Beginner Lighting for white background

[Deleted sulking member 63079]

Now, I know I won't be able to do this perfectly, as I only have 2 speedlights, but I just want to make sure I'm on the right tracks.

I'm just going to have a play over the weekend to get a white-background for a headshot of my daughter.

So I have a large reflector I'm going to use as a background (which I know won't be perfect as it'll er, reflect), I'll set one flash up pointing at that. I don't have a flash meter so do I do the following:

Set aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
Bare flash set to widest zoom aimed at the background
Gradually increase flash power to where it peaks white - Do I stop right on the peak? Or add slightly more power?

Then set up my second flash to light the subject?

 

[Garry Edwards]

That's about right. It;s difficult to light a background well with just one light, but you just have to do your best. Don't over-light the background, it will create other problems, just accept that you will need to do some work in PP to compensate for lack of equipment.
Hide the light for the background behind your subject so that it's aimed square at the background, if you try to light the background from the side, above or below then the lighting will of course be very uneven

 

[Deleted sulking member 63079]

That's about right. It;s difficult to light a background well with just one light, but you just have to do your best. Don't over-light the background, it will create other problems, just accept that you will need to do some work in PP to compensate for lack of equipment.
Hide the light for the background behind your subject so that it's aimed square at the background, if you try to light the background from the side, above or below then the lighting will of course be very uneven

Thanks Garry

Rubbish weather at the weekend from the looks of it, so just an excuse to play around. Holding off adding more speedlights, as I *might* have enough space to squeeze in some studio flashes once we've had our extension, so as you say, just working around lack of equipment for now. At least I'm on roughly the right track!