General Lighting Tips?

psycho8877 · Mar 10, 2013

Hi everyone,

I have been a "natural light" photographer until I recently purchased 2 Yongnuo 560-II's. Have been playing around with these with a couple of FM transmitters. I recently got asked to donate my services at an indoor, nighttime fundraising event to help with dog adoptions and, I haven't completely "vetted" the equipment so I feel it's too early yet for me to feel completely comfortable using off-camera flashes at a job, but the shots would benefit. Though it's a volunteer job, it has the potential of attracting lots of additional business so I'm very motivated.

(Concerning the animals, I've already asked the hosts if the dogs will be all right with strobe photography. They are kind of "celebrity dogs" and are well acclimated to flash photography so we think we'll be okay. Additionally, I will be meeting with the dogs before the event to assess them myself.)

A few questions:

1) I shoot with a Sony A77 and I have an HVL-F20AM flash that I can attach to the hot shoe and use with a softbox or bounce off the ceiling (if the ceilings are low enough I guess?) to take pictures through the crowd. Alternatively, I could also attach one of the Yongnuos with a softbox to a transmitter and take some off camera flash pictures, but I'm concerned that everything is manual and I won't be able to get correctly exposed shots if I am moving throughout a room. Any thoughts?

2) There is a red carpet setup during the beginning of the event for which the organization would like me to get a few shots. There will be other photographers/videographers there for a while but priority will be given to me and I can show up early in the afternoon to do my setup. Even if lighting priority is given to me, if the other photographers/videographers are using their own lighting, we're bound for a mess of a time. On the other hand, I am comfortable asking the hosts to only allow me to use strobe lighting. If the latter is the case, any suggestions as to how to set up the lighting? I was thinking, if possible, to tape an X on the carpet/floor and set the lighting from there. I've never done a red carpet event before. Is it polite for me to do this? Most importantly, any suggestions as to how to light this? (Yongnuo's aren't TTL. As comfortable as I am playing around with them at home, I'm nervous about breaking them out at my first job, that I might end up constantly futzing with them rather than taking any pictures.)

3) I do not own a light meter (yet). Does anyone have any experience using those light meter apps in your smart phone? I can't imagine it compares to a Sekonic, but perhaps it's better than nothing? I've otherwise just been doing a bunch of test shots.

Equipment-wise, I have the 2 Yongnuo's, the HVL F20 (which may work as a master but so far just been attaching the transmitter to my hotshoe), a reflector umbrella, a white umbrella, a reflector, three lighting stands and a backlight stand. Oh, and a bunch of sand bags. I will also have an assistant at the set up and at the shoot with me. She will mostly be there to handle the dogs, but she has some familiarity around photography equipment as well.

The event is this Thursday so time is of the essence but, if I need additional equipment, I feasibly have until Monday or Tuesday to order or buy it. (I am, however, on a budget. I'm not getting paid for this, after all.)

I won't be able to scout the location until a few hours before the event so I'm flying blind right now. I wish I could provide more details but any suggestions, even general ones, would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading this

tirediron · Mar 10, 2013

First and foremost, assume that there will be NO business arriving from this. I do a lot of work with local animal charity, including one of the (if I do say so myself!

) popular "pets with Santa" shoots in the city. In all the years I've done it, all the cards I've given away during the events, etc, etc, exactly zero work has resulted. I'm fine with that however, since I'm donating this to a cause I feel strongly about.

On to your questions. For the portrait work, I would try for a fairly flat type of lighting so that you have the most flexibility (you're not worried about exactly where shadows fall). What I use for my Santa shots

are two monolights about 45 deg left/right of lens axis and just a little above Santa's head height. It's not the most flattering light, but it does mean that I have to do almost no re-arranging during the shoot. I would also have the speedlight on-camera, set to at low power for fill (this is especially important on black dogs!).

For all the off-camera flash info you could ever want, do some reading here. Manual flash is easy; easier than TTL/auto. Really, it is! I've never used those smart-phone meter apps, but my feeling is the best they're going to do is get you close. Use guide-number tables to do that and use your blown-highlight indicator on the rear LCD to ensure that you don't lose any whites.

For the red-carpet, have your VAL (voice-activated lightstand) hold a speedlight so that she's about 15-20 degrees off of lens axis and a bit above. Practice before hand so you know what power & aperture to use and also use your on-camera speedlight on low power as a fill. Also make sure that you use sufficient DoF so that all of Rover is in focus, or at least head & shoulders. Raise your ISO if necessary.

Good luck!