please suggest portrait flash setup
AMN
I have received advice here recently about how important lighting is to
portrait photography. I understand and agree. I have a Nikon N80, a
80-200mm 2.8 nikkor lens, and a couple soft focus filters. I'm doing
personal work (not professional). I do NOT have any lighting equipment,
nor do I have any experience with lighting equipment so I will probably
sound a little naive but please excuse that.
What can I buy, without spending a ton, to have non-camera-mounted lighting
equipment? In a professional studio I saw 2 eclipse silver umbrellas with
some lighting underneath. They were above the subject (8 feet off the
ground), each at a 45 degree angle. The results were good. But I also
read that you'd want to have light coming from underneath to get rid of
adults' bags under the eyes (the shadows). Those 2 thoughts conflict.
I also want something I can set up quickly given that I'm not running a
studio but just want to get some great portrait shots on occasion -
sometimes indoors and sometimes outside, probably more outside. And
something maybe for a few hundred dollars or less. I'd prefer commonly
known equipment if possible.
So,
a) Suggestions for somewhat inexpensive and commonly-used lighting
equipment? Specific models would be great.
b) Also, could someone please explain how one (or especially two) lights
attach to my camera? Would some attachment wire plug into the spot on the
top of my camera where a camera-mount flash would otherwise attach?
c) Would the camera control the output amount automatically, as it does with
the simple pop-up flash already on the camera?
d) Do I have have sync speed issues to worry about with such external
equipment?
Thanks.
Gordon Moat
by Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz, for a start. It should give you some ideas
of options, and what various pieces are used to light, or reflect. You can also
rent equipment, and see if it works well for you. Renting is also a better
option for large lighting set-ups that are not often used.
Getting some good reflectors would also be a good start. If you are shooting
outdoors, just one or two reflectors may be all the extra light you need. Small
reflectors can be used to just light the face a bit more and are relatively
affordable. Another option is fill flash, which can be accomplished with any
camera mounted flash. If you want a softer flash, you can get something like a
LumiQuest Pocket Bouncer (for example) to mount on any tiltable flash. These
are cheap, and produce better results than bouncing off the ceiling (or if
their is no ceiling).
Shooting outdoors with anything other than battery powered flashes can get
expensive. Portable power packs for strobes can be costly. Sometimes you can
have access to an outlet, an be able to plug in your equipment, and then indoor
type equipment can be used.
A basic two light set-up with stands, umbrellas, lights and cords, can
sometimes be found new for around $US 200. Search around for used equipment,
and you may find some more affordable items. Be aware that you can accomplish
quite a bit with low end equipment, especially for portrait work. Another good
option would be one light, and a reflector (or two). Lighting stands are fairly
cheap, and getting one would help quite a bit. Adapters can be found that hold
your hotshoe flash and mount to a standard tripod or light stand screw.
I am not familiar with your camera body, but look for a sync connector on the
body. Then just get a long sync cord to connect the camera to the light or
flash. If you do not have a sync connector on the camera, there is another
adapter that you can get that goes onto your hotshoe, and allows for a sync
cable connection. If your camera has TTL AE, then it should work as well as
mounting a flash on the body.
Starting with a good flash unit may be an inexpensive starting point. Add some
reflectors for more options. Other options include slave units, many of which
have a sync cord connector built in. Look at Morris and Britek, just to name
two. These look like they screw into a light socket for power, which they
could. You can get an extension cord, and worklight connector, then place onto
a stand. Good options include barndoors, and coloured diffusers.
Many pro set-ups will show softboxes. These are nice to have, but costly. They
also work better at larger sizes. Another option is umbrellas, and shoot
through umbrellas, though the results may not be as desirable as with a
softbox. You can also try using barndoors and a large shoot through diffuser,
which is much cheaper than a softbox, and gives nearly the same results.
Whatever you get, practice with it first using slide film. Write lots of notes
and bracket your exposures. Try using the camera manually (if possible) to see
what different results you can get. Process the transparencies, but do not
mount. Then check and decide what settings produced the best results. Use those
and your notes to make a chart of useful settings. Hopefully, this will allow
you to get consistent good results.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat
Alliance Graphique Studio
<http://www.allgstudio.com>
Richard Cochran
AMN wrote:
>
> What can I buy, without spending a ton, to have non-camera-mounted lighting
> equipment?
I wrote a web page on this subject, at
http://www.lanset.com/rcochran/flash
Most of your questions are answered on that web page, but I'll give
quick answers below:
> a) Suggestions for somewhat inexpensive and commonly-used lighting
> equipment? Specific models would be great.
Sunpak 383 super flash units, Photoflex shoe-mount multiclamp umbrella
clamps, Any kind of umbrellas, Bogen 3086 light stands. That's just one
set of brands/models, and there are certainly others that are worth
looking at.
> b) Also, could someone please explain how one (or especially two) lights
> attach to my camera? Would some attachment wire plug into the spot on the
> top of my camera where a camera-mount flash would otherwise attach?
Put slaves on the off-camera lights, and put an IR filter over your
built-in flash. The slaves will see the light from your built-in flash
and pop their lights at the right time. No messy cords attached to
your camera.
> c) Would the camera control the output amount automatically, as it does with
> the simple pop-up flash already on the camera?
There are ways to do this, but it's expensive and doesn't give you good
control of the ratios of various lights to one another. When you move
to more than one light, it's easiest to put everything in manual and use
a flash meter.
> d) Do I have have sync speed issues to worry about with such external
> equipment?
You must keep the shutter at the camera's regular sync speed or slower.
A few studio systems have long durations, and if your camera normally
syncs
at 1/250, you may get better results at 1/125 with some lights. If in
doubt, do a test with your lights. But usually, especially with battery
operated flash units, just shoot at the max normal sync speed.
--Rich
BandHPhoto
underneath. They were above the subject (8 feet off the ground), each at a 45
degree angle. The results were good.>
This is a miserable idea for portrait lighting. Either you didn't understand
what you saw or the fellow who set it up wasn't shooting portraits with it or
he didn't know the first thing about portrait lighting. Even if he sought the
relatively flat look popular with the magazine cover "glamour" look, only
standing basketball players would be shot with lights 8 ft up.
Classic portrait lighting includes a main light, set above and to the side
(30-45 degrees) off axis (the axis being a line from the lens to the subject.
It should be high enough so the shadow from the nose reaches to but does not
touch the line of the upper lip and simultaneously low enough to form a bright
catch light in the subject's eye. As it should be a relatively directional
light, my personal preference is soft boxes rather than umbrellas for this,
althoug I have gottent good results with the Westcott Halo too.
The fill light is usually a much broader, directionless source, and a large
white umbrella is excellent for this. The fill light is traditionally on-axis,
above the camera (I use a boom). In traditional portrait lighting, the fill
light would be 1-1.5 stops less than the main.
The other two lights used traditionally are the hair light (a small directional
light above and behind the subject aimed at the head to provide separation from
the background) and the back light.
Y'know people write whole books about this stuff. :-)
===============================
regards,
Henry Posner/B&H Photo-Video
http://www.bhphotovideo.com
hen...@bhphotovideo.com
Lewis Lang
>From: bandh...@aol.com (BandHPhoto)
>Date: Fri, Nov 16, 2001 1:41 AM
>Message-id: <20011115204109...@mb-cr.aol.com>
>
>< In a professional studio I saw 2 eclipse silver umbrellas with some lighting
>underneath. They were above the subject (8 feet off the ground), each at
>a 45
>degree angle. The results were good.>
>
>This is a miserable idea for portrait lighting. Either you didn't understand
>what you saw or the fellow who set it up wasn't shooting portraits with
>it or
>he didn't know the first thing about portrait lighting. Even if he sought
>the
>relatively flat look popular with the magazine cover "glamour" look,
This sounds like "classic" fashion/glamour lighting and is the only slightly
higher level version of copystand lighting where two light sources at 45 degree
angles from either side of the camera axis fill in each other's shadows - the
difference here being that two larger sourced umbrellas are used instead of
"raw" (unmodified) direct light sources. The "flat look" works well for copy
work and fashion where you want to minimize or eliminate shadows, but "classic"
portraiture usually requires some directionality to the light and the casting
of "form shadows" (the nose, chin casting shadows on the mask of the face and
neck respectively and/or the side of the face past the cheek being in shadow)
on the subject and some contrast to establish modelling/three-dimensionality to
the sitter.
VERY BIG "HENRY SNIP"
>Y'know people write whole books about this stuff. :-)
I think you just did Henry! ;-)
Henry went into a long and elaborate (for a newsgroup setting) lesson on
portrait lighting. Thank you Henry.
All that I can add is that in portrait lighting (like other types of lighting
such as product and architecture and still life lighting) the most important
equipment you can get is an understanding of what light is and does and how to
use it to best effect more so than any particular types of lighting equipment.
In lighting it is more important to understand the why than the what and the
how. To this end might I reccommend that you'd be best served not necessarily
by observing others (although this helps once you understand the principles of
lighting) but by reading about lighting and its principle and techniques from
books (and then applying these principles and techniques on your own). Some
books you might want to look into are:
PORTRAITS (from the Pro-Lighting series of books) by Roger Hicks and Frances
Schultz published by ROTOVISION (yours truly has some work in it).
BEAUTY SHOTS (also from the Pro-Lighting series of books) by Alex Larg and Jane
Wood published by ROTOVISION (yours truly has some work in it).
Light-Science & Magic by Hunter and Fuqua (a superb book and worth more than
three years of study in Brooks institute of Photography for a fraction of a
fraction of the price of tuition there ;-))
LIGHT FOR THE ARTIST by Jacobs published by Watson Guptill (this is primarily a
book for painters but it goes into unusual depth on the physcis of light,
lighting conventions of what we believe to be true about light vs what ue about
light, etc.)
There ar emany other good books on lighting and portrait lighting in particular
that you can either order from B&H or peruse and buy at your local Barnes &
Nobles/mega book store.
As for lighting gear you might want to look into White Lightening and Alien
Bees for reasonably priced monolight flash gear (when you get serious) about
studio portraiture. For heads w/ separate power packs consider Speedotron
(Black line and Brown line), Norman, Dynalite (very compact), Balcar and a host
of other units. (get catalogs and pricings for their gear from the
manufacturer/photo mags and/or look up on the web at their websites. If you
haven't already, you might want to post to rec.photo.technique.people newsgroup
for more advice on flash gear and lighting principles (and/or do a search at
www.google.com under this newsgroup and the people newsgroup under such topics
as "portrait lighting," "flash," "flash lighting," etc.
After all the above, observe all the good lighting effects you can on tv,
movies, magazines, in photo books, etc. and apply and experiment yourself and
don't get bogged down into anyone's style - see and use what works best for
your subject matter and your vision of your subject/the world.
Hope this helps... What was the question? ;-)
Regards,
Lewis
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