 Mare Board |
How to Use Studio Lighting/ What Film to Use? My husband is in a band and they are wanting me to do some "band" shots for their promo package. Our local camera store has a small studio for rent with lights and backdrops that I will be using. I am familiar with studio lighting but have never personally worked with this type equipment before. Looking for tips on the best way to set up this shot with 4 people. 1. What is the best type of 35mm film to use for indoor work of this nature, both color and B&W. 2. Backdrop color: Tips on choosing the backdrop color 3. Any do's or don'ts for this type setup for a user with no indoor lighting experience, basic camera settings (Nikon N2000), distance from subject, etc... is much appreciated. Thanks!
|
|
|
|
||
|
Mare Board |
As a follow up... obviously, I know that I need a Light meter reading but was just looking for what is typical for this type set up.
|
|
|
|
||
|
John A. Lind |
Mare, Ooooh . . . studio lighting can fill entire textbooks! How powerful are the lights? They should have a rating in Watt-Seconds (or Joules, a Watt-Second is a Joule); this is the energy stored by the flash that is dumped to the flash tube. Lights aren't measured by guide numbers; there are too many variables in how light is modified and controlled to make it very meaningful. Reason I ask is this will determine how close or how far to set up the lights. Hopefully, they're about 500 Joule lights, which is a decent power level for on-location work (at least for me). Wow, if you've never done this before, then one of the more failsafe lighting methods for groupings uses two lights with reflective umbrellas. Each light is placed to your left and right. With 500 Joule lights, I put them about 15 - 18 feet from where the subjects will be, and about 9 - 12 feet to the left and right of where I'd be standing if shooting straight at the center of the grouping. Lights should be elevated to about 8 feet with umbrellas (the light itself). If the grouping is elevated more than about 6 inches (on a dias or stage) then you may have to elevate the lights a bit further. Aim them so that the center of the light reflected from the umbrella hits about waist high slightly left and right of center on the grouping. It is usually difficult to determine this using just the modeling lights; use the umbrella rod as a guide (by looking at the lights from the subject location). Set both at the same power level. Meter and move them as necessary, or change the power level setting. Allow yourself some setup time to work with this. Subject position should be a few feet in front of the background. Watch for unwanted shadows and move forward (or background back) as appropriate; umbrellas should mitigate this. I try to shoot smaller groupings at f/5.6 using Kodak Portra 160NC. Since this is a band, you may consider a film with a little more contrast and saturation (without being over the top) such as Portra 160VC. However, this presumes that color negative can be used versus a chrome film. For B&W, Plus-X Pan (ISO 125), TMax 100, or one of the Ilford ISO 100 or ISO 125 films should work.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Maynard McKillen |
Dear Mare: One approach to promo photos of a band is to have the members stand rather close together, some perhaps sitting on stools, and each holds a prop that suggests which instrument they play. The bass and guitar players may rest the body of their instruments on a low stool and hold/lean on the neck/head, or just wear them, the keyboard player may do something similar with an electronic keyboard, the drummer crosses his/her arms and holds a pair of drumsticks in one hand, and the singer may do something similar with a mic, the hurdy-gurdy player leaves his instrument at home...you get the idea. Compose the photos as head-to-waist (Those low stools that raise up the guitars and keyboard are then out of sight.), and raise some members on posing blocks if necessary. The photo emphasizes the members and minimizes background. As to background color, you may be dealing with quite an array of color in clothing and hair, so why not use several different backgrounds? If you do select any darker backgrounds, you might consider placing a hairlight behind the backdrop, up high and pointing down at the backs of their heads. This will rimlight their heads and shoulders, give a shine to their hair (or heads, come to think of it), and prevent the hair from blending in with darker backgrounds. If you had color gels available to put over some flash heads, you could put some lights down low behind the members, point these up at the backdrop, and add more color to a backdrop. If these backdrop lights are stronger than the lights illuminating the members, you might get rich color on the backdrop. But maybe some of these lighting ideas are best reserved for the NEXT time you photograph the band. With John's lighting suggestions and my posing ideas, you'll have your hands full!
|
|
|
|
||
|
John A. Lind |
I agree with Maynard that the posing should minimize background content and maximize subject content. Be creative with this aspect of it and have some fun with them. They may come up with some ideas of their own. Watch depth of field with the grouping. f/5.6 shouldn't get you into too much trouble as long as you're not trying to stack the entire band in one behind another; staggered a little should be OK if you watch to keep someone from becoming shadowed by another (unless you want that). If in doubt because of greater grouping depth, stop down to f/8 and adjust/move lights. I also agree with Maynard's last paragraph . . . keep the lighting relatively simple this time around and use the creativity with the posing. I've seen very complex diagrams of studio setups for special portrait groupings involving softboxes, scrims, reflectors, snoots, additional hair and kicker lights, etc. Doing that requires knowledge and especially experience with the effects various special lighting techniques will create in the photographs. Those are things to gradaully work on understanding and experimenting with if you keep working with studio lighting. A complex lighting setup is not something that one should try for work that will be used by the subjects the first time out though.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Sreedevi Kashi |
Another tip- if you're really picky about color and you're not using color gels on the band, you'll probably want to find out what the color temperature is of the studio's lights. Most probably they are 3200K which is standard for studio lighting- it's a warmer tone than sunlight, and normal films are balanced for sunlight, so you might want to try a tungsten film. For negative film the Kodak 100T is alright, but I prefer Kodak's Chrome 64T. I shoot bands a lot too- keeping the band members close together but very staggered in depth can be really intersting- you'll want an aperture setting of 5.6 or 8 if using standard 50mm lens on 35mm camera. I like using some odd piece of furniture that won't argue with the band members vividness- it adds more dimensions if one of them is on it, or if all of them are staggered around it. But what really works is to move yourself around and change the position from where you're seeing the band. You could stand on a ladder, get down on the ground, try it from every angle possible and you might get some interesting shots out of it.
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||