attempt, where I shot the flash through the window to simulate sunlight with a CTO (color temperature orange) gel. I'll go through each setup one by one.
Setup 1:
Bouncing to the corner/ceiling to try to avoid the pink walls. First I set an ambient exposure without flash to preserve the colored lights. No flash. ISO 200, F4, 1/160 to let in some ambient. I could have pumped this up a bit more with ISO:
Then I used bare flash bounced up towards the right corner where the ceiling meets the top of the wall. This is usually my go-to in the bedroom but it still cast a lot of pink. I liked the direction of light on her, but the colored lights were getting a bit washed out though so I kept going.
I forgot to take a pullback so here's one from later on iphone where the pink looks even more crazy!
Setup #2: umbrella
To try to get less pink cast I switched to my umbrella on camera right. My first few angles really washed out the colored lights though and I had some specular highlights in the window to deal with so I had to feather my umbrella away from the window a bit but then I was losing the best light on her. Umbrella works well in a lot of situations if you're not directly facing the windows but I didn't have a lot of options in this setup.
In the closeup so you can see the umbrella reflection but better light on her hair.
Setup #3: Outside the window with CTO gel
finally, I took the flash outside with CTO gel. I had the light stand very extended and aiming down like late afternoon sun, and I kept it out of the picture. At first I was too close to the window and got too much flare, but then I moved it farther away and was happiest with the final shot.
Too much flare in this one.
Here is a pullback so you can see the flash position - its the bright white spot (before I added the gel).
Gel added and you can see nice light in her hair
My final image in this room, maintaining the colored lights.
Bedroom #2
I didn't have as much time to play around in Natalie's room but she has more ambient light on her side. I kept the side windows closed to try to be closer to Dakota's bedroom setup so the ambient was only from one direction.
ISO 200, f3.2 1/160 - no flash so I could see the colored lights and you can see where my flash was positioned. I tried a few different angles of pointing it to the upper right corner and and then more to camera right.
Flash power too high but you can see how illuminated the bedroom is. the angle was too close to the windows so it washed out the colored lights.
I didn't get a shot I was totally happy with but this setup was probably my closest one.
I also tried bouncing off the wall behind me because there's a white closet door, which looked pretty good on her but I had the reflection right in the middle of the window.
That light setup might work fine depending on the angle you're shooting. Here' I was closer to her so the window reflection didn't matter. She has fill light from the flash but the main source is still the ambient.
Pullback - I tried bouncing off the ceiling which can work to flood the room with light as well.
I hope this helps you as you're trying different ways to shoot in bedrooms, especially dark or colored wall ones! It's a lot of trial and error but once you figure out that room setup you can usually just use it over and over. Happy to answer any questions!
