2 X SB900's enough for small portrait?

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EspressoJunkie

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A friend has asked me to do a few portraits of his kids for Christmas presents for his family. It's not paid, but I want to do the best I can for him.

Now I know what I'm doing in a studio shooting products, but I've not much experience doing on location stuff, and not a huge amount of shooting people in that situation!

So I've two options to light this - either use my Neewer flashes (chinese eBay ones!), or borrow one of work's SB900's and so use two SB900's with umbrellas.

I'd imagine that the SB900's are the way to go, but does anyone have any opinions on this?
 
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how are you triggering them?
also nice soft light is good
how old are his kids
the cheaper flashes are fine but I imagine that the quality of light from the Nikon speedlites will be better.
 
It's the light modifiers that make the most difference, so what choices have you got there?

If you're unfamilar with portraits, you'll be better off using something with a modelling light. Some of the heads you can buy quite cheaply on e-bay are perfectly usable within their limitations, and Neewer makes all sorts.
 
>> I imagine that the quality of light from the Nikon speedlites will be better.

Nope. That's just marketing hype. There's really no such thing as quality of light in this context.

SB900s will possibly be easier to use, more reliable and more flexible. But I'd be amazed if anybody could tell any difference in the light.
 
Jonathan is right, 'quality of light' is smoke and mirrors, in the sense that light is light. It's primarily the way that the light is controlled that affects the result.

The only time that 'quality' becomes an issue is if the light is inconsistent, in terms of either colour or power, between flashes.
 
JonathanRyan said:
>> I imagine that the quality of light from the Nikon speedlites will be better.

Nope. That's just marketing hype. There's really no such thing as quality of light in this context.

SB900s will possibly be easier to use, more reliable and more flexible. But I'd be amazed if anybody could tell any difference in the light.
Click to expand...

Fully agree here. The Yongnuo 560 MKII are insanely simple to use if you are a manual only freak.
 
What everyone else has said really, it's all about control, i can't see any reason why you couldn't get some very good head and shoulder portraits with 2 SB900,s in fact you could get some decent shots with 1 under the right circumstances, ie if there was some ambeint light used too, but if you have access to 2 all the better :)
 
This image was obtained using just two speedlights.

ProHair2012_127.jpg


A walkthrough can be found here.

The main limiting factor with speedlights is bright ambient light.
 
Greg, softboxes for speedlights are pretty cheap. Usually around £45, but ensure you get one with an inner diffuser panel. (I mean cheap when compared to studio softboxes).
Your reflective brolley can provide the accent light, such as was used here.
Your shoot through is less useful than you may have anticipated, mainly because it throws light pretty much everywhere, so is far less controllable.

Simple setups tend to work best. If you over complicate things, it can show in the image, or just plain let you down.
 
What can I add that hasn't already been said? :)

Apart from the fact that I'm an absolute location junkie, and this year I've mostly had to leave the big battery pack and heads behind and use a couple of speed lights on my travels instead. There is loads you can do with even one speed light and the right modifiers, and I would certainly agree with Michael that a softbox is a great piece of kit to have in your small light armoury. I always take mine if I'm shooting with speed lights, even if I decide that I'm going to use bare flash as my main light. :)

I also shot some campaign images for transit/bus shelter sized ads recently using a single speedlight and a shoot through brolly so anything is possible. :thumbs: BUT, umbrellas are easy to blow over out on location and I mangled one during the shoot. No sandbags and no assistant that evening so I had to take the risk with the wind, but the images were in the can. This is another reason to prefer a softbox. They bounce better! :)

Examples.

2 x speedlight. One bare behind and right of subject. One Ezybox softbox camera left.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/irritablerabbit/8192200712/] Speedlight by IrritableRabbit, on Flickr[/URL]

2 x speedlight. One bare just off axis camera right. The other giving the smallest fill from a softbox camera left.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/irritablerabbit/8191115073/] Speedlight-3 by IrritableRabbit, on Flickr[/URL]
 
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I have nowhere near the quality of some of the images above - but I'll add a tip I discovered recently.

When I was forced to work without an assistant recently - I was concerned about the lightstand / brolly security in the breeze. So I took the tripod instead and hung my camera bag off the hook on the centre column.:thumbs: Much heavier and more stable than a lightstand, and no extra sandbag weight to carry;)

All it took was a £.99 Karabina to make it manageable.
 
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One SB-800 through a 28" Westcott Apollo - no issues with overall power, although I did have the luxury of a static subject that I could get the softbox really tight to.


Pellets by Pat MacInnes, on Flickr

As you can see from the EXIF, I was near the top end of my sync speed but had the desired f-number and still had a stop of light in reserve (flash was at 1/2).


Pellets (set-up_ by Pat MacInnes, on Flickr

I had the luxury of a voice-activated light steadier as you can see the feet in the bottom corner. Usually I fit softboxes to a tripod using a two-way spigot for stability.
 
Hi Greg, I have a SB-900, SB-700 and stands, brolly and Westcott Apollo if you want the lend.. give me shout.. Should be more than capable to do portraits with them.

Adam
 
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you can do the best work you've ever seen with 2 lights and an umbrella

in fact sometimes I question why i've even bought a 3rd speedlite

DSC_3695-Edit-2_o.jpg

you can do great work with just one too
 
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