Basic Studio Lighting Setup – Zumba Model Shoot

Hi, this time I want to introduce you with Tomasz Nowak (photography site and facebook page), Tomasz shoots weddings and children in Poland, but as I found out is a very talented strobist photographer. I first met this simple studio setup on strobox (a source for many ideas for any level photographers). Tomasz uses here a basic two light setup, the main light is made of two entry level YN460II strobist style flashes in a softbox front left side of the model (in the next post you’ll see how he fixed them in) and another YN460II as fill hair light through a snoot from the back opposite model’s side .

So lets dig in and see how its done!!!

Here is a simple sketch (I must say the he is also talented with sketching those)

This lighting setup is pretty easy to do:

• All the shots were shot with Nikon D700 and 85/1.8@f2.8, 1/200 and ISO 400.
• Softbox with 2 YN460II at 1/8th Power rather than having one Yn460II at 1/4th Power (so getting fast recycle times).
• Hair light YN460II with snoot from behind to get some good separation from the background.

Here are some general tips from Tomasz:

• some of the shots were done while the models were in motion, so i wanted to shoot couple of frames one after another. One speedlight  flash set to ¼ power recycles rather slowly but two of them, both set to ⅛ power recycle much faster. and I was able to shoot more frames at a time.
• a standard studio flash wouldn’t be helpful in this situation. Most of them recycle only to level of the required amount of power, so you’re not able to shoot a series of images because of recycle time.
• We have different situation when using speedlights – they always recycle to full power – that means if you have a flash set to ⅛ power you can theoretically shoot 8 frames before it’s empty.

Here are some more images taken in that set, we’ll be happy if you post your thoughts  here .

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