Advice for shooting / lighting dance groups

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Going to be shooting studio portraits later this year for a dance school and although I shoot weddings full time, this is a new venture for me with using studio lighting.

So wanted advice on what kind of backdrop would work well for shooting dance groups up to 20 or so in size? I have use of the dance studio but would rather not show the flooring.

Lights wise I've got a good deal on a second hand kit of these Bowens: https://www.wexphotovideo.com/bowens-gemini-500r-pulsar-tx-twin-head-kit-1528535/

What else would I need? I have speedlights so would I need these to blast the background? Also would I need a trigger to fire everything? I'm using Fuji Xpro2's.

Sorry for the questions and appreciate any advice!
 
Lights wise I've got a good deal on a second hand kit of these Bowens: https://www.wexphotovideo.com/bowens-gemini-500r-pulsar-tx-twin-head-kit-1528535/
Personally, I wouldn't describe that as a good deal at all.
Bowens have gone bust, and although this kit is 'discounted' the price was far too high to start with.
And it's difficult to get spare parts, such as flash tubes, in the future it may become impossible to get repairs done. Even the seller admits (in their question/answer bit) that they don't know whether they will be able to even get flash tubes in the future.
Also, they are far more powerful than you need.

Speedlights aren't ideal to blast the background, and it makes no sense to have powerful, fast-recycling studio flashes to light the subject and weak, slow-recycling speedlights for the background - what you really need is a minimum of 4 studio flashes, if what you want to do is to produce pure white backgrounds.
The speedlights will be useful, but as effect lights - putting a bit of extra light in places.
 
I can get that kit for £450, is it still not worth the bother then? Thanks for the advice though!
 
Going to be shooting studio portraits later this year for a dance school and although I shoot weddings full time, this is a new venture for me with using studio lighting.

So wanted advice on what kind of backdrop would work well for shooting dance groups up to 20 or so in size? I have use of the dance studio but would rather not show the flooring.

Lights wise I've got a good deal on a second hand kit of these Bowens: https://www.wexphotovideo.com/bowens-gemini-500r-pulsar-tx-twin-head-kit-1528535/

What else would I need? I have speedlights so would I need these to blast the background? Also would I need a trigger to fire everything? I'm using Fuji Xpro2's.

Sorry for the questions and appreciate any advice!

Groups of 20? Are they going to be dancing or stationary?
You'll either need an extra wide paper roll & stand or to shoot smaller groups & combine in post. Paper can be really slippy for dancers in motion though, so be careful.

This is going to sound stupid, but you'll only need to light the background if you want it lit differently from the subject.

If it were me.. I'd try to avoid using a backdrop at all. I'd try to light the subjects and hope to use the studio background but let it go dark enough that it didn't really do anything other than add a little texture, but that may not be your brief. If I didn't like the studio floor then I'd choose a really low angle to minimise how it appears.

If you link to some samples of the sort of thing you want to achieve I can give you the benefit of my questionable experience. Or I'll defer to Garry - he knows more about lighting than me but I suspect I know more about dancers ;)
 
No. This is probably a better kit - certainly a little more powerful - and new, and cheaper: https://www.lencarta.com/smartflash-3-softbox-umbrella-lighting-kit-600w

.. but if you want motion-freezing capabilities then look at the Lencarta Superfast stuff. I'm a big fan.
Thanks. I'd be shooting both posed and jumps etc so would want motion freezing certainly. Would you say for the money (i originally only wanted to spend about £500 as have to get backdrops and stands etc too) the Lencarta stuff wins?
 
Groups of 20? Are they going to be dancing or stationary?
You'll either need an extra wide paper roll & stand or to shoot smaller groups & combine in post. Paper can be really slippy for dancers in motion though, so be careful.

This is going to sound stupid, but you'll only need to light the background if you want it lit differently from the subject.

If it were me.. I'd try to avoid using a backdrop at all. I'd try to light the subjects and hope to use the studio background but let it go dark enough that it didn't really do anything other than add a little texture, but that may not be your brief. If I didn't like the studio floor then I'd choose a really low angle to minimise how it appears.

If you link to some samples of the sort of thing you want to achieve I can give you the benefit of my questionable experience. Or I'll defer to Garry - he knows more about lighting than me but I suspect I know more about dancers ;)

mixture of both. probably want bright white background to start off with. this kind of thing....
 

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Thanks. I'd be shooting both posed and jumps etc so would want motion freezing certainly. Would you say for the money (i originally only wanted to spend about £500 as have to get backdrops and stands etc too) the Lencarta stuff wins?

If you time things - e.g. peak of jump - carefully and don't mind the odd blurred hand you don't need the Superfast. If you want to *really* freeze stuff - like my avatar - then you'll need something like it.

Lencarta are an excellent balance between quality, value and customer service. You may find cheaper but you may not get the help when you need it.

mixture of both. probably want bright white background to start off with. this kind of thing....

That looks like a single light - and the foot is too blurred for my taste. I wouldn't call it a bright white background, btw. If you want bright white you'll need 3 or 4 lights, as Garry said. In that case don't be tempted to use slower flash duration lights for the background; the spill can ruin a shot.

A common way to light dancers in motion is a large reflective brolly off to one side of the camera and a white reflector on the other side of the dancer. That gives a large sweet spot - but won't do for large groups.

I'll just add that if you're new to studio lighting then achieving interesting poses, frozen motion and pure white backgrounds of 20 dancers is jumping in at the deep end. You've got some practising to do!
 
Thanks. I'd be shooting both posed and jumps etc so would want motion freezing certainly. Would you say for the money (i originally only wanted to spend about £500 as have to get backdrops and stands etc too) the Lencarta stuff wins?
Yes, much better choice IMO (but be aware that I used to work with Lencarta, so not impartial).
But now that we know that you need to freeze action, the Bowens kit is completely out of the picture, because it simply can't do that even at full power, and it will be worse at the low power settings that you will need to use.
Be aware though that, for freezing action, you can't mix and match different flash units, even though they will work together seamlessly, because each flash head will need to be able to freeze the action.
And another option would be to do without the white background altogether, which will not only make the job much simply but will also reduce the need from 4 lights to 2.
 
Thanks. I'd be shooting both posed and jumps etc so would want motion freezing certainly. Would you say for the money (i originally only wanted to spend about £500 as have to get backdrops and stands etc too) the Lencarta stuff wins?

I think you'll struggle to get two Superfast lights for £500 let alone the other stuff. I spent more than that on mine and bought my stuff either second hand or end-of-line clearance. I can't remember what extra wide backdrop stands go for but probably some hundreds - they need to be much stronger than the smaller ones.

One more thing.. even my normal 2.7m paper backdrops are too narrow, really, for a single dancer in motion. As soon as the dancer gets any distance at all from the backdrop then the angles mean that you get lots of studio crud in the background. Even the extra wide 3.6m jobs wouldn't help much with more than one dancer. When I want really wide I use a custom-made set up with an enormous piece of fabric - or sub stuff out to clipping path asia to cut people out.
 
If you time things - e.g. peak of jump - carefully and don't mind the odd blurred hand you don't need the Superfast. If you want to *really* freeze stuff - like my avatar - then you'll need something like it.

Lencarta are an excellent balance between quality, value and customer service. You may find cheaper but you may not get the help when you need it.



That looks like a single light - and the foot is too blurred for my taste. I wouldn't call it a bright white background, btw. If you want bright white you'll need 3 or 4 lights, as Garry said. In that case don't be tempted to use slower flash duration lights for the background; the spill can ruin a shot.

A common way to light dancers in motion is a large reflective brolly off to one side of the camera and a white reflector on the other side of the dancer. That gives a large sweet spot - but won't do for large groups.

I'll just add that if you're new to studio lighting then achieving interesting poses, frozen motion and pure white backgrounds of 20 dancers is jumping in at the deep end. You've got some practising to do!
haha yep I sure have! I've got time to get this sorted though so looking forward to learning something new
 
I think you'll struggle to get two Superfast lights for £500 let alone the other stuff. I spent more than that on mine and bought my stuff either second hand or end-of-line clearance. I can't remember what extra wide backdrop stands go for but probably some hundreds - they need to be much stronger than the smaller ones.

One more thing.. even my normal 2.7m paper backdrops are too narrow, really, for a single dancer in motion. As soon as the dancer gets any distance at all from the backdrop then the angles mean that you get lots of studio crud in the background. Even the extra wide 3.6m jobs wouldn't help much with more than one dancer. When I want really wide I use a custom-made set up with an enormous piece of fabric - or sub stuff out to clipping path asia to cut people out.
Give Lencarta a ring straight away, last time I was there I saw some ex demo superfasts, and if they still have them then they will be cheap.
 
Thanks Garry I'll give them a call.

So to get me started what kit list would be good?

Superfast light kit https://www.lencarta.com/superfast-pro-short-flash-duration-flash-kit-800w

Backdrop plus stands and clamps.

Do I need a softbox or any other type of modelling dishes etc?

Thanks!
I would suggest a kit with 1 fairly large softbox and 1 reflective umbrella. Lencarta can make you up any kit, to your specific needs, but a kit with 1 of each is very versatile and pretty simple to use.. As your experience increases, you'll get a better idea about the accessories that will be helpful, and can then add them.
 
Personally, I wouldn't describe that as a good deal at all.
Bowens have gone bust, and although this kit is 'discounted' the price was far too high to start with.

£800 is a joke, £500 not too bad though but yeah it's probably a bad idea to invest into Bowens at this point.

And it's difficult to get spare parts, such as flash tubes, in the future it may become impossible to get repairs done. Even the seller admits (in their question/answer bit) that they don't know whether they will be able to even get flash tubes in the future.

Flash tubes aren't a problem although it's not especially cheap:

https://www.phoxene.com/product-category/items-for-bowens/flashtubes-for-gemini-esprit-500-heads/
 
Just one big issue, short duration flash is fine BUT ambient plays a big roll in the overall image and people performing acrobatic dance don’t like doing it in the dark so a balance has to be achieved. Remember that these fast flashes only freeze action at or below X-sync which may be as low as 1/180s

Studio light power with HSS are well above this budget which leaves older slower studio flash synced using tail sync and that can be fairly easy to achieve.

Mike
 
Thanks for the advice guys, have settled on 2 x Lencarta 300 superfast lights and a kit to get started with and then no doubt will be back here asking more questions!
 
Thanks for the advice guys, have settled on 2 x Lencarta 300 superfast lights and a kit to get started with and then no doubt will be back here asking more questions!
Those will do nicely for freezing dancers in flight - just use them at half power or below (IGBT flashes reduce their "power" by shortening the flash duration, so the lfashes get shorter the more you turn them down). If you shoot at say 1/160th at f/5.6, almost all the ambient room lighting will go away (unless they are exceptionally bright lights) and won't impact your images. If you want the ambient in the shot as well as flash, then as Mike says - you'll need a high shutter speed to freeze the ambient (and a corresponding high ISO to get it to show up), and some HSS or Tail Sync capable lights. The SuperFast lights are too fast to do tailsync well - even at full power, and won't do HSS so I'd stick with a flash-only light setup (ie the room ights are on, but don't register due to the camera settings - only the flash is powerful enough to show up).

Here's some dance results using the SuperFast 600's. I shoot them at 1/4 power for dance which gives about the same amount of light and duration as the 300 does at half power. Some of the hots have a continuous light component too (for which you need an otherwise dark room :) )


http://owenlloydphotography.com/?p=2362
http://owenlloydphotography.com/?p=1890
http://owenlloydphotography.com/?p=1554
 
Those will do nicely for freezing dancers in flight - just use them at half power or below (IGBT flashes reduce their "power" by shortening the flash duration, so the lfashes get shorter the more you turn them down). If you shoot at say 1/160th at f/5.6, almost all the ambient room lighting will go away (unless they are exceptionally bright lights) and won't impact your images. If you want the ambient in the shot as well as flash, then as Mike says - you'll need a high shutter speed to freeze the ambient (and a corresponding high ISO to get it to show up), and some HSS or Tail Sync capable lights. The SuperFast lights are too fast to do tailsync well - even at full power, and won't do HSS so I'd stick with a flash-only light setup (ie the room ights are on, but don't register due to the camera settings - only the flash is powerful enough to show up).

Here's some dance results using the SuperFast 600's. I shoot them at 1/4 power for dance which gives about the same amount of light and duration as the 300 does at half power. Some of the hots have a continuous light component too (for which you need an otherwise dark room :) )


http://owenlloydphotography.com/?p=2362
http://owenlloydphotography.com/?p=1890
http://owenlloydphotography.com/?p=1554
Thanks Owen been looking at your work which is really nice and the look I want to achieve. Is it worth investing in a couple of strip soft boxes to achieve the side lit look you do? https://www.lencarta.com/23x91cm-speedlite-flashgun-strip-softbox.
 
Good point! Thanks
But yes - strip boxes are a good choice for dance - especially if you want to minimise background spill. You can make any softbox thinner (from the subjects POV) by turning it away from them for the same thin light effect, but the rest of the light goes somewhere, and unless you operate in a massive space, that light invariably comes back off the walls to spoil your nice dramatic setup - so we have strip-boxes. And grids. You can do the obvious thing and line them up with the bodyline of the dancer, or rotate and tilt them to get different effects taking advanatge of the strip shape which produces hard shadows in one axis and softer in the other. https://neilvn.com/tangents/studio-photography-big-gridded-strip-box-soft-box/ (WARNING - nipple alert!)

I'd be tempted to go for the bigger ones - you can always flag off the bigger one to make it smaller. Maybe one of each size. These new Lencarta ProFold boxes are well made btw, especially for the price - and the addition of D rings on the corners for tying em down outside - fantastic. I suspect someone with some real shooting experience had some input :p Note, though, that they don't come complete - you'll need to buy the grids as well.
 
:)
 
But yes - strip boxes are a good choice for dance - especially if you want to minimise background spill. You can make any softbox thinner (from the subjects POV) by turning it away from them for the same thin light effect, but the rest of the light goes somewhere, and unless you operate in a massive space, that light invariably comes back off the walls to spoil your nice dramatic setup - so we have strip-boxes. And grids. You can do the obvious thing and line them up with the bodyline of the dancer, or rotate and tilt them to get different effects taking advanatge of the strip shape which produces hard shadows in one axis and softer in the other. https://neilvn.com/tangents/studio-photography-big-gridded-strip-box-soft-box/ (WARNING - nipple alert!)

I'd be tempted to go for the bigger ones - you can always flag off the bigger one to make it smaller. Maybe one of each size. These new Lencarta ProFold boxes are well made btw, especially for the price - and the addition of D rings on the corners for tying em down outside - fantastic. I suspect someone with some real shooting experience had some input :p Note, though, that they don't come complete - you'll need to buy the grids as well.

Thanks Owen. so would the 140cm strip soft box be the one to go for in terms of coverage vs price? Don't think I can stretch to the 200cm one. Main thing is if the dancers are doing leaps etc I don't want them jumping out of the light!
 
Personally, I'd prefer at least one bigger one (about 1.8m or more) for dance. You can of course make the spread of light bigger from any light by backing the light off. This changes a couple of other things though which you may not want: the light becomes smaller, and so harder (less wrapping, sharper shadows); overall intensity of the light at the subject will now be less, as the same amount of light has now spread out over a larger area. It also means the rate of fall off across your subject will be less - ie the light will be more even. Now, of course you can solve the first problem by turning the light up, but that then means the duration will be longer, so you may opt to increase the ISO or open up the aperture (and these things also have side effects :) like increasing the brightness of other light sources in the room, and (for ISO) increased noise and less dynamic range). It all depends on what is most important to you for the image, and how much wiggle room you have on each component. eg if you increase the light power and duration - does it actually cause a problem? Is the subject still sharp or do you see movement blur? Is the blur a good thing or not? If you don't want any blur, it's usually best to opt for a bit more ISO instead and keep the light power (and flash duration) low, check the room lights still don't show up (shoot without flash) and accept a bit of noise - tbh on modern cameras a bit more gain (ISO) is perfectly fine.

The biggest problem with backing the light up in my experience though is that it's going to bounce off walls, and ceilings more - and of course you turned it up, or raised the ISO etc so the weaker bounce light now shows up more too - ie you reduce the contrast between your lit subject, and the background. Of course if you want an all-white background and have already thrown lots of light on it then a bit more won't be a problem - but you will still get more light bouncing back onto your subject, destroying shadows etc.. You could turn the background lights down, and this may make the background uneven, but I know that's easy to correct that in post... and so on.. (this is where your brain may start hurting a bit as you try to resolve all the side effects on the fly, whilst not stalling, with your head in your hands and still looking like you are in control and instilling confidence in your subject! :) - the ultimate answer is to have a gigantic studio :p )

Here's a small 140cm strip box lighting a figure in a small room with white walls. then a 1.8m one roughly half the distance away and turned down. See how much darker the room is? In fact at 1.8m the light is physically bigger than the subject, and will still have enough spread to light her from head to toe even if we put it inches away as in the 3rd image :-
Shot-20180113-191240.jpg Shot-20180113-191323.jpg Shot-20180113-192243.jpg

In most of my dance shots, the lights are right on the subject (I just remove them in post) You can also add grids to help contain the light, but then they reduce spread ! Here's the big one with a grid fitted, and power turned up to compensate

Shot-20180113-191618.jpg


Of course you can also use flags - black sheets of something - cardboard, foam-core, plywood etc to channel it to where you need it - effectively you need the soft-box light to "grow" vertically, to cover a figure, but not grow horizontally, so we can put flags the side of the box rather than using a grid, which constrains the light in both dimensions. Think of the flags a bit like massive barn doors :-/

These examples were made in SetALight3D btw - which I highly recommend if you want to try out different lighting and don't have studio, or a subject handy.

Hope this helps - it seems complicated but it becomes second nature with practice.
 
Yes, I'd agree with Owen's post. But one minor point - although ideally I normally have the strip softboxes so close that they're only just out of shot, this isn't always possible with dancers because, even though they're normally very good at what they do, there can be too much movement to allow really close placement of the softboxes. The work around to this is to allow enough space each side. Inevitably, sometimes the shot will have the dancer bang in the middle, in other shots they will be much closer to one softbox than the other, so one side will be much brighter than the other, but it doesn't really matter, because uneven lighting tends to be more dramatic..
It's good to have the 200cm x 27cm strip softbox https://www.lencarta.com/30x200cm-stripbox-profold-folding-strip-softbox (with honeycomb grid) but not only does it cost more, it also takes up a lot of space. It's normally used with their standard 2.6m light stand https://www.lencarta.com/redline-pro-pneumatic-air-damped-light-stand
In practical terms though, the 140cm x 27cm version https://www.lencarta.com/30x140cm-stripbox-profold-folding-strip-softbox2 (which from memory Owen used in the Lencarta studio) is fine for full length with a model, and can also be used with a jumping dancer. It's normally used with the combination light stand https://www.lencarta.com/dual-purpose-combined-low-level-floor-stand at about it's lowest setting, with it almost touching the floor, but the stand can also be extended - obviously there will be an element of trial and error involved, but once you know exactly how high the dancer is going to jump you can adjust the height to suit.
 
Personally, I'd prefer at least one bigger one (about 1.8m or more) for dance. You can of course make the spread of light bigger from any light by backing the light off. This changes a couple of other things though which you may not want: the light becomes smaller, and so harder (less wrapping, sharper shadows); overall intensity of the light at the subject will now be less, as the same amount of light has now spread out over a larger area. It also means the rate of fall off across your subject will be less - ie the light will be more even. Now, of course you can solve the first problem by turning the light up, but that then means the duration will be longer, so you may opt to increase the ISO or open up the aperture (and these things also have side effects :) like increasing the brightness of other light sources in the room, and (for ISO) increased noise and less dynamic range). It all depends on what is most important to you for the image, and how much wiggle room you have on each component. eg if you increase the light power and duration - does it actually cause a problem? Is the subject still sharp or do you see movement blur? Is the blur a good thing or not? If you don't want any blur, it's usually best to opt for a bit more ISO instead and keep the light power (and flash duration) low, check the room lights still don't show up (shoot without flash) and accept a bit of noise - tbh on modern cameras a bit more gain (ISO) is perfectly fine.

The biggest problem with backing the light up in my experience though is that it's going to bounce off walls, and ceilings more - and of course you turned it up, or raised the ISO etc so the weaker bounce light now shows up more too - ie you reduce the contrast between your lit subject, and the background. Of course if you want an all-white background and have already thrown lots of light on it then a bit more won't be a problem - but you will still get more light bouncing back onto your subject, destroying shadows etc.. You could turn the background lights down, and this may make the background uneven, but I know that's easy to correct that in post... and so on.. (this is where your brain may start hurting a bit as you try to resolve all the side effects on the fly, whilst not stalling, with your head in your hands and still looking like you are in control and instilling confidence in your subject! :) - the ultimate answer is to have a gigantic studio :p )

Here's a small 140cm strip box lighting a figure in a small room with white walls. then a 1.8m one roughly half the distance away and turned down. See how much darker the room is? In fact at 1.8m the light is physically bigger than the subject, and will still have enough spread to light her from head to toe even if we put it inches away as in the 3rd image :-
View attachment 118229 View attachment 118230 View attachment 118231

In most of my dance shots, the lights are right on the subject (I just remove them in post) You can also add grids to help contain the light, but then they reduce spread ! Here's the big one with a grid fitted, and power turned up to compensate

View attachment 118232


Of course you can also use flags - black sheets of something - cardboard, foam-core, plywood etc to channel it to where you need it - effectively you need the soft-box light to "grow" vertically, to cover a figure, but not grow horizontally, so we can put flags the side of the box rather than using a grid, which constrains the light in both dimensions. Think of the flags a bit like massive barn doors :-/

These examples were made in SetALight3D btw - which I highly recommend if you want to try out different lighting and don't have studio, or a subject handy.

Hope this helps - it seems complicated but it becomes second nature with practice.
Thanks Owen for the great and informative reply! Very helpful and I'll just pay a bit more now and get a larger strip box, will make life a lot easier going forward I think!
 
Yes, I'd agree with Owen's post. But one minor point - although ideally I normally have the strip softboxes so close that they're only just out of shot, this isn't always possible with dancers because, even though they're normally very good at what they do, there can be too much movement to allow really close placement of the softboxes. The work around to this is to allow enough space each side. Inevitably, sometimes the shot will have the dancer bang in the middle, in other shots they will be much closer to one softbox than the other, so one side will be much brighter than the other, but it doesn't really matter, because uneven lighting tends to be more dramatic..
It's good to have the 200cm x 27cm strip softbox https://www.lencarta.com/30x200cm-stripbox-profold-folding-strip-softbox (with honeycomb grid) but not only does it cost more, it also takes up a lot of space. It's normally used with their standard 2.6m light stand https://www.lencarta.com/redline-pro-pneumatic-air-damped-light-stand
In practical terms though, the 140cm x 27cm version https://www.lencarta.com/30x140cm-stripbox-profold-folding-strip-softbox2 (which from memory Owen used in the Lencarta studio) is fine for full length with a model, and can also be used with a jumping dancer. It's normally used with the combination light stand https://www.lencarta.com/dual-purpose-combined-low-level-floor-stand at about it's lowest setting, with it almost touching the floor, but the stand can also be extended - obviously there will be an element of trial and error involved, but once you know exactly how high the dancer is going to jump you can adjust the height to suit.
Thanks Garry, think Id go for the 140cm one. If I wanted to get a light high and above them ie like the image attached, I know I'd need a boom arm, but light wise is a beauty dish the best for this look? Just compiling a shopping list!
 

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Yes, I'd agree with Owen's post. But one minor point - although ideally I normally have the strip softboxes so close that they're only just out of shot, this isn't always possible with dancers because, even though they're normally very good at what they do, there can be too much movement to allow really close placement of the softboxes. The work around to this is to allow enough space each side. Inevitably, sometimes the shot will have the dancer bang in the middle, in other shots they will be much closer to one softbox than the other, so one side will be much brighter than the other, but it doesn't really matter, because uneven lighting tends to be more dramatic..

Garry's absolutely right of course - I should put some caveats around what I said - most of the shots I've done using strip boxes involved more deliberate and slower dance sequences with the dancer presenting to the light at the start and/or end of the sequence if there's leaping about, the lights will be further away, or in some cases, overhead. I've also used a massive reflective umbrella for a more forgiving field of light for leaps (which will light more of the room). Another advantage of a really large brolly, is you can aim 2 or 3 lights into it to keep the power low on each light and the flash duration down. They are also cheap :)

https://www.lencarta.com/130cm-silver-reflective-deep-parabolic-umbrella
 
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As both the lighting and the shadows show, the attached photo was lit above and behind, which is pretty effective.
A beauty dish is an excellent tool, but be aware that it is a specific, rather than a general one - normal position is pretty close, directly in line with where the head is pointing, and fairly high - this accentuates the cheekbones. That's what it shines at (pun intended) but also works with the image you attached.
 
Yes, I'd agree with Owen's post. But one minor point - although ideally I normally have the strip softboxes so close that they're only just out of shot, this isn't always possible with dancers because, even though they're normally very good at what they do, there can be too much movement to allow really close placement of the softboxes.
.. snip..

I've also used a massive reflective umbrella for a more forgiving field of light for leaps (which will light more of the room).

I use stripboxes a lot. However - with dancers in motion I find that a large octa with just the inner diffuser gives a higher hit rate than stripboxes and generally nicer results than a large reflective umbrella. If I had a truly parabolic brolly I might use that.

A large octa with just the inner diffuser gives a large sweet spot with a nice amount of specularity and a good degree of control. The light is still fairly soft when placed some distance from the dancer - which is necessary to avoid too much fall off when lighting wide shapes. I still have the ability to feather if required - again, this is invaluable when lighting wider shapes.

It also means you can use the lights on lower power so get a shorter flash duration.

e.g.


Bernadette II
by Simon Carter, on Flickr
 
I use stripboxes a lot. However - with dancers in motion I find that a large octa with just the inner diffuser gives a higher hit rate than stripboxes and generally nicer results than a large reflective umbrella. If I had a truly parabolic brolly I might use that.

A large octa with just the inner diffuser gives a large sweet spot with a nice amount of specularity and a good degree of control. The light is still fairly soft when placed some distance from the dancer - which is necessary to avoid too much fall off when lighting wide shapes. I still have the ability to feather if required - again, this is invaluable when lighting wider shapes.

It also means you can use the lights on lower power so get a shorter flash duration.

e.g.


Bernadette II
by Simon Carter, on Flickr
Thanks Owen a large Octa was on my list so v useful to see what it can do.
 
So as a starter list I have the following: (exc backdrops etc)

2 x Superfast 300 flash units

2 x 2.65m light stands

1 x 150cm profold octa softbox with grid

1 x 185 cm umbrella

1 x 140cm profold strip soft box with grid

1 x boom arm

1 x 40cm beauty dish

Anything that I should add or take out of the above? Would I be better off having another strip box instead of the umbrella? Need to be lighting large groups etc as well as individual portraits.

Cheers!
 
So as a starter list I have the following: (exc backdrops etc)

2 x Superfast 300 flash units

2 x 2.65m light stands

1 x 150cm profold octa softbox with grid

1 x 185 cm umbrella

1 x 140cm profold strip soft box with grid

1 x boom arm

1 x 40cm beauty dish

Anything that I should add or take out of the above? Would I be better off having another strip box instead of the umbrella? Need to be lighting large groups etc as well as individual portraits.

Cheers!
That sounds good, the 185cm umbrella will create a lot of unwanted spill, but is useful for large groups.
 
That sounds good, the 185cm umbrella will create a lot of unwanted spill, but is useful for large groups.
Thanks, do you think I’d need the umbrella as part of a kit? Would the large octa do the same job? Not sure what pros and cons there are to either?
 
Fair point, given that you have 2 flash heads...

As for pros and cons, the advantages of an umbrella are low cost, light weight and portability. The shoot through variety can be placed as close as you like to the subject and so can create really soft lighting if required. The big downside of this is that the light spills everywhere.
The reflective variety offer a bit more lighting control but because of their design, the flash head goes between the umbrella and the subject and so can't be placed anywhere near as close, which means that the light can't be as soft.

Softboxes basically produce the advantages of both types of umbrella, i.e. the light from them is well controlled and they can produce soft light when required.
 
So wanted advice on what kind of backdrop would work well for shooting dance groups up to 20 or so in size? I have use of the dance studio but would rather not show the flooring.

I used to work with someone who used a standard (knited fabric to avoid creases) backdrop/train that was 20 feet long. Instead of using it narrow end up, he ran an additional seem along the long end and threaded 2 sets of backdrop cross bars through that. The cross bars were mounted in the normal way at the far ends and he used a backdrop stand with an angle bracket mounted on to it, placed centrally, to prop up the middle area. It is obviously important to make sure the central mounting is very secure and to sand bag everything. The backdrop would then be raised up until it was just touching the floor. This gave a backdrop 15 feet plus long, depending on how you prefer your cloth to be hung, taut or with undulations. If you photograph from a lower position as if looking up at a stage, much of the floor is 'lost' anyway.

In this way it is possible to use the normal floor, or to add in some other surface that is not connected to the backdrop.

This proved very successful for large groups of child and youth dancers, as you got around 10 feet of backdrop height.
 
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