Need Lighting Setup Recommendations...

[patrick.greene@gmail.com]

Thanks for your advice in advance.

I am photopgraphing a family of 12 for their Christmas portrait in front of a large fireplace. The room is fairly dark and they want to include some of the surrounding decorations that will adorn the fireplace. My question, what lighting arrangment would you recommend. I have two 600W monoblocs and a 3'x4' softbox. I was initially thinking of the softbox camera right and the other 600 off an unmbrella to light the background fireplace, et al.

Thoughts, ideas, etc?

Thanks,
Patrick

[David_Buzzard]

With such a large box, you could probably just put it up behind the camera, and that would light the entire room, background and all. With such a large group, if you have different light sources from different directions, you're going to get conflicting shadows. Unless the group is a long way off from the background, it's not much point to light the background seperately.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

[ChrisPerry]

I've not had to do such a large group in a tight space, but for wedding formals where you have BG items and shadow issues, I put a 2x2 softbox on a tall stand behind me and try for 1 or 2 stops over ambient. I try to get as much ambient as possible, going to 1/10 of a second if need be.

For tight space I've used shoot through umbrellas mostly to try and raise the ambient to reasonable levels while not creating shadows. Not easy, not always as successful as I'd like.

Keep the light high and centered - no cross shadows and the shadows that are created are down behind the subjects.

Take a couple of test shots and look for shadow and even lighting.

[Alan_Ackoff]

If you are lucky enough to have a good wall or corner to bounce your light off, that would make life a little easier. If you use a single softbox you'll want keep the camera pretty close to the light source and that way you'll avoid some problems with shadows.

If you can mix your flash with ambient light and get the lights of the fireplace and Christmas ornaments glowing you'll be a hero. A good trick for shooting Christmas stuff is to white balance for tungsten and then gel your flash accordingly (CTO filter). That way you capture the colors of the Christmas lights.

Go for the basic must-have shot first. Once you're sure you've got it then, if there is time, try for something more artistic. If there are twelve people and some of them are fidgety kids your time may be limited. In that case, just keep it simple and take lots of pictures. With a group of 12 it's amazing how many pictures you have to throw away because someone blinked.

Good luck!
Alan

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