Strobes or Speedlites for this shoot?

Hi All -

I am doing some nature photography for a few days, but have asked one of my friends if I can make some portraits of him in his wood working shop as well. I do own 2 Alien Bees AB800's with a couple of different modifiers, but I don't know that I want to transport them because of bulk and possible low temperatures while doing my nature gallivanting.

Think I can pull something half-decent off with my 430exII and 580exII on stands? I'll prob do the shooting with my 24-70mm VC using my 60D's wireless feature. I think I want a dark moody feel overall, but am not sure if I'll be able to get enough light output in the background.

Thoughts?

Thanks!
Dave

For this purpose, you can probably get by with the Speedlights. For lighting the subject, an umbrella or brolly box would help a lot.

If it's moderately dark inside the shop, you can use a slower shutter speed to get some ambient or worklights to do background or mood lights, and use the Speedlights are your main lights on the subject and points of interest.

Before even getting out the Speedlights, figure out a handful of shots and angles, set up your camera settings to get the appropriate mood with the shop/work/ambient lights. Take some test shots and make sure the background looks OK. THEN, set up your Speedlights to illuminate the subject.

Remember that the 60D's wireless feature needs some semblance of line-of-sight to operate. Doesn't have to be a perfect straight line, but you might not get 100% reliable operation if you completely hide your Speedlights in the background or up in the rafters.

Thanks Nathan, great input. I think I can definitely pull in some ambient and get the DOF desired at F/4, maybe ISO 800 or 1600-ish and preserve image quality.

I am thinking I may bring a reflective umbrella to give my friend a hard edge, instead of using a shoot-through.

Yep, depends on what look you want. I generally prefer a brolly box (reflective umbrella with diffuser) for most Speedlight portraits, especially women. A shoot-through will be a little harder since it has a hotter center spot and more rapid falloff, but the reflective umbrella without a front diffuser will be even more contrasty, and should work just fine if you have room to set it up.

I've done portraits with a bare Speedlight before too, zoom the head for a nice spotlight effect, and don't get it too far off the subject's nose axis. That will help you control unwanted extra light from getting on the the background, too - the umbrella will likely have a fair amount of spill, especially in a small shop.

ISO800-1600 on the 60D should be plenty workable for a gritty portrait, especially if you add a little grain or texture in post. You might not even need to go that high, though.

Just be careful of mixing ambient + flash on the subject - make sure the ambient isn't lighting him much at all before the flash, or you may have trouble getting decent skin colors.

I do have the cheapo Opteka Speed Grids for really getting an intense spotlight effect from the Speedlites, I'll bring 'em along for the ride I see that you can buy refurb 430exIIs straight from Canon now for like $200... what a steal, I think I will buy an extra one to use with the 60D wireless system.

I do have a 6D + generic triggers, but I'd really prefer not fool around with the flash powers manually, and the transmittance of those triggers is not the best either.