Lighting diagrams for complete beginners?

[cmcm789]

I haven't used OCF before but may need to for an event (night run) soon. I intend to find a location outside at night in advance and do some trial and error with the set up so i know roughly what my starting point is on the evening. Initial thoughts (based on photos of similar events i've seen) are 2 bare flash on stands. One from the front at about 30-45 degrees to the runner, camera 30-45 degrees on opposite side of path and second flash somewhere behind to give a backilight/ rim light? I will have the flashes set off the path.

I have found a few diagrams for portrait shoots which are basically what i will be doing, but are there any go-to (starting) ratios for front and rear flash. I was thinking of having the ISO at 1600?. I have been to the location before and if possible would like to have some of the background feature illuminated. I will also be shooting quite a few runners so any advice to extend the battery life and keep the recycle time down would be good.

Apologies for the complete beginner question. Below is an image from the same location during a day race recently. This is where i hope to camp out next time. This was shot on a Canon crop at somewhere between 24-35mm (38-56mm FF). Happy to go closer/ change orientation etc for whatever would work best.



All advice gratefully received.

 

[Scooter]

I really recommend set.a.light.3D https://www.elixxier.com/en/products/setalight3d.php for initial lighting development. Then go to the location and try and set it up. You'll likely end up with something a bit different as it's hard to model an entire forest in the software You can do it - I've rendered an entire mill floor complete with iron pillars before, but it's not really worth it for organic scenes. Here's something I did just now following your description above - took about 5 minutes - and most of that was getting his legs into a reasonable looking running pose At ISO 1600 and f/2.8 the flashes are on 1/64 power at this distance and a 24mm spread - so no problem with multiple firings, very short flash duration and for all practical purposes, no recycle time. Don't worry about ratios - these lights are doing completely different things - just look at the results and adjust until it won't get any better. If you are going to have flashes at this kind of distance, and especially if you need to claim your spot early on, make sure you have a reliable radio communication with them so you can turn them up and down from camera. Put some guy ropes on the stands and nail them to the floor too.

Illuminating the background is a separate issue - yes you could use the key light with a wider angle but the fall off would be pretty rapid due to the difference in distances between foreground and background trees. It would light the bridge up but with large shadows of course for the near side wall. You could place some walls in the simulation and see what it looks like. Assuming the runners will need some form of light to see where they're going though, this may light the scene in a useful way and you can control this independently of your flash exposure with the shutter speed. Don't be afraid to slow that shutter right down to get more of that continuous light into the scene if you want it: the flashes will freeze them. The more ambient light you let in, the more blur you'll get from the runners, but you'll still get the stamped-in sharp image from the flash. Have the flashes fire at the end of the exposures so the blur trails extend behind the runners. I do this in the studio quite a bit and I reckon this would look pretty effective for runners. This setting is normally called "rear or second curtain sync" All cameras can do this with all lights although you may have trouble with Canon cameras if your lights are not native - test it out with your triggers and lights - I was caught out on a workshop years ago shooting some long exposure dance moves when two of the students had Canon cameras, and they would not do rear-curtain sync with basic studio triggers. You set it on the master flash or trigger for Canon too - (it's on the camera for everything else I've used)

 

[cmcm789]

Scooter thank you. Brilliant detailed response, lots to think about. I'll have to do a dry run and make sure I have no syncing problems.