Outdoor strobe shoot

I have a question as I never shot a outdoor strobe shoot before.

In July I'm planning to do two separate days of shoot outdoor along a poolside setup Fashion and swim wear. Both shoots will be from 10:30am to 4pm and will both include 4 to 5 models.

My question do you use the light meter and meter the back ground and then set the strobe to expose at the same or -.5 stop lower or higher than ambient background.

The back ground will have lots of trees, I have to deal with the mid day sun. I have a 43" 5 in one reflector and six strobes at my disposal.

Thanks.

Watch this youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=wODqXBe9rNo

What if you are using something like your 580ex and you don't have a light meter? You have no way to "KNOW" if you should be using 1/32 or 1/16... do you?

kaitlyn2004 wrote in post #12500776
What if you are using something like your 580ex and you don't have a light meter? You have no way to "KNOW" if you should be using 1/32 or 1/16... do you?

You adjust the power until it looks right.

tgamron wrote in post #12500810
You adjust the power until it looks right.

Right.. just wanted to clarify that its Try + Adjust + Repeat... and over time you'll just have a better idea for a starting point...

kaitlyn2004 wrote in post #12500776
What if you are using something like your 580ex and you don't have a light meter? You have no way to "KNOW" if you should be using 1/32 or 1/16... do you?

Chimping & histogram are your friends.

Chimping and looking at your histogram and chimping and looking at your histogram and chimping and looking at your histogram are sure fire ways of losing your subject's confidence that you know what you are doing. Amateurs do this, pros do not. Pros LOOK at the lighting on the subject, move the subject until the lighting looks good OR the pro adds enough light to properly expose both the subject and the background, takes a hand held meter reading sets that reading into the manual camera and makes the exposure. He looks at the LCD screen once or twice during the shoot because he is confident of himself and his equipment.

Using a silver reflector on a bright sunny day and I will guarantee you will have upset clients. Staring into a silver reflector that reflects 98% of the light that is striking it is like staring into the mid day sun. That is why pros use flash. Even though it can be as bright as the sun, it is so quick the client will not squint.

My suggestion is to use the sunshine as your background and hair light ONLY, and use a powerful a/c powered flash unit in a large softbox or octobox as your main light, and a reflector as the fill. The reflector will be reflecting the main light NOT the sunshine. If the ISO is set at 100 the correct shutter speed and aperture for the bright sun (10 am to 5pm) will be 1/200 @ f/11, so the flash unit in the modifier MUST be capable of giving you f/11. This will require a rather powerful unit (800+ watt seconds) especially if you are shooting full length images which requires the flash to be four or five feet back from the subject.

If you are thinking about using a raw speedlight on the camera, you will wind up with hard harsh shadows on the subjects and amateur looking images.

Benji

Thank you Benji, I was thinking of more shooting wide open with the lens to blur out the back ground.

The problem with that is the max sync of the 5D II is only 1/200th. That would mean I have to step the lens down. Arrg

I was planning to use my indoor strobe and a large soft box, I will take your advise and use the reflector as fill from the strobe.

Thank you all.

Yaamon wrote in post #12505753
The problem with that is the max sync of the 5D II is only 1/200th. That would mean I have to step the lens down. Arrg

Use an ND filter?

Just another suggestion. Avoid midday sun shoots. But if you absolutely have to....get a large piece of foam core and have an assistant hold it over the models. This blocks the sun, puts them in more controlled light, and allows you to use your speedlights/strobes where needed. Good luck!

kaitlyn2004 wrote in post #12505770
Use an ND filter?

Are all ND filter the same rating and if not what would you suggest for 11am to 4pm sun.

Thanks,

Yaamon wrote in post #12506325
Are all ND filter the same rating and if not what would you suggest for 11am to 4pm sun.

Thanks,

ND filters normally go from 1 to 3 stop of course there are many others. but which one will depend on how bright the sun is and how much cloud cover there is. it will change throughout the shoot unless it is a clear and sunny day.

Yaamon wrote in post #12506325
Are all ND filter the same rating and if not what would you suggest for 11am to 4pm sun.

Thanks,

If correct exposure is f11 and you want to shoot say at f2.8 then you need 4 stop ND filter. You can buy them in various strengths.

What kind of lights are you going to be using?

The strobes I have a 400ws strobes.

In my studio setup they can easily generate F16 at iso100 using a large softbox.