Cosplay photography & lightings

[tecboy]

I have a twin models wearing Vietnamese fantasy cultural costumes. They will be in front of the backdrop perhaps a mid gray color. They will be holding swords and doing poses. I will soon buy a backdrop and support. I'm thinking about buying a 12 feet wide backdrop. Is that enough for two cosplayers doing warriors' poses? I have two light stands with umbrellas, Speedlite 430EXII, and Yonguno 565EX. I know 565EX is more powerful than my 430EX. I'm trying to figure out the lighting setup and trying get even distributed light to the cosplayers. Suggestion please?

 

[TCampbell]

While the YN565EX is more powerful, you'll probably need to treat it like it's not the more powerful flash.

When you approach flash lighting, you want to think about the "key" light... this is the primary source of lighting that illuminates your subjects and it dominates the lighting scene. The rest of the lights are supplemental and provide fill, accents, etc. and you don't want them to dominate. They tend to be set at a weaker power level.

HOWEVER... you typically want that key light to not be ON the camera. Unfortunately the 430EX II can only work in a multi-flash setup if it is a remote/slave light. It cannot be the master. This means if you plan to use ETTL then you have to leave the 565EX on camera and have the 430EX off camera in order to use ETTL. But you probably don't want the "key" (more powerful) light on camera because that doesn't make for very interesting lighting.

You may have to put both of them off-camera and use manual mode or use the 70D's pop-up flags as a trigger (or buy a trigger). It is actually possible to use the on-camera flash only as a trigger and have it not appear in the final image. The ETTL system fires pre-flashes which serve both to allow the camera to test the lighting and compute the final flash power but ALSO to send instructions to the remote flashes. When the pop-up flash is up but in the disabled setting, it actually fires all the pre-flashes to send orders to the other flashes... but sends out one final flash to order the off-camera lights to fire a fraction of a second later... the shutter opens.. and then ONLY the remote lights fire. This all happens so quickly that you'd swear the flashes only fired once (when in reality they may have fired several times.) When you check the final image, you'll will not see any light contributed by the on-camera flash (that flash was only firing to send commands when the shutter was still closed.)

As for the size of the backdrop... I have no idea how large these subjects and costumes are going to be. A 12' wide backdrop certainly sounds reasonable but not having seen the costumes and poses... I'll leave that to someone else to comment.

 

[curtyoungblood]

I would think a 12' wide backdrop would be fine as long as you stay on the center line and aren't planning on shooting with a. Wide angle lens.

 

[tecboy]

I stopped by the brick & mortar store. I think the 12ft is too extreme. I need a bigger studio for 12ft wide. So, I got 9.5ft instead. I want to carry a backdrop and a background support around as portable. As for my two flashes, I have to experiment to find out the stop differences. I also have transceivers. I think I'm loaded.

 

[JoeW27 1]

For two models posing simultaneously, unless they're hugging or arm-in-arm, if you're shooting full body and they're not within 1 foot of the back wall of the backdrop, 12 feet won't be wide enough. If anyone has their arms extended to each side (say...left arm out to the left and right arm out to the right) plus their torso plus a sword that isn't completely straight up (but instead at a 15 degree angle), that's about 6 feet of width right there. Add another person. Provide some margin on each side. Maybe a little space in the middle. You're over 12 feet just with that.

Now, if you put them together (as if they're in a death grip)...and you only shoot straight on (rather than move to change the angle you're shooting at), than you can make a 12 foot width work.

One other point....I've found that height of the backdrop is critical. You're not going to be want to shooting down on them (or they'll look like dwarfs or trolls) and actually may want to get a bit lower. If an arm is held up or a sword is extended than a backdrop that runs 10 feet in back just on the back wall likely won't be sufficient.

 

[tecboy]

I think 20 feet is wide enough, but I need a very big house.

 

[IzzieK]

One other alternative is to shoot them individually and combine (photomerge) them in your PP. That will take care of the short and the long and the width of your backdrop.

 

[sk66]

Speedlights/umbrellas are pretty small for a couple individuals... expect harder lighting w/ strong shadows on the BG unless you have significant separation. That will require a larger BG.

Your best bet may be to go for hard/flat lighting by putting the lights far back to minimize/eliminate falloff. Then it's just a matter of cross-fill... I would also suspect a lot of spill into the ambient if you don't have room for a 12ft BG. That will add more "fill" and lower the ratio more... the overall result is fairly "flat" lighting but acceptable (it's more common than not and often considered "good" lighting).

 

[tecboy]

I finally have a model to pose and shoot. We shot in the garage, my biggest problem is the reflection from the sword. You can see my garage interior, sort of. Any tip about this? A friend of mine told me to use a photoshop and brighten up or darken the reflection.