What to use on my first "photoshoot"....two parts and question about flash

Ok, so I am shooting a friend in lingerie, I have come to the conclusion that in my backyard, with all of the trees, its hard to get the "perfect" picture with the ever changing lighting, and when I take flash pictures (although I am scared of indoor and flash pictures) although the people are way to lit up, I like the colors and the crispness of the images, and if I wanna go pro one day, I need to get over it, we are doing part one tomorrow, inside, in a girls bedroom, so most shots will stay in color, a friend is letting me borrow their 11-16, is a wide angle appropriate for the lingerie type shots I am going to be doing? My lenses that would be in the indoor range are the kit lens and the 50mm 1.8. I cannot decide between doing the 11-16 or the 50.

Someone is selling a flash that I am more than likely going to buy, its a 420ex, that should last me awhile, so when we do part two, its going to be outside far back in the woods, if I used the external, is it a setting that makes it so the flash is balanced or do I need things like umbrellas? I am going to try to get most of what I need soon because I have my first pro photoshoot with 3 models in waterfalls in the woods on the 20th of this month.

I see umbrellas are relatively cheap, would it be better to use those? Or the pole lights? (I am sure there is a technical name for it)

Sorry for all of the questions, I am just trying to get things I need that I can afford that will last me quite awhile.

AprilArchambeau wrote in post #10123342
a friend is letting me borrow their 11-16, is a wide angle appropriate for the lingerie type shots I am going to be doing? My lenses that would be in the indoor range are the kit lens and the 50mm 1.8. I cannot decide between doing the 11-16 or the 50.

Unless you are going for intentionally distorted perspective (hard to imagine with a lingerie shoot) I would avoid the 11-16.

Your camera has a pop-up flash that you can actually use quite effectively for outdoor fill flash, but indoors its less than flattering.

Another cheap idea for shooting outdoors is a large white foam board to use as a reflector.

You might want to ask to have this moved to the Small Flash and Studio Lighting forum, they are full of good ideas in there...

AprilArchambeau wrote in post #10123342
Ok, so I am shooting a friend in lingerie, I have come to the conclusion that in my backyard, with all of the trees, its hard to get the "perfect" picture with the ever changing lighting, and when I take flash pictures (although I am scared of indoor and flash pictures) although the people are way to lit up, I like the colors and the crispness of the images, and if I wanna go pro one day, I need to get over it, we are doing part one tomorrow, inside, in a girls bedroom, so most shots will stay in color, a friend is letting me borrow their 11-16, is a wide angle appropriate for the lingerie type shots I am going to be doing? My lenses that would be in the indoor range are the kit lens and the 50mm 1.8. I cannot decide between doing the 11-16 or the 50.

Someone is selling a flash that I am more than likely going to buy, its a 420ex, that should last me awhile, so when we do part two, its going to be outside far back in the woods, if I used the external, is it a setting that makes it so the flash is balanced or do I need things like umbrellas? I am going to try to get most of what I need soon because I have my first pro photoshoot with 3 models in waterfalls in the woods on the 20th of this month.

I see umbrellas are relatively cheap, would it be better to use those? Or the pole lights? (I am sure there is a technical name for it)

Sorry for all of the questions, I am just trying to get things I need that I can afford that will last me quite awhile.

In no particular order,
You dont want to use the 11-16, its an ultra wide. Any wide angle lens will exaggerate things closer to the camera and dimish those farther away. To the point where a models nose looks bigger and her ears smaller. Stick with something at least 35MM or longer on a crop, 50 on FF.

Yes you need umbrellas or softboxes to control your flash, and a method of triggering your flash if you dont have one already.

You really dont want the 420ex as it is ettl only. It doesnt have manual controls so its on full power all the time if you use radio triggers. Its fine for on camera use, or possibly with canon's wireless system, but its not very versatile so unless its a remarkable deal you might want to consider another option.

Ok, all in all it went ok, but we ended up doing it in a living room, and the 50mm I did not really like, I did not having to be so far away to get her whole body, I may look into something a bit shorter for these types of pictures so I can be closer.

One problem I had is when I did not use a flash the shutter was too slow and her face was a bit blurred, some flash pictures came out well.

I am still confused on the flash situation, not quite sure what to do there.

April-

I have read your posts in the past, and I see that you are still interested in the hobby and still developing technique, which is good. I am, however, reminded of the words of Misha Mikhaylov (Korrektor on POTN) who describes the "rooms" of evolution of photography. Room 1 is very introductory, Room 2 is Obsession with Gear, Room 3 is lighting, and so on...

But before I get off track, let's talk about your lingerie shoot. As noted above, the 11-16 is going to cause some crazy distortion, and is going to be very unflattering to a model. A 50 mm f/1.8 is good, but only if your room is big enough and you know how to use it. After all, if the room is too small, you're going to be stuck with head-and-shoulder shots, and you'll never get all of that lingerie (and the model, of course ) in the frame.

Which leaves us with the kit lens, which I've noticed that you've kind of disregarded. The 18-55 is quite sharp when you have a good copy of it - there is no "magical" quality about it, but it is sharp.

So now let's talk about light. This can be dangerous because it can lead down the road of gear acquisition syndrome, and we've all been there - trying to overcome our shortcomings by buying more equipment. You can do some amazing things with a simple strobist set-up (strobist.blogspot.com​) but you can also do some magnificent things with window lighting, or by simply bouncing an on-camera flash into the corner of the room, which at least makes the light soft and directional. (Just make sure you have a flash with bolt tilt and swivel.)

Lastly, I agree with the above - you need a manual flash. I started with a 380EX because I wanted E-TTL (TTL stands for "Through-the-lens") which calculates appropriate flash strength for you. You want more control over your light than that, which means you'll definitely want to be able to manually set your flash. When the flash is on-camera, you can achieve some of this by adjusting FEC (Flash Exposure Compensation) but it's a little tedious - and it won't work at all when off-camera. I bought a couple of cheap (< $40) third-party flashes for better control.

Good luck with your shoot. Please consider pouring through the wealth of information on POTN, especially this thread:

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=412392

Those are things that people did with one light. Now granted, for some people "one light" is a very impressive 1600W beast, but for many others, it's a simple off-brand speedlight.

AprilArchambeau wrote in post #10126704
Ok, all in all it went ok, but we ended up doing it in a living room, and the 50mm I did not really like, I did not having to be so far away to get her whole body, I may look into something a bit shorter for these types of pictures so I can be closer.

One problem I had is when I did not use a flash the shutter was too slow and her face was a bit blurred, some flash pictures came out well.

I am still confused on the flash situation, not quite sure what to do there.

The key is a bigger room, not a wider lens. You might get her all in with a wider lens, but at what cost? Making her look distorted by using a wider lens defeats the purpose of having a model in lingerie.

You also need to have your camera in M, and the flash in ettl in those circumstances. Using the flash with the camera in AV means the camera reads the exposure as if the flash wasnt present, then only adds enough flash for fill.