guidance/help

[carper]

Hi, Hope you can give me some guidance I've been asked if I can take some shots of the staff holding their favourite book at my school and at a bit of short notice i.e. tomorrow and Friday the only lighting I have is 2 flashguns and 2 softboxes and a led panel .there's a nice light blue wall in the staff room that I can use as a background or I have a grey pop up one I could use . I've never done this kind of photography before and find it hard to get my head around it. Can anyone help me with some basic settings for the flash and where to place the flashgun's and models and how to not get shadows on the wall
Thanks, Sean

 

[Harlequin565]

What is the natural light like? If there's a big window you could probably do quite a bit with that and maybe a reflector (or big piece of white card).

Reason I ask is that if you're not comfortable with using flash, a last minute "canyoujustdo" job might not be the best place to try and learn.

 

[Sky]

I agree. Using flash takes time, patience and a fair bit of practice, so there's a good chance you'll get dreadful results the first time - especially with the added pressure of it being 'on demand'.

Once you get your head around using flash and understanding the Inverse Square Law, it's very simple and it will improve your photography because you'll finally understand the true relationship between light and exposure that so many photographers don't; even though they think they do.

 

[sk66]

I'm guessing the staff room is fairly small... IMO, your best bet is one flash on camera set to TTL and bounced backwards. You're basically using the entire ceiling/wall behind you as a light source. Many would consider this a giant source and "soft lighting"; I just consider it to be "scene fill" (flat lighting). Either way it's not bad lighting, and it can help a lot. You can combine it with whatever other lighting is available quite easily. It can eat a lot of power; so a smaller room is better (to a point), and plenty of spare batteries.

You could set your second speedlight to bounce off a side wall at a fixed power for a bit more direction/character. This would actually be my first choice typically, in TTL and adding the fill/soft light second as needed; but it's not as "safe/easy."

Any bounced light will take on the color of the surface, but light blue isn't a big deal and AWB should fix it. If the room lights have a significant color difference (e.g incandescents) it introduces other issues... one solution would require geling the more direct speedlight, or using only the speedlights as your (effective) light source. But I would suggest just dropping back to scene fill (then the lighting colors mix more and become more universal/even).

Or go "natural light only" if that's an option... but that doesn't really make it any easier to make better pictures, and it makes you very dependent on the situation at hand.

 

[carper]

Thanks for the reply's the staff room is quite big and bright I had a quick go when I came home and the results weren't that bad so I'm going a bit early tomorrow and set up and have a few test shots you can only try your best

Sean

 

[Phil V]

Quick tip
Don’t use that wall as a BG, use those windows as a light source.
Use your pop up background instead

 

[carper]

Of the back of the camera not to bad hopefully when there they have gone though lightroom
Sean

 

[cargo]

Hiya. I enjoy threads like this. As it's something anyone with a camera maybe asked to do. Even though we may only have a camera for our own enjoyment.
Panic then sets in...

Great you came back to show the results too.

Thanks for sharing.

Gaz