Prepping for my first studio shoot on Tuesday... any input?

[bigtwinky]

I love doing first. First times can be so stressful, but yet so fun. And a great way to learn. I'm about to take on my first ever studio session. Actually, I did shoot in studio a few years back in a couple of courses I took, but we were 6-7 people working in the same space, without much time. I know, I know...excuses.

So yeah, 3 hours of shooting in a studio. Here is the breakdown of what's going on.

I've done some live shots for a band who want me to do some band shots in studio. They insist on in studio, with a white / black backdrops.

Standard stuff really. They know me. I know them. They know I'm not used to studio shooting so are willing to work with me. They are also not used to being in a photoshoot, so it should be a fun fun time.

I rented a studio (well, they are paying for it as they insist on having their shots there) that comes with 2 1000W bowens, umbrellas, reflectors and 2 slave flashes. They will setup the lights for me and get the white seamless ready.

The band is a 5 person band. 2 lead singers (one man, one woman). We worked on a few ideas, but they are expecting 3-4 nice band shots plus individual headshots and what not. So I plan on knocking those out first, and then if time permits, doing funner stuff with them.

I'm bringing my own 2 speedlites, just in case. I rather have them and not need them than need them and not have them. I plan on keeping the lights simple at first. Use one bowens higher up, 45 degrees. Use the second as a fill, lower down, closer to me, lower power. I'll vary with some side lighting as well, and use some slaves on the background to blow it out or turn them off and feather the light to get the background grey / dark (at least I can talk the talk, lets see if I can walk the walk lol).
I don't expect these to be perfect. I want them to, and will do my best, but I'm sure they can be picked apart for their flaws.

I'm looking for any general advice you guys may have. Shoot time is 6:30pm to 10:30pm. I told them to be there for 7:00pm, to give me time to setup.

I won't have a model for test shots, but will use whatever in the studio to make sure I'm in the ballpark for exposure. They have 1 set of more formal clothes for their corporate gigs and one casual set of clothes that they have on in bars. They are bringing in instruments and other pre-arranged props for some themed shoots.

 

[gsgary]

They should have a flash meter so there is no need to be ballpark you can be spot on, hard lighting looks good for bands, last time i shot a band i only used 1 light high up with just a reflector fitted and 1 large white board, keep it as simply as posible, if they move the lights move too many people set lights up and change poses without moving the lights

 

[bigtwinky]

Thanks for commenting! I want to keep it simple, but I always feel that too simple won't work.

I'll start easy and build if needed.

 

[Big Mike]

That's good advice. Start with just one (or two) lights and see what you're getting. Add other lights only when you see a specific need for them. But it wouldn't hurt to include other lights in your test/set-up shots, so that when you do turn them on...you don't have to spend too much time figuring out the power needed.

Oh...and have a blast :thumbsup:

 

[Derrel]

One easy way to get a good white backdrop is to cross-light the background with one light on each side of the seamless, aimed in at about 30-35 degrees, from about 1/3 of the way from the wall to the front of the seamless apron. So, if you have 12 feet of seamless rolled out, place the two lamps that will illuminate the background one on each side about 3.5 feet to 4 feet from the wall. It's good to flah off those lights, so they do not spill light back toward the lens.

The easiest way to ensure the backdrop is white is to use the most-powerful lights on the background, and to use the lowest powered lights on the subjects in the foreground. Using the most-powerful two flashes on the backdrop, the Bowens, and a black backdrop, you can use lower-powered slaves or speedlights to illuminate the people, and get a grayish background. On the black backdrop, it might be possible to use some gels over the background light, or lights, to give a colored backdrop effect.

We recently had a discussion about the way white,gray,and black backgrounds differ in the way gels render. Whioe it is theoretically possible to et equal effects with any backdrop color, in reality, light leads to the lightest, most-spill-probe gel backdrops, and black leads to the deepest and saturated gelled backdrops--with ALL things being equal, or when the power is dialled down to minimum...

With a 1,000 watt-second monolight, it might very well be possible to position the light at mid-back height behind th drummer, let's say, and blow out the entire background to white using only ONE bowens light,with its reflector removed.

My main advice: set a custom white balance, and leave it.

 

[bigtwinky]

Great advice guys, I seriously appreciate it

 

[bigtwinky]

Alrighty, the photo shoot is done and holy crap I'm tired. Probably a mix of working overtime at work this week + the photo shoot which is pretty damn tiring.

Things went fairly well. I did learn a lot, made some mistakes and had issues I need to work on.

Not that I was mislead, but I was a bit tee'ed at the studio layout. The room is rectangular and she had her backdrops on the long walls, limiting shooting space. I was shooting 5 people, which was hard to get them in frame and not get what was off the side of the backdrops. I would of loved to shoot from further out using a longer lens to narrow the field of view, but that was not possible. So I did the best I could with what I had.

I worked mainly with 2 lights. I rolled up her white and rolled out the black and worked with that a bit, where I included a third slave in the back and played with that.

A lot of what I did was experimental, as I've never done much before. Trying to manage not only new equipment, off camera lights, light ratios AND also manage 5 people, keep them working and happy...and they are not models. 4 of the 5 had never been in a shoot before.

No images yet, got home around midnight last night, uploaded and backed up the images. Going to start working on them in a few days. I'll be blogging more about the experience and adding in some pictures.

Just want to say thanks again for taking the time to give me some tips. I did keep them in the back of my mind and they did come in useful. Hopefully the end results will decent lol.

 

[Big Mike]

It usually seems to be the case that before the fact we're worried about all the technical stuff, but when it comes to it...it's the logistics and the people managing that are the most challenging.

That's why it's fairly important to know your photography & gear very well, because you won't have much time to think about it when the time comes.