Wedding formals strobe setup & examples

I took the setup pic for myself, posting it and a few examples of groups with strobes because I thought people might be interested. Beware not to use this setup for big groups else faces of people in the rear will be in shadow - in that case put one strobe directly over the camera. I had no big groups so no problem.

In general I love strobes for group shots, if there's time to set them up. I usually arrive early, set them up, test them, meter them, then put them out of the way. I set them up in a few minutes for the group shots, stash them again, then tear them down after i'm done for the day.

Setup

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Thank you for the sample images. Very instructive. The bride image is very nice with that use of DOF.

Awesome Tim... I've been wanting to take the AB's out for a while now and this just makes me want to do it more. I couldn't agree more as well with having the strobe above the camera for the large group shots. It only take a minute to move a strobe and stand. Oh hey, off the subject but I think I'm converting to RAW...long story. Tell ya later....good stuff though above.

great stuff tim, thanks for showing. can you imagine encountering many problems if one used hotshoe flashes in place of strobes (other than needing a ton of batteries)? I was planning on using a couple of nikon speedlights to accomplish a similar goal (a-la the Strobist).

I've used speedlites before, they're nowhere near as powerful, which is a problem when they're diffused. With this setup I was getting F10 at ISO 200. I'd quite like a White Lightening X3200 strobe, so I can get a bunch more power for single light formals. I'd like to get ISO 100 F8 when the strobe's a bit out of the way if possible.

Great set up. It looked dark in the room. That's always tricky. I did have to use the speedlites with umbrellas and it worked very well, but you are right, not as powerful as your set up. I do love a big umbrella. Those 60 inch jobs are very useful.

Thanks Tim for the photos.

How did you come up w/ the exposure? is it from a flashmeter? or just distance and flash output???

I use a flash meter, then tweak the histogram. I make sure there are no flashies, then back off another half a stop because I think the flashies are inaccurate.

It wasn't bright in the room at all, plus one of my modelling lights stopped working between setup and use! Ambient exposure was about 1/40th ISO800 F2.8.

thanks for sharing this tim. i'm always interested to see others' setup, since i'm definitely a beginner when it comes to lighting. does it take you long to set this up ?

It would take me 10-20 minutes or so to set up from their storage bags, I never really timed it. It takes 10-15 minutes or so to pack everything away.