Portrait Workshop Lighting

[barry]

With the different forms of lighting used which did everyone prefer.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early and did not get to use Leon's multiple SB800 setup or Lynne's main/slave setup. Any comments on these setups.

From my experience the soft box with the rear umbrella setup provided some nice lighting.

Barry

[Yi-P]

They were all great setups.

The SB800's provided (and proven) a best combination for portability. Extremely flexible, and fairly easy (if know-how) to setup. Downside is the cost of these 3 little beasts, even at bargain from Poon, and these use batteries so recycle time is slower than any other.


The softbox alone can do alot, with its power and soft lights. Adding another light with umbrella from the back and possibly a reflector to the other end can make magic. Downside is the bulky stands and long digit price tag for this.


With Lynn's setup, its sure very easy to carry around (sorta) and provides very good results out from it. Its possible to setup a softbox on those lights and further softening the light. Maybe downside on this is of heavyweight compared to SB800's and its still not really cheap ( I believe its about $700 for the two light setup+stand)


Matter of taste, I will go for the cheap setup. Stand, flash, umbrella for $150, buy 2 of these and still have some spare cash in pocket compared to buying just one SB800.
OR.... no flash at all, use available light, its limited time use, but sure its great result, and its free!

[gstark]

For the information of everybody - and especially those who were not present at the workshop - I will try to outline the different lighting setups that we had in place on the day.

The first setup was very simple: a single softbox - about a meter square - set up at about the same height as the model's face. Just a bit higher. It was located about 2 meters from the model, and slightly offset towards the photographer's right. The basic context of this was to try to emulate the diffused light that might come from a south facing window here in Oz - a southlight.


The second setup was the same, but to which we added Phillipb's slave setup, with a brolly attached, and we pointed this mainly towards the background, which at this time was still the pale blue wall of the room we were in.

By pointing this mainly towards the background, we introduced some separation between the subject and the background, and a bit of rim lighting on the subjects.



Setup three was similar, but I removed the brolly from Phillip's light, lowered it, and placed it directly behand, and pointing directly at the back of, the subject. This gave us some very dramatic hair lighting effects in some of the images, as well as a very bright rimlight.

This can be a great thing to do if your your subject has an afro hairstyle, but even so, it's a good effect. An unintended consequance that we observed was the highlighting of body hair on the shoulders of the model, but often this will not be an issue - it also depends upon the clothing that the models wear, and with bare shoulders, this is an expected outcome.



Four setup four we used Lynn's two light setup, with the master on the photographers right and elevated, reflecting off a gold brolly to impart a bit of warmth, and the second light a less powerful unit, set up in a similar manner to the photographer's left, reflecting off a silver brolly.


We did no real metering on the day, relying upon a visual assessment of the image being displayed in the cameras' LCDs as well as an assessment of the histogram, and adjusting lens apertures to suit.

Once a good setting was obtained for each of the lighting setups, no further exposure adjustments were needed, as the lighting conditions were, by and large, static.

This created an interesting diversion for many of the participants, in that Dee was wearing white, whereas Jacinta was wearing black. Were you to use in-camera metering, which would typically be performed on a shot by shot basis, the clothing worns would have an effect on the exposure settings that your camera would be returning to you.

In point of fact, this might not really be a desirable outcome, as the correct metering might be better determined by the light falling onto the subjects, rather than that which is being reflected from them, and the clothing that they're wearing.So, it was mainly manual metering, predetermined, and constant, for each of the given lighting setups.

Please feel free to pose any questions that you may have about the setups and exposures that we used.

[Oscar]

It was MHO that Lynn's set up looked quite professional (even though she was told by the salesman that it was not a real professional outfit) and worked a treat. Lynn's set up IMHO would be great for a small professional studio and would look the part quite well.

Phillip's set up gave great results and again one could consider this set up for the small studio. It was quite capable on its own and could easily be used to supplement other lighting sources - as we did on the day or with a few of these in various locations would give great results. I am considering this bargain priced set up for home portraits and parties.

Cheers, Mick

[Yi-P]

On my way back and for Sunday, I've been thinking and reflecting on these lighting setup and came across plenty of questions on myself.

# - I was just about to try using the SB800 to trigger off the flashes during the workshop, but I didnt find a suitable way to get across the 1/500 mark. Then just out of the workshop, I thought about using the 'cheat' of taping the 2 rear pins on the SB800 can go wild on the shutter up to 1/8000th in manual. Say I boost up to 1/2000 and fire off the SB800 at 1/128 power, I can then use the 85/1.4 at full open aperture without worrying about overexposed from the powerful flash. Or should I just use the f/1.4 with the natural lightings (in which turned out to be stunners from the images out of it).


# - I've searched around some other internet sources on how to use studio lights. I've seen one that uses a 'grid' sort of mesh in front of the softbox to 'direct' the light. I dont get this, how does the grid work without giving out shadows?


# - Some mentioned about "eye catchlight"... what exactly is this?


# - When choosing these flashes, they are rated as, 100W/sec, 300W/sec and up to 500 or 1000W/sec. What is the difference in practical results apart from being a more powerful flash on top of it? Say a 100W and 300W flashes? As the flash Gary brought in with the softbox, its set down to about 1/4 power and is able to get near perfect lights even with a softbox. So is there an actual importance to go high powered?