Studio Lighting setup question

[mrwardoser]

I wondered if anyone would be able to help me with a lighting question.

We want to get out photos like this;

http://www.phixclothing.com/photo.jpg

We were going to buy;

bowens gemini twin head studio kit 400/400
and the Elinchrom Rotalux 100x100 softbox

My question is will this be enough to get our photos looking like the photo in the link? I am thinking they are using 3 lights here not 2? One on the background and two softboxes at either side.

Any ideas or explanation of the setup they are likely to be using in this photo would be much appreciated as I am new to photography.



Thanks,
Adam

 

[Derrel]

The dual shadows that her feet and lower legs are casting shows that there are two light sources camera right. The background has one flash head aimed at it. SO yes, it is a three-light setup.

Achieving a similar result would be possible using a medium-gray seamless paper background, rolled out onto the floor and taped down at the front of the paper, closest to the camera position, so you need at least, at minimum, a 9 foot wide roll of paper for this type of photo, full length with room for text overlay, or just some "space" for the model to allow for cropping variations and different page aspect ratios.

A 100 x 100 cm softbox ought to illuminate the model suffciently well with a 400 watt-second flash head in it. I would also use a BIG reflector, camera left, like at least a 48'x72" white fabric reflector, or four Foam-Cre sheets,at minimum, to add enough fill from a single main light. You COULD easily shoot this with just one main light in a 100x100, if you had a decently larger reflector camera left, right at the left edge of the seamless paper. One thing to note when working on 9 foot wide paper rolls indoors is that, with small-format digital cameras, to obtain a full-length, head to toe photo of a person whio is roughly 6 feet tall or thereabouts, with the angle of view of something like a 1.5x or 1.6x APS-C camera, in a "normal room or garage studio", the necessary focal length will be somewhere between 19mm and 35mm in length at normal camera to subject distances.

Unless you have shot much on a 9-foot-wide paper roll setup, it might not seem like much of a problem until you find that in a typical 20-24 foot deep garage, the camera must be set to a wide angle of view, and then the ceiling, or the paper's crossbar and/or the light stands on the sides of the set, creep into the picture. The easiest thing to do is to bite the bullet, and go to even wider paper rolls in the 12-foot width OR to find a shooting location where you can back the camera up to 30-40-50 feet, and use a telephoto lens to control the background angle of view, behind the model.

Full-length + room for text overlay, or full-length, multi-subject work done on APS-C and 9 foot wide seamless at short focal lengths in a smaller camera room or studio can be a real hassle. A wider than 9 foot backdrop will make your life soooooooo much easier, it's not even funny.

 

[BKMOOD]

I could do this with two lights and a well placed reflector.

 

[JimmyO]

I could replicated that with Speedlights

Its about knowing what your doing, not what you have

 

[SNAPaPHOTO]

If you new to studio lighting you may want to consider looking into fluorescent always on studio lights. This way you can see what you are getting immediately with shadows or lack there of
Jst make sure the temp color on the lights is 5500ish A couple of umbrella or soft box would be fine.

 

[RONDAL]

you need to read and watch ZA's series on shooting on seamless.
i'm sure you will pick up a LOT of stuff from both his materials and shooting, but post as well

zarias.com :: The blog of editorial photographer Zack Arias White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 1 :: Gear & Space

 

[kkamin]

I could replicated that with Speedlights

Its about knowing what your doing, not what you have

If he is going for a serious studio set-up, it's probably easier get some strobes than worry about AA batteries constantly.

 

[LearnMyShot]

probably 3 lights......most likely soft boxes....you could use diffusion tissue and lights through that...

 

[LBPhotog]

I agree with the rest of the people who have said three lights - TWO to the camera's right side (probably one straight on about chest high on the model and one taller than the model at a 45˚ angle pointing down - both with soft boxes) then the third is probably directly parallel to the model camera left ... that light has to be exposing a little brighter than the other 2 strobes to show up like this, and with that very concentrated area, I don't know that it's a soft box on that as much as maybe an umbrella or a larger snoot - but, I could be wrong ...