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Author Topic: Lighting advice needed  (Read 4634 times)

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Ron

« on: October 13, 2013, 13:21 »
0
Ok guys, here it goes, my first studio type gig. I have been asked to shoot photos for Ireland Burning Man Decompression.

The organisation is going to create a set in a castle where people will come and get their photos taken.

The set is a big painting frame with clocks coming in and out from the side and hanging from the top bar. Concept: time is important.

They background will most likely be black.

They have asked me to advice on the lighting I would need and power. They will rent equipment for me.

So, I am nervous, but it has to happen at some point. Big learning curve.

I am guessing I would need two softboxes with a bit of power to light the scene from two sides. And I can use fill flash from my Speedlite 430EX II. I dont need to blow out the background.

I think it needs to be continues lighting, I have never hooked up studio lighting to my camera to sync up.

Typing this, I realise I might be in over my head. LOL

Thanks.


« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2013, 13:41 »
+3
I would agree with you: you are in over your head.

Personally, I wouldn't use continuous lighting.  It needs a lot more power than strobes, produces a lot more heat, and will still require a long exposure, a large aperture and the associated shallow DOF, a very high ISO or likely all three.  Strobes produce a lot more light for a very shot time, so they give you a lot more options for exposure.  Small apertures make it easy to have a lot in focus, and to make focus less critical to begin with.

I typically use two strobes with bounce umbrellas, the key light to my right and the fill (one stop lower) to my left.  How much power I need depends on distance to my subject, but most any studio strobe (an Alien Bees B400, their lowest end light) will let me do a 3/4 or full length shot of a person.  Speedlights are much more limited, both on light output and overheating if used for rapid fire shooting.

Triggering the strobes is pretty simple.  Either use a cable between your camera and the first light or a radio trigger; let a slave sync on the second light see the flash from the first light and trigger it that way.  Radio triggers are a lot easier; there's a rumor that the PC jack on camera and strobe stands for Poor Connection.  And the whole setup is based on setting the power manually on each strobe with a light meter (I set my key light to F/11 at ISO 200 and my fill at F/8) and then putting the camera on manual.  Oh, and a custom white balance is a good idea.  Get a gray card and use it to capture the color of your strobes.  Different lights (and different ages of flashcubes) will produce different colors.

Good luck.

« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2013, 14:04 »
+10
Ron - maybe you can find a way to pass the gig to someone with more experience in exchange for having them use you as their assistant - carrying the kit, metering the lights, setting up the softboxes, feeding the parking meter (!) etc. That would be a great way of benefiting from this opportunity.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2013, 15:08 »
0
^^ Brilliant idea/advice, bhr.

« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2013, 15:17 »
+1
^^ Brilliant idea/advice, bhr.

sure but in fact if you have a good setup you don't need any "professional" to show/help you doing the job, its not that hard to try a few lights and test it yourself

Beppe Grillo

« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2013, 15:30 »
0
Well, I agree with disorderly about the use of strobes.

I will consider to use very powerful strobe, so better generators (Broncolor, Profoto or Elinchrome) than mono torch.
The power is not because you will need power of light but because if you use you 2400 J strobes half power (1200 J) they will recharge very faster than 1200 J strobes used at full power, and it is a big advantage for action photos.

I don't know how much surface you will have to illuminate, and how much depth too (consider to place your lamps where the subjects could be in space/depth). I think that 4 lamps is a good solution.
I would avoid the use of softboxes.
But I think that the use of softboxes like octagon (1,50m) can be good using them without the internal diffusor - the light will be less soft but it will be more powerful.
Alternative solution could be umbrellas, or even big beauty dishes.

As you should not to lose all the ambient light you should consider too to use your camera set with rear curtain sync (so you will have eventual effects of movement behind the subject, not before), and a time of exposure allowing to keep great part of the ambient light.

Radio command it the easiest way to sync you strobes, but as sometime you can have problems or interferences it is good to always have a sync cable (with extension) too.

_____
It is very difficult to give you  good advices without to know exactly the situation.
If you have the possibility to make some test/training the day before it would be very better and you will be quieter the day D.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2013, 15:37 by Beppe Grillo »

Ron

« Reply #6 on: October 13, 2013, 15:37 »
0
Thanks guys, considering the room, and the party, it has to be continues light. People are going to walk in and out the room to have their photo taken. Strobes is probably not what we want to use.

I do have a better idea now, thanks for the advice, I am going to visit the location and will report back. You have some valid questions, Beppe, and I will get the answers.

Thanks so far.

fritz

  • I love Tom and Jerry music

« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2013, 15:44 »
+1
My philosophy is: Use Natural Light Whenever Possible, use artificial light if you have to and have no other choice. That was the first lesson learned 20 years ago and I still stick with!

w7lwi

  • Those that don't stand up to evil enable evil.
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2013, 15:56 »
0
Ron, one thing I'm not clear on is how many people will be in each shot.  If it's only one at a a time, that will require much less lighting than if you will be shooting multiple subjects.  Also, you mention that you need continuous lighting as people will be coming and going.  If you just have some soft ambient lights, then with the strobes set at a relative high output, aperture of f8 or f11 and shutter speeds of 1/200 or so, the ambient lighting will never show up.  I once used my 550EX speedlite to optically trigger two strobes.  I was concerned the speedlite would add additional light to the subject, but when I took a test shot with the camera settings that I would be using with the strobes, but with only the speedlite as a source, the image came out black.  The strobes are so much more powerful than the speedlite (or most ambients) that they really don't have all that much of an impact.  Also, most good strobes come with modeling lights that allow you to properly position your subject(s).

« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2013, 18:05 »
+3
Why would  you take on a commercial assignment requiring strobes when you have little experience with this kind of set up and equipment?

This is not gonna end well ya think?

Hey, I wish you the best with this. Really. You WILL learn alot but perhaps not what you hoped to learn.

« Reply #10 on: October 13, 2013, 19:00 »
+5
Thanks guys, considering the room, and the party, it has to be continues light. People are going to walk in and out the room to have their photo taken. Strobes is probably not what we want to use.

I do have a better idea now, thanks for the advice, I am going to visit the location and will report back. You have some valid questions, Beppe, and I will get the answers.

Thanks so far.

Disorderly's advice is spot-on. You need to use strobes. Honestly. You just need to get to the location with the equipment, before the actual event, and experiment, experiment, experiment ... until you get satisfactory results. It's actually nothing like as difficult as you imagine. You just need to work out what works by experimenting beforehand. That is the only way that you learn how to use strobes __ you have to jump in at the deep end. However, once you've 'got it', then your skills will soar.

When using strobes set your camera to M (obviously), set the exposure to 1/160, the aperture to say f13 and then simply adjust lighting levels on the lights themselves until you get satisfactory results. As bhr says opt for powerful lights that will regenerate more quickly at the levels you want to use. Ideally you should be using the lights at about half of their capacity. Don't forget you can massively increase the effective power of the lights by simply upping the ISO on you camera but how far you can go on that will be determined by how the images are to be used.

This is a golden opportunity for you to learn how to use strobes at others' expense, being as they are paying for the equipment. Don't wimp out and waste it.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2013, 19:11 by gostwyck »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #11 on: October 13, 2013, 19:10 »
0
^^ Brilliant idea/advice, bhr.

sure but in fact if you have a good setup you don't need any "professional" to show/help you doing the job, its not that hard to try a few lights and test it yourself

Ok, reading it again, I see that Ron would be taking sort of set-up photos against a background?
At first I thought he'd be photographing the whole event, therefore running around carrying equipment, with different light requirements at different places.
The 'set-up' is much more doable.

« Reply #12 on: October 14, 2013, 02:27 »
+1
Make sure that your public liability insurance is adequate and covers events. You will be working with the public but cannot assume that you will be covered by the event's own insurance unless that is specifically contracted.

(and the event insurance may have conditions which would exclude you)
« Last Edit: October 14, 2013, 02:34 by bhr »

« Reply #13 on: October 14, 2013, 04:42 »
+2
Definitely get strobes, not continuous light. Get a wireless remote trigger set as well.

Just two big softboxes sounds like your idea is to just put enough light to the entire scene. This way, it is likely that you will end up with a very "flat" look in your images. It might work but might look a bit unprofessional in the end.

If someone else is offering to rent the equipment, I would rather get too many than too few. I'd rather figure out that I won't need all of them than thinking "oh, I could need one more over there". You will find that many portrait photographers are working with three or four lights. One of them might be a big softbox to have good overall light on the scene, and the add others to set accents and fill to faces, hair, back light. I would go for light formers like barndoors or snoots that help you direct the light where you want it to be, rather than softboxes that spill the light everywhere. Also make sure you have one or two reflectors and - if you don't have an assistant at the set - you might need an extra stand to hold them.

And well, yeah, if you have never worked with studio lighting before, this will be a big challenge but also a big opportunity. As it sounds, it will be a fixed set, so you don't have to spontaneously change the setup. So take your time well ahead of the event to set up and do enough test shots until you are happy with the results.

Ron

« Reply #14 on: October 14, 2013, 12:38 »
0
Guys, I have read it all, I am going to do some research and go to the location and get back to you.

I am starting to understand some of it and it makes sense.

I have 4 weeks to get ready. I will come back with information and questions in due course.

Just to be clear, its going to be a room with a set. The set is a big empty painting frame, with a black background. Its the idea of a living painting. So I need to get the whole frame in the frame. I told them to build the fame 2x3 ratio, the same as my 6D


 

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