Body Builder

[mike3767]

I have a buddy that I'm gonna ask to see if I can take some pics of him before he leaves town to do his competition and I have no idea what to use. I'm going to assume that I will have to rent all of my equipment but what I have is an xsi with a macro, wide angle, telephoto and the normal lens that came with the kit. All my lenses are for the beginner so not exceptional quality. I have a local camera shop that I can rent lenses as well as lighting. I will be using a couple of white sheets for background and was wondering what I should rent as far as lighting and lens. Keep in mind I'm asking him so this is more for me than anything.

 

[Studio7Four]

I don't know that the lens choice matters a great deal for this. When isolating him against a white background I would expect that such things as distortion, foreground compression, etc are not going to be big factors, and if you have enough space you can manually zoom (walk up and back). And since changing lenses is fairly quick I wouldn't worry too much about that, you can always swap a time or two if you want to try something different (basing this on your statement that you have the lenses you list, not that you are planning to rent something from that list).

I would spend my planning time thinking about what kind of image I want to get - this will tell you what kind of lighting you need. There's also how comfortable you are with lighting, and whether you (and he) are happy to use this as a learning experience (at the risk of not getting any "keepers") or if you care more about getting the shot than expanding your experience. If you're not too familiar with lighting, continuous lighting might be the easier way to go as you can immediately see the result of changes in light position, power ratios, etc. Similarly, flash heads with modeling lights can accomplish the same thing. Strobes with no modeling light are going to be more difficult for a lighting novice to dial in.

Anyway, going back to what type of image you want...that makes a big difference in the number and location of lights (and light modifiers) that you may need. If you're looking for a brighter, evenly lit image you might want at least three lights (main, fill, background). If I had the opportunity to shoot a body builder, my personal taste would probably be to use just one light and a black background, get a low key image using the definition of his muscles to create contour-defining shadows.

I'm sure there are folks on here with enough experience to recommend specific lenses and lighting setups, but only if you can tell us more what you have in mind for the outcome.