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It has been a longer time when we took the shots of this setup. Nevertheless, we could have waited twenty or fourty years more with the publication of this post. The setup would have been as modern an good as it is today… as it was twenty years ago. This is the reason to call this post: HALL OF FAME SETUP. Let’s see why.

The setup is as simple and perfect as genius. You simply place your lightsource about 30-40cm above the camera. Exactly above the camera. The specialty about this setup is additionally the arrangement of modell, camera and lightsource in one and the same axis. You can move the camera away from the modell but always stay on the axis in the middle.

As with this setup there is no concern what type of light you are using, the distance between the modell and the lightsource does not matter as well. The distance goes hand in hand with the type of light you are using. If you are using a hard light, the distance could be a lot bigger than when using a soft light. In the setup down below, we used a 85cm umbrella about 1m away.

And what is the result of the setup? A very natural portrait with nice and flawless shadows. Perfect for our modell Nicole.

Really, there is only one thing to take care of. It is the exact arrangement. You really do have to stay right below the lightsource. and with “right below” I really do mean “right below”. Not 10cm and not 5cm away from the middle. And if you do not have a boomstand, you have to hug your stand… kisskiss

Well, let’s end with the final photos. I do like the smiling a lot better than the “anger”-photo. But that are just my 2cents…

As a matter of fact, the setup is perfect because of the simplicity. It leave enough space for the modell to fill the character of the photo.

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SETUP TUTORIALS Elinchrom, fashion, fortgeschrittene, how to, lighting, LIVE TRAINING, on location, photography, Photoshooting, SETUP, SETUP TUTORIALS, STUDIO, TUTORIAL

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First things first… :-)… again we posted a photo some time ago and again we got a lot of questions concering the “HOW TO” of that particular photoshoot. The original post is HERE.

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Here you go…  But take a look at the first picture, then think about the setup. Start looking for shadows, for highlights, search for reflections in the eyes… start arranging the setup in your head.

As usual you can take a look at the light setting. But hey, you already saw that picture. So you clearly know that we don’t mess with you. You can see the Portalite Softbox in the front. It’s 65cm x 65cm. We only used a 200Ws Elinchrom D-Lite 2. If you work properly, you don’t always need a lot of flash power.

There is a softbox in the back. The bright light on the left it is a 135cm Octabox. What you can’t see is the other side. There is also a softbox.

That’s it. 3 strobes. 1 mainlight, 2 hard effect lights from the back. But what about the white background? Good question, short answer.

–> The two softboxes in the back produce enough vagabounding light to light up the back. It is only a question of the correct angle and distance. Keep the background very very close to the two lights in the background and they will light up your background as well. The rest is a bit of contrast enhancement in photoshop :-)…

Another good question: What about the hairlight? How strong are those two lights in the back???

–> The strobes are set to a slight overexposure. We ALWAYS use about 4/10 of a f-stop overexposing for those kind of lights. It’s the perfect amount of light to get a slight accent on the model without having a bright white skin. If you have a light meter, then try to set the power for you next shoot to about this strength. You will be astonished how good it works and how good it looks, having fine highlights but no overexposung at all.
Think about your possibilities in Photoshop afterwards. If you want more light, then just add it in photoshop.

ALWAYS PHOTOGRAPH IN A WAY THAT GIVES YOU ALL THE POSSIBLITIES AFTERWARDS IN PHOTOSHOP. OVER- OR UNDEREXPOSING TAKES AWAY THOSE POSSIBILITIES. WHEN THERE IS NO INFORMATION, THERE IS ALSO OF COURSE  NO DIGITAL INFORMATION. BLACK IS BLACK AND WHITE IS WHITE.

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One last thing about the size of the softbox in front of our model. It’s only about 1/5th of the size the hairlights. WHY???? It gives you character in your photo. Take a close look at the shadows under her arms, under the chin and under her arm pit. With a bigger softbox, a bigger light source, there would not have been any shadows. And shadows are not bad things to have. They are the best thing in photography ever, because the give your photo a specific lighting characteristic. Without shadows, this image would clearly be a lot more boring.

My advice for you is to often use small but soft light sources. It is very tricky to set them up, there is only a small angle where the face is beautiful lit and the body produces nice shadows, but it is worth the trouble.

So much for now…we hope all questions are answered. Until next time… MARTIN

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After our setup-post about how to light a perfectly white background, we got a lot of questions and emails asking how to light a background with less strobes. Ok, 5 strobe heads is definitly not a very simple solution. So take the first post as the “perfect solution” and now we will talk about doing it “the strobist way”… LESS GEAR MORE BRAIN!

Ok, the aim is to get a white surrounding of a full body shot. We are not talking about getting a little white spot on the background but want to be able to do a complete body shot. And, to make this whole setup way more difficult, we dress the model completely in white. Let’s call it FULL BODY HIGH KEY :-).

We are going to need at least 3 strobes. The question to solve is the positioning of those three strobes. First let’s have a look at the result. That’s what we are going to achieve :-)…

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Important, when working with a white background, keep the the power of the strobes at a minimum. The more power you set on the background, the more you risk that the light burns out at the edges of your model.

The core problem is the decrease of lighting intensity over the distance. You all know, when you double the distance you quarter the amount of light. That means, that whatever you light from an angle, you produce a nice progression of the amount of light.

So we can’t light such a big area as the whole background with just one strobe. That would automatically result in one very bright side and one “darker” side. To get everything white, you would need to expose correctly for the darker side. The brighter side would be overexposed way too much.

ERGO: We need two strobes for the background, means we have one flash free to light the model and to implement the characteristic to the picture – THE MAIN LIGHT SOURCE. Now the setup is complete and we can take a look at the sketch.

This time it is really simple but as you are used to our fabulous “MASTER-PAINTINGS :-)”… we don’t want to disapoint you.

Two Elinchrom BXri 250 for the background (with smaller softboxes) and one BXri 500 for the model with the big softbox!

Let’s face the next challenge: The position of those two strobes has to be behind OR beside the model. We must never hit the model with the background lights (very important) as this will produce a harsh demarcation between the background and the foreground. Look closely at the picture above. You see the grey on the ground?!

Here we have a detailed shot where you can see the ground around her feet.

I want to get this straight out! You can never achieve a lighting on the ground around her body as bright as the background. That would overexpose the clothing and the model. But you do need the structures and the texture of her white clothing. You always have more lighting on the back than on her. FULLSTOP!

The picture above was converted directly out of the RAW-file.No changes made. But that’s just perfect. When you decrease the number of strobes used, you increase the time in front of you computer doing retouching.

One more hint: You should position the main light as low as possible. This way you maximize the lighting on the floor. If you put it up to high, there will be more light on her face than on the ground and the floor will get more and more grey. It’s up to you to position it just perfect to give enough character (shadows) and to light the floor.

Take a close look at the picture and look at the shadows under her chin. That’s what I mean.

So, that was it for today. See you soon :-) Next “white-background-post” will be about using only two strobes and after that, we show you how to use only ONE STROBE! :-)…

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