Haaalp!! Studio lighting moron here!

[kundalini]

Other than the one umbrella I read about, were there any more light modifiers you have? Do you have a handheld light meter?

 

[kundalini]

Since i'm no longer really using my speedlight/softbox (off camera) as a fill and instead using just my AB's for a main and a fill I had to use the onboard camera flash(no diffuser) to trigger the AB's wirelessly. It cast these ugly shadows when I thought it was the alien bees being too close. I just thought the fill from the AB would get rid of the shadows but no

Why are you using the onboard flash to trigger the ABs, utilitizing their slave optics? Why not hot shoe mount the SB800? It could easily double as the fill ligh on the hotshoe, reversed fired into a bounce card/reflector. Better yet would be to place on a lightstand on or close-to-on lens axis place high(ish) and behind the camera, bounced in a reflective umbrella. This would leave one of your ABs as the key light, leaving the other to use as either a gridded/snooted hair light or background light?

It took a while to remember when I put this link, this this is an excellent write up for on axis fill flash. It is filled with diagrams and photo examples, albeit with a mannequin. I'm in the market for a mannequin.

Clicky