Night Portraits with Emily and Jason.

Thank you Emily and Jason for being my test subjects for this project.  Shooting in low light(or next to no light in the case) is very difficult and I thought it would be a great learning experience to try it out and share with all of you.  Bellow is a pic showing just using the ambient lights.
More after the jump:


Bellow is a pic showing just using the ambient lights. As you can see there wasn't much light to work with at this location.

This took place at a city park just after midnight.  I decided to switch to black an white since the ambient light and flash were clashing pretty bad.  For the the picture bellow I used the street lights as a hair/rim light and a Canon 430 ex II sporting a 28" Westcott Apollo soft box as the main light.

To be completely honest about 80% of the pictures came out blurry.  Nailing focus under very low light is fairly difficult.  The camera's autofocus needs some contrast to work.  There's a few things you can do to make things easier.
1.  Stick the camera on a tripod.
2.  Bring a flashlight!  I had Emily shine the flashlight on her face so I could get good focus. She hid the light in  her pocket and I took the picture. 

The next night time photo-shoot is going to be in the city. If you live near Puyallup or Downtown Tacoma and want some nice night time city shots let me know!