First try in my home studio (Need some advice)

ndwgolf

ndwgolf

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Neil Williams
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Guys Im looking for some advice on placement of my two only modifiers for full body and head and shoulder portraits . For this and all my shots I had the 50cm Beauty dish about 50 cm from my girlfriends face slightly above and pointing down at about 45 degrees. The second light is a 1.5m strip box and that was positioned on the left side (from camera) at about a 45 degree angle again about 50 cm away from my girlfriend. See diagram below
Screenshot 2023-06-17 at 21.11.55.pngScreenshot-2023-06-17-at-20.56.46.jpg
I really can't go any higher with the beauty dish but left or right and back no problems, the strip light can be moved anywhere. These were shot with my Nikon Z9 and Z85:1.2 at F8 1/250 ISO64 The beauty dish had a power setting of 9.5 and the strip box was at 7.5......... both strobes are Profoto B1 heads gen 1

Thanks

Neil
 
The beauty dish position is about right, but the striplight (which presumably is intended to be a fill light) is in entirely the wrong position. It needs to be on-axis with the camera, i.e ideally just behind the camera.

Where it is, it doesn't and can't act as a fill and is providing a conflicting light source that makes it look as though you're on a planet with two suns . . . It's also a bit too bright.
Hope this helps.
 
I think this is a very nice result but as Garry says, I think it would be even better with the fill light on-axis. In fact, if you put the strip-box horizontally, centred on-axis and below, you'll have a classic beauty setup usually referred to as "clamshell" lighting (as the two lights make up the two halves of a clam - or something - I have no time for these named lighting setups tbh) (of course it needs to be dimmer than the key light or you'll get monster light, which Fon won't thank you for :) )

I'll just leave this here too - if you want to play around with lighting really quickly, I find set.a.light.3D to be incredibly valuable

set.a.light 3D - Lighting Simulator for photographers & filmmakers

set.a.light 3D revolutionizes the way modern photographers and filmmakers plan their setups. For Mac & Windows.
www.elixxier.com www.elixxier.com
 
Scooter said:
. In fact, if you put the strip-box horizontally, centred on-axis and below, you'll have a classic beauty setup usually referred to as "clamshell" lighting (as the two lights make up the two halves of a clam - or something - I have no time for these named lighting setups tbh) (of course it needs to be dimmer than the key light or you'll get monster light, which Fon won't thank you for :) )
Click to expand...
Would I be better off installing the grid in the strip box, or just leave it as a strip light
Scooter said:
I think this is a very nice result but as Garry says, I think it would be even better with the fill light on-axis. In fact, if you put the strip-box horizontally, centred on-axis and below, you'll have a classic beauty setup usually referred to as "clamshell" lighting (as the two lights make up the two halves of a clam - or something - I have no time for these named lighting setups tbh) (of course it needs to be dimmer than the key light or you'll get monster light, which Fon won't thank you for :) )

I'll just leave this here too - if you want to play around with lighting really quickly, I find set.a.light.3D to be incredibly valuable

set.a.light 3D - Lighting Simulator for photographers & filmmakers

set.a.light 3D revolutionizes the way modern photographers and filmmakers plan their setups. For Mac & Windows.
www.elixxier.com www.elixxier.com
Click to expand...
what about like this. Lay the strip box on the floor tilting up a wee bitty directly under the beauty dish
 

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ndwgolf said:
Would I be better off installing the grid in the strip box, or just leave it as a strip light

what about like this. Lay the strip box on the floor tilting up a wee bitty directly under the beauty dish
Click to expand...
Yep point it more or less straight up - maybe tilted in a bit towards your model. No grid. I think the lights need to be closer to your model than your diagram shows (but play around with this - move them back and forth, up and down etc)

Make the background darker by moving model+ lights + camera further away from it :)
 
Scooter said:
Yep point it more or less straight up - maybe tilted in a bit towards your model. No grid. I think the lights need to be closer to your model than your diagram shows (but play around with this - move them back and forth, up and down etc)

Make the background darker by moving model+ lights + camera further away from it :)
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot Owen.............I will give this a try on Monday. I love this 85mm lens but maybe not the ideal focal length for a smallish studio......... I can barley fit all of Fon in the frame :)
 
ndwgolf said:
How would I do that. Move Fon further away from the background or change something in the camera settings?
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Move everything further from backgound/Faster shutter speed/smaller aperture. Play around and see what works....
 
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Bobsyeruncle said:
Move everything further from backgound/Faster shutter speed/smaller aperture. Play around and see what works....
Click to expand...
The shutter speed and aperture won't affect the background (or anything else) but yes, create greater separation between subject and background if you want a darker background.
This works because of the effect of the Inverse Square Law, because (unwanted) light aimed at the subject will affect the background far less with a greater distance.

But that's secondary. The main thing that you need to do is to reposition that strip softbox, which is in entirely the wrong place.
 
Garry Edwards said:
The shutter speed and aperture won't affect the background (or anything else) but yes, create greater separation between subject and background if you want a darker background.
This works because of the effect of the Inverse Square Law, because (unwanted) light aimed at the subject will affect the background far less with a greater distance.

But that's secondary. The main thing that you need to do is to reposition that strip softbox, which is in entirely the wrong place.
Click to expand...
I intend to move it here (in green). Is that going to do the trick?
 

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ndwgolf said:
I intend to move it here (in green). Is that going to do the trick?
Click to expand...
Yes.
Be aware that (within reason) the closer the lights are to this kind of subject, the better. And the closer they are, the more dramatic the effects of even tiny changes to distance, height and direction, so be prepared to experiment
 
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Bobsyeruncle said:
If the shutter and aperture are set to underexpose the background and lights controlled to only light the subject then surely they will effect the background?
I've done this to achieve a dark background in a room....
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Any "normal" reduction to the shutter speed is irrelevant when using flash, all that really matters is that it synchronises to the flash.
Using a smaller aperture to reduce the exposure on the background will have exactly the same effect on the foreground, so that's a no too.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Any "normal" reduction to the shutter speed is irrelevant when using flash, all that really matters is that it synchronises to the flash.
Using a smaller aperture to reduce the exposure on the background will have exactly the same effect on the foreground, so that's a no too.
Click to expand...
Ah, ok. It was a few years since I took that pic, and I thought I remembered exposing so the background was black, then introduced the light and set the power so it exposed my son the way I wanted. There was some light spillage on the background and I was sure setting f16 rather than my usual f8 made the background darker......it's all very confusing for us mere mortals :ROFLMAO:
 
Thanks for all the help guys............Here is my first attempt with the new settings NSFW https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...-with-my-home-made-studio.749882/post-9346420 We are both chuffed to bits with the results
I moved my girlfriend further away from the background +/- 1.5m, I moved the strip light to be lying flat directly under the beauty dish pointing up slightly and shot at 1/250 F8 ISO 64 as per the picture below
IMG_2631.jpg
 
Hi Neil - the strip box needs to be pointing straight up underneath the beauty dish (and close enough to touch your model) for the classic beauty light. You will get some fill light with it like that, but it'll be a bit uneven.
 
Scooter said:
Hi Neil - the strip box needs to be pointing straight up underneath the beauty dish (and close enough to touch your model) for the classic beauty light. You will get some fill light with it like that, but it'll be a bit uneven.
Click to expand...
Okay Owen I will try that next time......cheers pal
 
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