Hi,
Funnily enough, just like Tom, yesterday I decided to set-up my home
portrait studio. :)
At present I'm seriously limited in the light set-up I can make, as I only
have one TTL AutoCord T, being the 0.6m one. Therefore I chose a rather
unusual flash set-up:
-I taped translucent white paper in front of the windows (which are located
on the south), this provided diffused base lighting, so the flashes didn't
have to do too much work;
-1 T32 off camera, firing into a small (+/- 16") white umbrella. To the
right of the model, for frontal-side lighting;
-1 T28 in 1 head mode, On the camera, on the T Power Control, with a T32
wide angle diffuser filter on this head. Right in front of the model, for
full frontal (diffused) lighting;
-White reflectors to the left of the model, and below the camera.
The flash/umbrella/camera set-up was all at body height. The lenses used
were initially the 100/2 (for a few head-shoulder portraits), and then the
50/1.8, for showing a bit more.
The set-up was rather rigid because of the short cable, so I was very
limited in selecting the camera-subject distance. The 50/1.8 allowed me to
take head-chest portraits. In all pictures the camera was mounted
horizontally (because of the heavy T power control on top of it) on a
tripod.
The first shots (@ f2.8) I took made the flashes indicate that the exposure
was o.k., but in the camera viewfinder the "over" indicator was burning, and
the green light didn't blink. Changing the aperture to f4 cured this
problem.
I was surprised to see how quickly the flashes recharged (probably because
of the short flash-subject distance, combined with the base lighting
provided by the windows). At a certain time it went like: shoot, wind,
shoot, wind, etc. and the flashes managed to keep up!
For the background, I used a really wildish, but fun, one: being tiger
pattern gift wrapping paper. Through the viewfinder this looks really cool,
but I hope it won't be too distracting. This was used for _all_ the
pictures, maybe I shouldn't have done that. We sought the variation in the
clothes Gioconda and Karol were wearing, rather than in the background.
These shots were more than anything test shots. The things tested were the
light set-up, the choice of lens/aperture, the reflectors, posing (Gioconda
and Karol), choice of clothes and attributes, and the background.
Gioconda poses o.k., but she does need some "hints" from the photographer,
but Karol (Gioconda's 9-year old daughter) is a natural talent. She
immediately poses for the camera in a very natural and relaxed way. I think
Karol might be the better model, but maybe Gioconda will loosen up a bit too
when we've done this more times.
The only thing which I'm a bit afraid about is what the results will look
like, as I got totally caried away and blasted no less than 5 rolls of 36
exposure film (Kodak Gold 200 ASA) through, so if something is not alright,
all pictures will be failures. Neverthelesa, at least for the poses the
pictures will still serve a purpose, and let's just hope that the set-up
worked o.k...
I hope to have the pictures on Wednesday/Thursday (if the morons at the
central don't "mess things up", as has happened on a previous occasion! :(
), so then I should know more, and if things worked out I may even add a
special studio photography sub page to my picture gallery...
Cheers!
Olafo
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