Night Portrait with 2 Flashes, 1 Stand?

This weekend I'm looking to do a test Photoshoot with a Friend at night in Miami. I have 2 Flashes, 1 Stand (No Softboxes or Umbrellas). From my understanding, You expose for the Background than use the Flash as Fill. I want to keep my ISO at 100-400, But i know to get a proper exposure of the background (Especially at Night), Even at 1.8 i'm still going to have to bump my ISO. Also any ideas on how i can setup the Flashes? I want to avoid having it directly pointing at the Subject.

Well you could get a big white posterboard (bigger the better) and bounce the light into the board and onto your subject. You are trying to mimic soft ambient light with this light. You can use the second light as a back light directly on your subject. You are trying to simulate an overhead street light here. It would help if you had some orange gels to bring the color temperature of your lights down. If you don't have orange gels maybe consider getting a yellow or orange posterboard to use as the bounce.

If you want to stay at ISO 400 you will probably need to drag your shutter a bit and find a stable shooting position. 1/10th of a second at f/1.8 at 400 will probably expose a downtown city area pretty well.

Being limited to only one stand you will need to recruit some friends to hold the lights and bounce board.

Ok thanks for the information. helped a lot.

I will probably use ISO800 if not ISO1600 to include some ambient. Why limit to ISO400? Also why night time. If using that 50mm f1.8 it is going to be royal pain to focus unless one of the flashes is on camera for focus assist.

LIve view is your friend for night time focusing wide open.

aroundlsu wrote in post #15006640
LIve view is your friend for night time focusing wide open.

Who is going to hold my 70-200mm f2.8 IS II.

bobbyz wrote in post #15006472
I will probably use ISO800 if not ISO1600 to include some ambient. Why limit to ISO400? Also why night time. If using that 50mm f1.8 it is going to be royal pain to focus unless one of the flashes is on camera for focus assist.

True and maybe i'm too picky but i hate dealing with High ISO plus RAW Noise. You lose a lot of detail.

take a flashlight with you to gain focus.

To focus at night, get yourself a little LED flashlight and aim it at your subject. It won't be powerful enough to influence the flash exposure but it'll give you contrast for AF. You could even tape it to the barrel of your lens. Better still, tape/velcro/rubber band it to the flash unit off to the side so your model isn't blinded when he/she stares down the lens.

Yeah i was thinking of just using my iphone to focus. should work.

Get the exposure you want for the background, then set the flash, either via TTL or manual for the exposure you need for the subject. If you want to have low ISO then you are going to have a longer shutter speed. That dictates a tripod and subjects that can stay still.

Here are a couple of examples; one with on camera TTL the other with off camera, also TTL.

Why not take a shot of the background (Nice Long exposure..) and take a separate shot of the Model with the flash.. Then blend in Photshop? A lot easier and a lower ISO...

(Use a tripod..Lol)

Kinda like what I did here.. One long exposure for the bg.. and I closed the Apt so it did not get blown out from the Sparks..

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

DJHaze596 wrote in post #15006875
True and maybe i'm too picky but i hate dealing with High ISO plus RAW Noise. You lose a lot of detail.

Not if you lighting the subject with strobes. Most high ISO shots look crap due to crappy lighting IMHO.