I need to shoot!

[Charlie.S]

rented a 5d, 85 1.2, 24-70, 17-35 from school. Thinking about heading to the studio with a chick tomorrow. Any ideas on some interesting/simple lighting set-ups?

[jared1988]

candles, bow-chica-wow-wow

[Rogue86]

Depends what you're after really, and also what lighting you have access to. Low-key is the trend at the moment, getting away from that whole 'white background and people jumping acting happy' venture stuff. It's fairly straight-forward to set-up, and it's probably most effective using flashguns rather than studio lighting, which gives it the advantage that you don't need a studio to do it in.

Generally in a studio, we would use a light on 1:1 on one side, and then a light on the opposite side at 1:2 for women, and 1:4 for men. So if you had the 1:1 light on full power, then you would have the other light on 1/2 power. It's also more flattering if the lighting is soft and shadowless, but sometimes harsh lighting is good for effect, especially with males.

As an idea, here's a shot of me at work. This was lit with three flashguns, two to the rear on 1/8 power, and one in front of me (underneath the camera) on 1/4 power. We shot this in a studio, but by controlling the ambient light with your shutter speed, and your flash intensity with the aperture, you can shoot this anywhere, at most times of day.



Just play around, you'll learn more from the things that don't work first time than the things that do! Once you've got your lighting sorted, have a play around with the catch-lights in the eyes using light-modifiers. The guy who took the shot of me also took another with an Apple catchlight, it was done by cutting an Apple logo out of card, and firing the flash through it. I tend to use my speed-light kit for portraits because of the catch-lights it puts in the subjects eyes.