 Tara R. Swartzendruber |
Photos of Family in Their Home I am taking photos of a "mid-sized" family (9 adults, 6 kids) in their living room. They have a large window on two sides of the room - to the north and the east. They would be standing on the south wall, so the light sources would be behind me and to the right of me (we're hoping for a sunny morning!) Would you suggest that I bring in a strobe light or two as well? Here's my confession: I have strobes in my studio, but I don't use a light monitor. I just have them and my camera set for what works best, so I've never taken my lights anywhere else. What would I set them on? Just experiment beforehand? I have two Photogenic 1250's and 2 Studiomax 320s. I have shoot-through and reflective umbrellas. I also have a SB800 that I can use on my camera. Would it be enough just to use this on-camera? Thanks!
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Randy A. Myers |
I recently did the exact same thing. I used a diffuser on my SB600 and bounced the light off the ceiling. I have one of the images in my gallery: "Conners Family". The way I did it was as simple as you can make it. I know it's not on par with strobes and light modifiers but the image looked very good printed at 12x18.
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Tara R. Swartzendruber |
Randy. Thanks for your response. I saw the photo and it looks nice. (you have some gorgeous photos in your gallery!) A couple questions: 1) What did you use as a diffuser? I don't own one, but perhaps I could make something. 2) The family you "shot" is considerably smaller than the one I have coming up. Do you still think the one-flash system would be OK? 3) Do you mind telling me what your camera settings were? Esp. ISO. Thanks!
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Randy A. Myers |
Hi Tara. The diffuser I use is one you blow up like a balloon. I like it because it's folds up nicely when not inflated. It's made by Photoflex. A lot of people are using the Lightsphere by Gary Fong. I don't think it would be necessary to use one since I was bouncing it off the ceiling. That seems to work as well as anything unless the ceiling is colored or too high. I used ISO 100 @ f-4.0. The shutter speed only matters if you have a lot of ambient light. I kept mine at 1/250 sec. to prevent blurring from the ambient light. The distance to your subject will control your settings. I shot some larger family shots at this shoot and needed to raise the ISO to allow for the extra distance. Good luck and let me know if you have any more questions.
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- Greg McCroskery Contact Greg McCroskery Greg McCroskery's Gallery |
Tara, I just did an in-home family Christmas portrait with 25 family members. The lighting was very close to what you have described. I took two Photogenic lights with umbrellas for the shoot, and closed the shades on the windows to the right of the group, so that I could control the lighting ratio. I would suggest two lights for your shoot also. Two possible problems with using available light are uneven lighting of the group, and getting fast enough shutter speed to freeze motion if there are small children in the group. If one of the windows faces east, and you are shooting in the morning, you could have a problem with very harsh sunlight -- do the east windows have shades or curtains that can be closed? As far as metering your lights without a flash meter, you'll just have to experiment, but set establish your fill light exposure first, then bring in main light just until you see some light modeling -- then set your exposure to expose for the main light. Hope this helps. God Bless,
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