Portrait strobist setup - setup & some tips.

[BLWNHR]

Last night I had a corporate function to photograph including 100 couple shots as they came through the door, plus group shots, presentations and atmosphere shots. I'm pleased to say the whole night went flawlessly and all the gear I used proved bulletproof.

Below is a setup shot (taken on my phone, sorry about the quality). At the back is a black 3x6m backdrop on backdrop stands, at the front a pair of light stands with metal brackets and a 43" shoot-through umbrella on each. The backdrop was far too long so I folded about 750mm back under then ran yellow gaffer tape around the whole lot to remove the tripping hazard. I also put a tape 'triangle' around the bottom of the light stands to provide a visual barrier, and as the room had low light during the function tied a safety vest to each one a so they were a bit easier to see. You can also see a black bag on each of the backdrop and light sands, this is a sandbag (available from camping stores) to weight the stands and add further stability. Sand is messy so I put a large piece of firewood in each. The function had a masquerade theme, hence the mask hanging from the backdrop (at the request of the organiser).

The gear used for the photographs was my trusty Nikon D700 (+ grip) and Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8. An SB-900 Nikon strobe was used each side, with the Nikon diffuser fitted, and were fired using Paul C. Buff CyberSync triggers.

In the interests of minimising the visual impact of the setup I tried a couple of shots (using the band as subjects) without the umbrellas, but this resulted in overly harsh lighting and big shadows. I confirmed with the organiser that the umbrellas were ok to use and fitted them, the results were substantially better.

EDIT: I also left the diffusers on the strobes. The master, Joe McNally, says this helps improve the light quality so I took his word for it!

Camera settings used for the whole night were:
Shutter - 1/160
Aperture - f/5
ISO - 800
Strobes - 24mm zoom, 1/8 -1/3 power

My initial aperture was f/5.6, but the first couple of shots were a touch dark. There was no time to pull the stands down, increase the flash power by 1/3-stop and put them back up, so I just opened the aperture up a bit.

An aperture of f/4 would offer a nice DOF, but I was after focus accuracy turning that many people through, not to mention needing sufficient DOF for group shots. I would have liked to have used f/6.3, but this would have meant increasing the flash power, I didn't want to chew through the batteries too quick, or sacrifice recycle time. This is also the reason for the high ISO, but grain isn't a problem on the D700 at this setting so I was happy to use it.

There is quite a lot to read there, but I hope it helps someone. Any questions? Post them up below.

Setup shot.



Portrait, no umbrellas.



Portrait, shoot-through umbrellas.


Obviously I cannot post pictures of people at the function, but these guys were happy for me to post them on the 'net.