Lighting a holiday family shoot

I volunteered some time to take family shots at a holiday fundraiser.

I visited the venue today and will need to supply a backdrop or create a 'scene'. I'm not a fan of any of the holiday backdrops you can purchase and was looking to create something like this:

http://www.propinsanit​y.com/how-to-holiday-backdrop/

The difference being I will be lighting this entirely with strobes and hanging the holiday lights in front of a white wall.

To get the shallow depth of field I figure I'll need to place the subjects about 4' in front of the lights. I plan on using 2 60" umbrellas to light my subjects.

For anyone that's done this, were the holiday lights bright enough? I plan on having the umbrellas close to my subjects so the falloff will probably be too much to reach the lights. Should I move the umbrellas back?

Im not positive about the brightness of the lights but youll want to get the non-led ones because they flicker and a lot of them wont show up in your images.

JakAHearts wrote in post #17280417
Im not positive about the brightness of the lights but youll want to get the non-led ones because they flicker and a lot of them wont show up in your images.

Thanks, good point! The more I think about this, I can't "light the lights". I would have to drag the shutter and let ambient in right or emulate some daylight. maybe adding a strobe from the back through a sheet?

Yes, youll need to drag the shutter or up that ISO. There are quite a few google tutorials out there about this very kind of image.

I see some potential issues with your setup. Your subjects are going to need to be much further from the backdrop than four feet if you are looking for a shallow depth of field. You'll want the hanging lights to be out of focus but in order to shoot "Family" shots which assumes multiple people you are going to have to stop down to about 5.6-8.0 Four feet is also too close for two 60" umbrellas which will throw light everywhere including your background.

StanNJ1 wrote in post #17281035
I see some potential issues with your setup. Your subjects are going to need to be much further from the backdrop than four feet if you are looking for a shallow depth of field. You'll want the hanging lights to be out of focus but in order to shoot "Family" shots which assumes multiple people you are going to have to stop down to about 5.6-8.0 Four feet is also too close for two 60" umbrellas which will throw light everywhere including your background.

Thanks, yes I did some tests, and need the subjects to be about 7' from the lights. The largest family I'll have is 4 people it looks like. I'm going to move as far back as I can with my 70-200 and try and still shoot shallow enough to get the lights and background to blow out of focus.

I do want the lights to blow on to the back ground, take advantage of inverse square law so I want the lights a good distance from my subjects. If that doesn't work, I'll add some some to the background with 2 150W modelling lights from some studio strobes.

Can you move your subjects even further away from the background and shoot with your 24-70?

StanNJ1 wrote in post #17281135
Can you move your subjects even further away from the background and shoot with your 24-70?

Will try, not sure the background is big enough to get them further. I don't have a 24-70, plan on using the 70-200 though.

adammazza wrote in post #17281170
Will try, not sure the background is big enough to get them further. I don't have a 24-70, plan on using the 70-200 though.

Time to update your equipment list in your signature

StanNJ1 wrote in post #17281182
Time to update your equipment list in your signature

I don't see that, just the 24-105 .

adammazza wrote in post #17281054
I do want the lights to blow on to the back ground, take advantage of inverse square law so I want the lights a good distance from my subjects. If that doesn't work, I'll add some some to the background with 2 150W modelling lights from some studio strobes.

i think you will find that you are going to need additional light on the background. Not sure even a couple of continuous lights will make much difference. I also think that blowing the background out will diminish the effect of the xmas lights, especially if you are using incandescent bulbs as modeling lights as they will have the same color temp as the xmas lights. Maybe a color gel on the background to help the lights pop?

hes gone wrote in post #17281393
=he's gone;17281393]i think you will find that you are going to need additional light on the background. Not sure even a couple of continuous lights will make much difference. I also think that blowing the background out will diminish the effect of the xmas lights, especially if you are using incandescent bulbs as modeling lights as they will have the same color temp as the xmas lights. Maybe a color gel on the background to help the lights pop?

So tested various setups tonight.

With a single person this was very easy. Was able to have the subject ~10' from the background backup another 15' and be at ~170mm F4 ISO200 1/160 and was able to get subject fine and light the back ground enough with the umbrella that it washed out of focus nicely with the holiday lights. I used white streams of lights on a white muslin.

The problem was I couldn't get it to work well with more than 1 person. I'm sure if I had enough space and a large enough back drop I could.

adammazza wrote in post #17282434
So tested various setups tonight.

With a single person this was very easy. Was able to have the subject ~10' from the background backup another 15' and be at ~170mm F4 ISO200 1/160 and was able to get subject fine and light the back ground enough with the umbrella that it washed out of focus nicely with the holiday lights. I used white streams of lights on a white muslin.

The problem was I couldn't get it to work well with more than 1 person. I'm sure if I had enough space and a large enough back drop I could.

would you share your tests? Thanks to your posting this idea, i am working on something similar.

i find the cords to be a bit distracting and wanted the option of hitting the background with a gelled flash. What i did was take a piece of grey seamless paper up and laid it on the bed. I then took a string of lights and poked them through the back and taped the cord down to the paper. I need to work out the aperture and distances (i'll have to find another place to set up) but here are the first set of results.

I'm going to give colored lights a shot too.

in focus and out:

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hes gone wrote in post #17285588
=he's gone;17285588]would you share your tests? Thanks to your posting this idea, i am working on something similar.

i find the cords to be a bit distracting and wanted the option of hitting the background with a gelled flash. What i did was take a piece of grey seamless paper up and laid it on the bed. I then took a string of lights and poked them through the back and taped the cord down to the paper. I need to work out the aperture and distances (i'll have to find another place to set up) but here are the first set of results.

I'm going to give colored lights a shot too.

in focus and out:

This was just a test with a single person. Didn't really clean this up:

https://www.flickr.com​/photos/amazza/1583253​8771/

This was white lights hung on a very creased white background. Like I said a single person or two is easy. But you need a real lot of space to do this with a group.

I did something similar last year using the tree as lights. The challenge is that the lights are fairly dim. Therefore you'll have to have a faster than 2.8 lens. Plus, you'll have to separate the subjects from the lights at about 8 to 10ft. Here's a group shot at f.2, iso 640, 85mm Sigma.