Advice on Am Dram shoot on a staircase

[mikeyw]

Hi Guys,

I'm doing a shoot next week of some characters for an Amateur dramatic society production of hello dolly.

They've chosen and old grand staircase for the promotional shots.

My questions is what sort of light technique would be best suited for a staircase shoot ?

I've not seen the lcoation yet but i'm assuming it will be a large staircase with no ceiling area low enough to bounce flash from so i'm faced with shooting my D90 with SB600 on camera with a difuser or off camera on a stand and try and bring some light back off the staircase wall (this could prove tricky to control)

Have people any experience of this scenario and and advice on how best to get some goo results here ?

Probably use my primes 50mm/F1.8 & 85/F1.8 for a combination of head and full length shots.

Any advice very much appreciated.

TIA,
Mike.

ps Sounds like these might be quite a high brow group so any tips on lightening the mood would really help as well

 

[THE-BIG-MAN-SAYS]

Not got much experience hands on...been doin a lot of readin & some studio...

If its a cast youll need a big depth of field to keep everyone in focus...so bright light...on full...sofen/big reflector brolly...but in order to keep the shadows at bay under the eyes...prob straight on...so just above you shootin...can you borrow another flash...?
Dont know if this is any help...???

On another note...can you get numbers of people...similar or same venue to try it out on...
Ok...not been that much help...but at least some food for thought...

STEVIER

 

[mikeyw]

THanks for that - only a small group thankfully so individual shots of the key players only with a couple of the group of 6 people.

I have a set of reflecters and an LED studio light so i could reflect some LED light onto them, i've a shoot through umbrella but can't see a way of incorporating this into the shoot.

 

[itsdavedotnet]

If you're lighting a group, you need to get a decent aperture value, so that you don't have shallow depth of field.

Your LED light likely won't be too useful for the group shot, your best bet may well be to bounce your sb600 off the ceiling or wall - depends on what's around. If need be, you can use CLS to wirelessly trigger it.

For individual shots, a pretty common setup is a diffused (so use an umbrella / bounce the light) light on one side, and up a bit and some fill on the other side with the reflector... all depends what you're going for really.

edit: just re-read, no bounce. damn. Try it anyway, you sb600s are more powerful than you think. Sit at iso 400 and you might be surprised. Put a stofen on your sb600 and point it up, the little bit coming out the front often gives you a nice bit of on-axis fill on their faces. Only time I've lit a big group (40 odd) on stairs, there were two levels of nice white ceilings that we bounced from, and we pumped 600ws of light into the scene...

 

[mikeyw]

Guys - i've now got a pic of the staircase....any thoughts on how to approach this one ?

I've got one of those plastic velcro attached bouncers - might go with that i think.

 

[awp]

6 people shouldn't be any problem - looks like there is ceiling to bounce off too. If they are going to be in costume - you might want to light it 'in period'.

How much time are they giving you for the shoot? If you have enough time I'd be using studio flash units for this.

Just a question out of interest - how did you get this job when you don't really have the knowledge or equipment to shoot it?