Setup for a full body portrait on white bg?

Hi guys,

Need advice on how to shoot a full body portrait on white background.

The result I want to achieve would be something like this: http://image.shutterst​ock.com …e-background-11998258.jpg

But I don't know where to start when it comes to subject and background lighting. How many lights do I need? What modifiers should I use (shoot through umbrella, bounce umbrella, softbox, grid, etc.)? How about the background? Seamless white paper? Do I need strobes or are speedlights enough?

Let's consider that all I have is a camera, a lens and a tripod. What other equipment do I need and how should it be set up?

Thanks!

http://www.zarias.com …torial-part-1-gear-space/

Hope this helps

DanAnCan wrote in post #15534503
http://www.zarias.com …torial-part-1-gear-space/

Hope this helps

+1 for this.

The guidelines in the ZA link are good.
Key is being able to keep the subject far enough away from the background to control the spill.
And, ability to control the foreground lighting so it doesn't go either too white or too dark.

Thanks guys.

So all I need is two naked lights for the background, and one massive softbox light for the subject? No fill or hair light?

How powerful does these lights need to be? With my budget, I can only afford speedlights (e.g. Yongnuos) or cheap low power strobes. Which one is better here?

I've seen a few strobe kits selling two softbox lights + one naked light. But for what I want to achieve, I would need the opposite?

This is my setup for my shot full body -

52 inch PLM, with diffusion sock, for main light on subject. Usually enough to do a full body. Second is to place two lights with reflectors pointed towards either a light gray or a white background, 2 stops above whatever you want to set your main light. Flag those lights a bit so they don't hit your subject and cause too much spill. Your subject needs to be at least 5-8 feet away from the background, the more, the better.

For example, if your BG lights are illuminating at F11, you want your main light to illuminate at F5.6 (the one with the PLM).

Here's a photo of my setup.

Zansho wrote in post #15534747
This is my setup for my shot full body -

52 inch PLM, with diffusion sock, for main light on subject. Usually enough to do a full body. Second is to place two lights with reflectors pointed towards either a light gray or a white background, 2 stops above whatever you want to set your main light. Flag those lights a bit so they don't hit your subject and cause too much spill. Your subject needs to be at least 5-8 feet away from the background, the more, the better.

For example, if your BG lights are illuminating at F11, you want your main light to illuminate at F5.6 (the one with the PLM).

Here's a photo of my setup.

Preliminary result here:

I moved the plm out of the way for better photo of the setup. Good luck!

Sorry for being off topic just a bit

Hi zansho, may i know how much power does your flashes have? is it a 400w strobe?

Would you recommend getting the same power for 3 lights setup? for example 3 x 400ws. Or 2 lights with the same power and another one with different power?

The space in the setup photo is more or less the same with my soon-to-be-home-studio, except for the ceiling, mine is a bit higher.

I'm still deciding whether to buy 2x400w lights or 2x600w lights..I have a portable 600w battery pack (jinbei discovery DC-600).

The ones in the rear are 300 ws - you don't need that much power since they are so close to the bg. Front was an Einstein, dialed down to about 250 ws. Rear are Profoto rentals, momoblocs.

As far as strobes, (for the OP) you could probably rent what you need. If you're looking to buy, might be able to swing it with some Calumet Genesis 400s, or some AB 800 momoblocs.

Thanks Zansho, I get a better idea of what is needed now.

To sum it up, I need to get:

* 3 strobes (300Ws)
* 3 light stands
* 1 modifier for the main light
* white seamless paper
* backdrop stand
* some sort of panels to prevent the bg lights from spilling on the subject
* remote triggers

Did I miss anything?

For the main light, which modifier is best suited? umbrella, plm, softbox? how big does it need to be?

Remote triggers... would 4 Yongnuo 602/603 do the job?

No reason why they wouldn't, provided you have the right cables for the strobe you're using. Modifier is your personal preference, but a bigger modifier helps get the full body lit well. A small modifier like a beauty dish will be less successful than a large modifier like a 52 PLM or similar. Also, you will need a clamp of some kind to keep the roll from falling down . You can see my clamp on the top left of my seamless paper, little black thing.

Zansho wrote in post #15535903
No reason why they wouldn't, provided you have the right cables for the strobe you're using. Modifier is your personal preference, but a bigger modifier helps get the full body lit well. A small modifier like a beauty dish will be less successful than a large modifier like a 52 PLM or similar. Also, you will need a clamp of some kind to keep the roll from falling down . You can see my clamp on the top left of my seamless paper, little black thing.

How would a bigger modifier help to light a full body shot? Assuming the light was in the same positiion, I would say that a small modifier would work just as well as a large modifier.

I would even go as far to say that a small modifier would likely yield a more pleasing image as you would get more contrast. Big key lights with that white background setup can result in flat images unless you have a really large space to work in so that you can control all the spill.

The example image the OP posted was likely shot with a larger modifier, but it was also likely shot in a larger space than what you are working in.

Distance plays a role in the quality of light you get. If you're using a 22' beauty dish 2-3 feet away from your subject, you're likely not going to be able to illuminate the entire body. If you move that light back to be able to get the entire body, the quality of the light changes, and also the power requirements do as well - the further back you move that light to cover it all, the more power you'll need. I'm not saying its impossible with a beauty dish, not at all. What I am saying from my standpoint, is I prefer a larger modifier for work like this.

I respectfully disagree with a smaller modifier being equally good at full length shots as a large modifier, distance and power being equal.

In your shot (taken in a small space) you have the background light wrapping clear around to the front of the subject, you also have the key light wrapping around toward the back of the subject. The result is that the two lights cancel out a large part of each others shadows and make for a flat image.

In a normal one light shot the light will fall off to one side or around the edges of the subject (depending on where the light is placed); the shadow and light falloff is what creates the illusion of dimensionality.

In the example pic the OP posted the light source looks to be large, but the background light isn't wrapping around the subject, so you can still see the falloff and shadows from the key light. Result is that the image has dimension and doesn't look too flat. But once again, the example image was likely taken in a larger studio space.

For a normal one light shot you can light a full body just as well with a bare flash as you can with a large octabox. Once you start to move the light to one side though the shadows will start showing up a lot more. Using a bare strobe, you don't have to move it too far to one side before the shadows become really prominent and perhaps distracting. Using a larger modifier and moving the light to one side the shadows will be more feathered than when using bare bulb, and won't become distracting nearly as fast.

If you try and do the blown out BG shot in a small space you will likely have a bunch of spill and light wrapping around from the background, so your often trying to create as much shadow as possible with the key light, knowing that it will be filled in quite a bit by the light from the background. Use a large light source and you are likely to lose a lot of your shadows that would otherwise give the subject dimensionality.

The link in post#2 has an approach for controlling the spill which would allow you use a larger modifier without sacrificing as much dimension.

Getting the proper relationship between background and subject is critical.
Zack's blog post about shooting on white is about as good a tutorial as I've seen.

Here is a setup shot and a test shot showing how I setup.

My objective is to have the white somewhere are 95% in Lightroom straight out of camera. No wrap from the background and the subject lit properly. In this case with a large PLM for main. The shot has 6 lights; Main, fill, two for background and two kickers in strip boxes aimed back at the subject. It looks like wrap on the subject but if you look closely its apparent that its aimed light rather than wrap.

Subject is standing between the v flats; that's about 5 or 6 feet in front of the background.

One benefit of the large PLM is that it can offer nice crisp light, especially the bright silver. This was soft silver without a diffusion panel.