fashion shoot lighting tips

[Oz_Beachside]

wondering if anyone has some suggestions for lighting for a fashion studio shoot I have next week. its all about the garments! mainly female clothing, target market 18-25 age braket, white to grey seamless background. garments all expected to be winter collection, natural tones.

the images will be model standing, no props, faily clean image for garment swing tag and display posters. also will be used for online store.

my thoughts are to fill with the largest light source square on for a full lighting (two 150x50 cm softboxes side by side), perhaps with a round beauty dish shape above camera as the main light. with enough distance to the background to get nice graduated greys, I'll trial this over the weekend. the lighting will need to be a little production line style, so as to minimise changes during shoot, shooting 15 garments in limited time, and a re-shoot is out of the question in terms of timeframe.

[jdear]

not so much lighting but I would stick a colourchecker chart in there and a whitebalance aid to make sure garment colours and correct if they are going to print / publishing.

[Oz_Beachside]

not so much lighting but I would stick a colourchecker chart in there and a whitebalance aid to make sure garment colours and correct if they are going to print / publishing.

thanks, good idea. i use an expo disc for whitebalance, but I should add a color checker/

[jdear]

Ive got a colourchecker you can borrow if you need one.

[jdear]

oops i think your in another state

[Oz_Beachside]

oops i think your in another state

thanks for the offer.

I live down south where its colder

[Oz_Beachside]

any other tips on lighting styles? will need to be even, and fairly symetrical. does softstrips each side of camera, about 1/2 stop difference sound like a good starting point? i'll do some tests today, but interested to hear from anyone who has shot fashion/clothing for catalog styles????

[wendellt]

for catalogue lookbook style the light setup is usually flat and bright so it shows detail in the garment

in that case background optimally white minimised shadows from single light source and flat light

you can do this by just 2 softboxes placed on each side facing 45 degrees towards model
1/4 power 600 watt strobe assuming these camera settings 1/250 f8 -10 this is relative to distance of lights to subject(light falloff)
so dont quote me on these settings its just a starting point


the added beauty dish your thinking of using wont add much to the existing setup unless its power is much more than the other two lights
but if positioned kind of just above you it could add a round catch light to the eyes if the model is looking right at you
and further cut shadow tones on the face, with this setup you will get a very flat evenly lit image


for next time a simpler setup with 1 light a profoto 8foot reflector will give you exactly what you need
minimised shadows, soft even light with added brilliant highlights
place it where your standing and shoot from in front of it
http://www.profoto.com/en/products/ligh ... eflectors/


if you want something slightly edgier
use 2 lights

1 main and the other a secoondary light. I use the beauty dish as my main light, it's placed on the side, closer to the front 45 degrees facing model
and positioned higher than the model, it's tilted down to face model 1/4 power 600 watt output
this will give you sculpted look sharp highlights dark shadows
then on the right side place 2nd light directly facing the side of the model you may have to use barn doors to thin the light otherwise youll just get light spill all over which is good in sometimes in this case not good, this light will give you a defined rim light on the right and it also fills right side of the model
i usually have this one at a lower intensity so the light doesnt cut out the effect of the the dish on the left

then i have a 3rd light behind the model at the side facing the wall, the light spill hits the background and parts of the floor to cut out some of the shadows

this takes a lot of playing around but the point of it is to light from the side more with variable light intensity to get more contrast
lighting from the side also brings out the drape on the garments more theres more defined highlight and shadow(not flat)

example

only dif in this image is the background light number 3 has alight blue gel on it
and theres a 4th light as a hair light but it's not really showing up in these examples

[Oz_Beachside]

thanks Master, much appreciated, the detailed explaination is very useful!
thank you

[Grev]

I was going to put it into a short answer and say 2 softboxes as wendellt said but he took out the trash already.

[Oz_Beachside]

thanks for the tips, the shoot went well. we had limited shooting time (approx 90 minutes), to get through about 15 outfits with a new team with varying levels of experience, to lots of steep learning curves for all involved. think thats 6 minutes per outfit, so no time for modifying lights once we started.

I went with two large softboxes, one each side, and one to rear left side for some variation over the white backdrop (would love to use a grey seamless next time). very even light, but it was about lighting the garments rather than portraiture, and client wanted a consistent look through the range.

here is a link to the designers site so you can see my shots (mine are the winter 08 shots on white background).

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=209536159