Show us your setup and the final result!

I just spent several days reading hundreds of pages of this thread. I learned more than an entire university photography class - and it was cheaper, too!

Don't believe every thing you read on the internet.

Alveric wrote in post #17996271
Large group photo.

Hosted photo: posted by Alveric in
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forum: Flash and Studio Lighting

wow! Nice job! Talk about bounce! What did you use on the sides of the room to bounce off?

ptcanon3ti wrote in post #17996504
wow! Nice job! Talk about bounce! What did you use on the sides of the room to bounce off?

The walls....?

@Alveric

It not a real bounce and two thirds is direct light and can see that by looking at the sharpness of the shadows on both sides and at the top.

To avoid this you can bounce completely or use strips of translucent fabric in front of the flash to soften/blend the two types of light.

Also you could put the side flashes higher if the is enough space so that the shadows fall behind the person or object.

Now you have a very good picture and the client will not notice the points on which can be improved. So job well done.

Edit. I noticed now that you also posted the picture in an other part of POTN and you got similar input to the picture I read now.

mmmfotografie wrote in post #17996558
The walls....?

@Alveric

It not a real bounce and two thirds is direct light and can see that by looking at the sharpness of the shadows on both sides and at the top.

To avoid this you can bounce completely or use strips of translucent fabric in front of the flash to soften/blend the two types of light.

Also you could put the side flashes higher if the is enough space so that the shadows fall behind the person or object.

Now you have a very good picture and the client will not notice the points on which can be improved. So job well done.

No not the walls. Unless the huge white panels on the walls are actually a part of the walls. I was wondering what the huge white panels are.

ptcanon3ti wrote in post #17996583
No not the walls. Unless the huge white panels on the walls are actually a part of the walls. I was wondering what the huge white panels are.

Thy look like part of the wall, if you look past those panels to the corner, that smaller section also has white panels in it.

ptcanon3ti wrote in post #17996583
No not the walls. Unless the huge white panels on the walls are actually a part of the walls. I was wondering what the huge white panels are.

Yup, those are the hall's walls.

mmmfotografie wrote in post #17996558
The walls....?

@Alveric

It not a real bounce and two thirds is direct light and can see that by looking at the sharpness of the shadows on both sides and at the top.

To avoid this you can bounce completely or use strips of translucent fabric in front of the flash to soften/blend the two types of light.

Also you could put the side flashes higher if the is enough space so that the shadows fall behind the person or object.

Now you have a very good picture and the client will not notice the points on which can be improved. So job well done.

Edit. I noticed now that you also posted the picture in an other part of POTN and you got similar input to the picture I read now.

Actually, I didn't intend a 100% bounce. I wanted to have some 'fill' coming from the main strobe as well, so I angled it a wee bit downwards so that I could use the tail of the light as fill –and as contrast puncher as well. I thought of fixing a bounce 'card' to the 9" reflector (à la flashgun), but in the end I didn't: I'm still wondering how it would have looked. Thanks for the tips, though: there's always room for improvement.

Some diy ringlights as main light, the 3rd light in the back is a fresnel spot for kick. Shot in a parkade

This was a quick 10 minute setup and shoot with my son. I wanted to get a couple of photos I could put into Mother's Day cards for the mothers in my life.

53" thunder grey seamless background
1 speedlite, camera left with a 45 degree grid @ 1/32 power
1 speedlite, inside 28" softbox, camera right @ 1/2 power

Shot with:
Fuji XT-1
Fuji XF 56mm f/1.2 (85mm) @ f/5.6
ISO 400
1/180s shutter speed

processed for a vintage feel. I was wanting something like the old LIFE magazines I used to see.

I forgot to take a pic of the setup, but I did diagram it.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FZbw​Ga

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GUAJ​2v

That's great. Mind sharing more the processing?

lol, I knew that question would come up... unfortunately I can't remember lol. I was doing the processing around midnight. I did the processing in lightroom, and after I was finished with one photo, I simply sync'd it to the rest. I'll have to go back when I get home next week and see if I can decipher it from the history. The reason it was a quick shoot is that I'm out of town from today through Monday for an extended weekend up in Washington DC with my wife and son. I wanted to get these pics done and sent out with Mother's Day cards.

I shot it with my Fuji XT-1, so I did have a base start with setting camera calibration in lightroom to Classic Chrome.

PLLphotography wrote in post #17997614
lol, I knew that question would come up... unfortunately I can't remember lol. I was doing the processing around midnight. I did the processing in lightroom, and after I was finished with one photo, I simply sync'd it to the rest. I'll have to go back when I get home next week and see if I can decipher it from the history. The reason it was a quick shoot is that I'm out of town from today through Monday for an extended weekend up in Washington DC with my wife and son. I wanted to get these pics done and sent out with Mother's Day cards.

I shot it with my Fuji XT-1, so I did have a base start with setting camera calibration in lightroom to Classic Chrome.

Cool - enjoy your vacation! Love the shots / edits. Thanks for sharing.

Alveric wrote in post #17996271
Large group photo.

Hosted photo: posted by Alveric in
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forum: Flash and Studio Lighting

This reminds me of my less effective try at an big group inside.

Little backstory:

I set this alien bee up in that upper floor early to try to get some different looks for dancing, speeches ect. After the ceremony it started to rain and I was informed by the wedding planner that the waitstaff has to clear the ceremony location but in the event of rain and the guests have to be "stalled" wile they do so. They stalled them by making an announcement that the photographer wants to take a big group photo in the main room... knowing my light was up stairs I ran up and tilted it up to try to bounce off the ceiling a bit and directed this shot. Gotta roll with the bunches.

DThriller wrote in post #17997643
This reminds me of my less effective try at an big group inside.

Little backstory:

I set this alien bee up in that upper floor early to try to get some different looks for dancing, speeches ect. After the ceremony it started to rain and I was informed by the wedding planner that the waitstaff has to clear the ceremony location but in the event of rain and the guests have to be "stalled" wile they do so. They stalled them by making an announcement that the photographer wants to take a big group photo in the main room... knowing my light was up stairs I ran up and tilted it up to try to bounce off the ceiling a bit and directed this shot. Gotta roll with the bunches.

Hosted photo: posted by DThriller in
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forum: Flash and Studio Lighting

Hosted photo: posted by DThriller in
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forum: Flash and Studio Lighting

It's not bad, actually. Without trying to be smug, I have to note that in your case the hard shadows on the back wall under the bannister do look like extra people, but they could be easily cloned out without the image being made jarring, after all you only have two of them.

When you shoot from a high angle, it's best that the light comes directly from above, or you risk having shadows on people's faces, or worse: spooky lighting.

Heya,

So, it's Mother's Day, which means we have to do our annual session. This means selfie with mom & baby. Anyone ever trying to do selfies with familes at home know the struggle is real. Well, to make it as easy and simple as possible this year, I planned a little ahead and made it easy on myself so that the only variable was really going to be the 2.5 year old's mood. I left mom & baby inside to play, stay in the AC, get dressed, fiddle around, while I set everything up outside and got everything placed, metered, and tested, ready to go the moment they walk out and get into position and it really went smooth for once (it normally is a fight with the 2.5 year old!). I wanted to do it late evening, around 7pm (Florida) for that warm light, but also for the angle of the sun to be basically "perfect hair" light. Granted, it's not perfect probably, but it was very close to falling just right. This was done on our property, we have a big 5 acre field of weeds and various wild flowers that are great for this kind of stuff.

Setup:

Lighting & Exposure:

Before 7pm, I ran outside and started mapping out locations for subject, light and camera relative to where the sun would be located and relative to the natural weeds and flowers to get a pleasing ambient environment. I'm using a 600ws Rovelight 600B and I didn't want to use HSS because there was going to be zero down time fiddling with exposures and getting it right by chimping. To avoid that, I used manual mode (normal) and simply used a 3 stop ND filter (Marumi). I metered ambient light at 1/200s (sync speed), F2.8 (for isolation and the look), ISO 100 (base) with the 3 stop ND filter and it was just a wee bit to the right of 0, with partial metering, so I had room to spare as the light fell (normally would have needed 1/1600s shutter to get the same ambient exposure, hence the use of the 3 stop ND to keep me at sync speed of 1/200s).

To get the strobe light metered right, I used a Sekonic L478D light meter which makes it simple. I set it to 1/200s and ISO 100 and it gives me the F value of the light output. My aperture is F2.8, with a 3 stop ND filter, which means it's really -3 stops of light to make up, so the meter needs to read F2.8 - 3 stops, so really it needs to meter F8. So I changed the values on the strobe (remotely with the stock transceiver which I keep in my pocket, not to trigger, just to control output values) until I metered F8 on the light meter in the relative location where the subjects would be standing.

I had my light placed to act as key/fill as needed to the camera right, opposing the sun's natural rim light (hair in this case) to get that pleasing opposition look, with sun falling on camera left. I did not use gels this time, as I planned on it being darker, so I could just change the temperature in post and be done. Light is a Rovelight 600B. Modifier is a 47" Neewer (Godox) Brolly Box (very light weight and big and portable). Stand is a Cheetah Boom Stand.

Subject & Equipment Placement:

I wanted the sun on camera/subject left, so that it created hair lights naturally. I slammed an old broken rake into the ground where I planned on the subjects (me, mom & baby) to be so that I could get distance for the light and camera placement done, relative to the sun, and have it ready and in place. I metered where the rake was with my light meter to get the light output I knew I would need. The light was placed very high, to camera right, and angled down a bit, with a counter weight (soda cans & water bottles in a bag). I had to do a few repositions by looking through my viewfinder at camera location to get it placed right, but also enough out of the field of view to be able to crop it out without loss of important data. The stand itself was staked down with 9" nylon stakes & 24" bungee cables so that it would not topple in the wind. It held solid.

Camera was on a tripod in portrait orientation to get some eye level flowers in the frame, slightly under subjects with cropping room (always leave room to crop when doing selfies and/or dealing with kids right? Doing both here, so yes!). Camera is a 5D classic (1/200s, F2.8, ISO 100) in One Shot AF drive (this is needed to be able to properly focus & trip the shutter remotely), white balance was ignored and I'm shooting in RAW so that I could change it later. Lens is Canon 200 F2.8L, with a 3 stop Marumi ND filter, and a rubber hood. Transceivers for the light are basic Yongnuo RF603c's, the one on the Rovelight is connected with a pc sync cable. The remote shutter is a generic Pixel Oppilas wireless shutter release.

Equipment:

Camera: Canon 5D Classic (ambient exposure settings: 1/200s, F2.8, ISO 100) + Canon 200mm F2.8L + 3 Stop ND Marumi Filter.
Accessories: Pixel Oppilas remote shutter release; Benro A2970F Tripod + Smith & Victor BH8 head.
Light: Rovelight 600B (1/4th power) + 47" Neewer (Godox) Brolly Box + Cheetah Boom Stand + Counter weight & bungee stakes.
Transmitters: Yongnuo RF603's (on the Rovelight it is attached via pc sync cable); I use the Rovelight stock transmitter as a remote power controller only.
Meter: Sekonic L478D (metered light to F8 (F2.8 - 3 stops from the ND filter).

Images of the Setup:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GTkD​qt

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GWki​zy

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GZhf​vK

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/G4Vx​HP

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/G4VC​ZR

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GzbT​fh

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GR2P​d3

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GR2T​ih