{"id":41558,"date":"2017-12-22T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adorama.com\/alc\/?p=41558"},"modified":"2018-04-11T15:18:37","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T19:18:37","slug":"working-in-studio-planning-a-studio-shoot-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adorama.com\/alc\/working-in-studio-planning-a-studio-shoot-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Working in Studio: Planning a Studio Shoot 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first thing you’ll need from a studio is unobstructed space, the more the better \u2014 but it’s not necessary to have a massive space to create great work. The distances you’re concerned with are how far your subject will be from the background, and how far you, camera in hand, and your lighting setup, can be from the subject. <\/p>\n

A good working rule of thumb for each of these is that you’re going to want the freedom to move your subject a minimum of 4 feet from the background, and have another 6 to 8 feet in front of the subject for you and your light. More space allows greater freedom and more refined control over isolating your subject from the background\u2026 but there are<\/em> creative ways to work with a smaller space. Generally you want space between the subject and the background to move the shadows off-center, out of focus, or out of frame. With even greater room, you can light the background separately for even greater control, making the background appear consistent edge-to-edge, and also raise or lower its exposure independent of the subject. Often, however, you\u2019ll see people creating work where they put their subject right on top of the background and let the shadows fall where they will \u2014 the combination of this and a wider lens (e.g. 35-50mm) allow for nice work in tight spaces, and the key light does double duty, lighting the background as well as the subject.<\/p>\n

Picking a studio: Light matters <\/h3>\n

Your second consideration is whether you plan to work with natural light<\/a> or strobe. Both are wonderful and offer separate benefits and compromises. At the very least, natural light requires timing for good weather, and windows facing the direction of sun exposure that will align with your shooting times \u2014 east for early morning, west for afternoon, and north or south for indirect, all day light. Many top photographers are famous for working exclusively with natural light and they arrange their work schedules around favorable weather. If you can time your shoot properly, natural light offers a simple way to make really stunning work with minimal setup time \u2014 it is the basis for everything done with studio lights because of its inherent beauty. <\/p>\n

\"natural
Two examples of opportunities created by having access to natural light \u2014 simple, quick and at the same time, truly beautiful. (Photo by Jim Lafferty)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, for this article series I’ll be focusing on lighting with strobes, and my goal is to give you a firm grasp on the fundamentals of working this way. Working with strobes allows you to decouple your shoot from timing, or create a mood that you can set your subject in and carry consistently throughout a long day, or recreate across several days (invaluable for high volume catalog fashion for instance.)<\/p>\n

Choosing studio strobes: A liberating approach<\/h3>\n

After years of using a pack and head system as the backbone of my studio work, I have been working a lot lately with Adorama’s Flashpoint line of li-ion battery powered lights. In fact, ever since I happened upon the Streaklight<\/a> (<\/span>), the Flashpoint series of li-ion battery powered strobes are all I shoot with, having tuned my techniques and style to fuse with this battery powered system. <\/p>\n

The Streaklights, and their siblings eVolv<\/a> (<\/span>) and Xplor<\/a> (<\/span>), are a complete system that can pivot from location to studio work with ease, and \u2014 though not without compromises \u2014 they offer a huge degree of creative freedom at a cost previously unimagined.<\/p>\n

\"streaklight
Photo by Jim Lafferty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"streaklight
Each image produced here was done with a mix of ambient and Streaklight, or entirely Streaklight. With just a minor shift in strategy, the images made mixing ambient can be done with an eVolv 200, and the studio work could be even more easily produced with an Xplor600. Photos by Jim Lafferty.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Setting aside speedlights \u2014 such as the excellent R2 Li-Ion<\/a> (<\/span>), I will just be focusing on what I feel are the three key categories of Adorama\u2019s Flashpoint R2 system strobes: Pocket studio, bare bulb, and monolight.<\/p>\n

\"R2
A classic speedlight, the Nikon SB-800, shown at the left to offer a baseline in size comparison to the three major categories of R2 lights. Note, the Streaklight is not pictured with its mandatory, external battery pack and cable, but both the eVolv and Xplor have batteries which are self-contained. (Photo by Jim Lafferty)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"evolv
To put an even finer point on it, if you attach the eVolv\u2019s fresnel head, it very closely resembles a speedlight in size and weight, yet produces output 3x a top speedlight. The bare bulb option creates a more broadly uniform light source while still packing a punch. (Photo by Jim Lafferty)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A simplified way of thinking of the three lighting categories would be:<\/p>\n

\u2022 eVOLV 200<\/a> (pocket studio):<\/strong> The most portable, great for a small pop of light to assist ambient, or shoots with a smaller coverage area, such as headshots and portraits. At 200ws, paired with a Bowens S mount, this is truly the world\u2019s smallest studio light.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Streaklight 360<\/a> & Streaklight TTL<\/a> (bare bulb):<\/strong> The best compromise between portability and higher output \u2014 competent all-rounders, capable of full length coverage at ISO400 with near instant recycle times, while also breaking down to a fairly small kit. The manual version of these lights often goes on sale and \u2014 at four times the output and about 1.5 times the weight of a single speedlight \u2014 are a fantastic entry into studio lighting.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Xplor600<\/a> (monolight):<\/strong> The absolute highest output of the R2 lights \u2014 capable of providing coverage of the largest space; also allows the most freedom to shoot at lower ISOs, or maintain a moderate ISO while shooting at the quickest recycle rate; in the case of capturing motion, provides the combination of the greatest output at the shortest flash duration.<\/p>\n

If you’re looking to get into studio lighting, I can\u2019t recommend the R2 system enough. My general advice is to get two lights to work with, budget- and subject-depending, with a handful of accessories to make a complete and flexible setup. I’ll be going into this in greater detail in upcoming parts of this series. <\/p>\n

If you want to get in with the least amount of initial cost, while still having a rich feature set to work from, the manual (non-TTL) Streaklights go on sale regularly and can be had for as little as $300, including the power pack. For an overview of the items I suggest purchasing that make up a complete Streaklight setup, see my previous article on Japan<\/a>. These lights lack the bells and whistles of their TTL counterparts, but on a shoe string budget, their features outpace many supposed “premium” lights with a double to triple price tag. <\/p>\n

Pre-shoot prep <\/h3>\n

Before leaving for the studio, check the basics: <\/p>\n