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(View 'Full Size', it'll help! And the diagram pretty much covers it all; the stuff below is just a cheetah rambling on a bit about "why")
Equipment for this two-strobe shoot:
Camera, with shutter set to X-sync speed to eliminate ambient light.
1x 580EX as a wireless ETTL master - (Edit: it contributed no light to this two-strobe lighting setup.)
2x 430EX II as ETTL slaves, with lightstands
2x cans of "Magican" artificial smoke in a can
Booklet of sample gel swatches (they're just the right size for a 430EX!)
Hotel Manager to disable the smoke alarms in the room
(Wireless ETTL?! Some derpy cheetah with an "@" in his name forgot to bring his cheap eBay radio trigger transmitter and only realised this about an hour before the shoot was to begin. So the flashes were put in ETTL mode instead of (preferred) manual. Seemed to work okay, but nine out of ten cheetahs still prefer the 'predictability' of fully-manual flash over the automation of ETTL)
Why this setup?
That mottled grey backdrop is pretty much bread and butter for photographers - I've got one, you've probably got one... But don't you wish you could eat something else for once?
Leading up to the 2011 FurDU furcon I'd pretty much decided that if I used my grey backdrop one more time, I'd vomit. Everywhere. Projectile spew, all over the back of the DSLR body and the subject too. It wouldn't have been pretty.
So, what to do? Afterall, cheetahs can't afford to replace THAT many fursuits. :P
With Flamedrake's help I dabbled a bit with splashing colour through the backdrop from behind using a gel. Kinda interesting, but still a little ehhh; especially with the difficulty of 'painting' the floor near the subject's feet.
(Flamedrake shoot: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4600837/ )
No, I really wanted to break away from the grey backdrop thing. Sick of the soft, safe umbrella'd light and restrained, safe grey backdrop, I had wild thoughts of coloured rim light/background light and bare strobes in that trendy "I've got two Vivitar 285s and to hell with the hard light!" look inhabiting Strobist for the last few years.
Hell, I had wild thoughts of leaving lighting gear and the backdrop stands (and half the room we're shooting in) visible in the frame. To hell with careful and 'professional' composition; just let it all hang out! That didn't eventuate in this shoot, except by accident, but you get the idea - I had to do something totally different to my past photoshoots.
A few hours scouring Flickr and here we are:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/presidium/4178875021/
The look. That's exactly what I had in mind.
The next step was to see what it takes to recreate it. Since the unofficial theme of FurDU 'this' year was "Night Life", fiddling around with the laser equipment also seemed a good idea. You know, dance-party sort-of thing. Oz Kangaroo was wearing Max for this night of testing in the garage:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8945912/Fur.....FurDU_test.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8945912/Fur.....rDU_lasers.JPG
(Exposure of the fursuit is a bit (a lot) off in these two, as I was more concerned with trying to get the lasers to show up in the shot than being spot-on with exposure)
The main learnings from the test were:
* The laser generator purchased for FurDU's dance events, while cool, can't really compete with strobes without a crap-tonne of artificial fog in the air.
* Distance ratios between key light to subject vs key light to background wall(s) are fairly important, to make sure the key light doesn't expose the background wall a great deal. In that Presidium shot with the lady they're in a tunnel so there is no 'real' background to worry about.
And here's the shoot at FurDU:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
We discovered later that you can have a bit of fun with those two cans of smoke, too:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
Could it have been done better?
Could it be improved with s'more lights 'n stuff 'n a better backdrop/surroundings?
Of course! All the same, this photoshoot was a really fun learning exercise for me. :)
Now I just have to think of something to do for the next shoot. XD
Equipment for this two-strobe shoot:
Camera, with shutter set to X-sync speed to eliminate ambient light.
1x 580EX as a wireless ETTL master - (Edit: it contributed no light to this two-strobe lighting setup.)
2x 430EX II as ETTL slaves, with lightstands
2x cans of "Magican" artificial smoke in a can
Booklet of sample gel swatches (they're just the right size for a 430EX!)
Hotel Manager to disable the smoke alarms in the room
(Wireless ETTL?! Some derpy cheetah with an "@" in his name forgot to bring his cheap eBay radio trigger transmitter and only realised this about an hour before the shoot was to begin. So the flashes were put in ETTL mode instead of (preferred) manual. Seemed to work okay, but nine out of ten cheetahs still prefer the 'predictability' of fully-manual flash over the automation of ETTL)
Why this setup?
That mottled grey backdrop is pretty much bread and butter for photographers - I've got one, you've probably got one... But don't you wish you could eat something else for once?
Leading up to the 2011 FurDU furcon I'd pretty much decided that if I used my grey backdrop one more time, I'd vomit. Everywhere. Projectile spew, all over the back of the DSLR body and the subject too. It wouldn't have been pretty.
So, what to do? Afterall, cheetahs can't afford to replace THAT many fursuits. :P
With Flamedrake's help I dabbled a bit with splashing colour through the backdrop from behind using a gel. Kinda interesting, but still a little ehhh; especially with the difficulty of 'painting' the floor near the subject's feet.
(Flamedrake shoot: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4600837/ )
No, I really wanted to break away from the grey backdrop thing. Sick of the soft, safe umbrella'd light and restrained, safe grey backdrop, I had wild thoughts of coloured rim light/background light and bare strobes in that trendy "I've got two Vivitar 285s and to hell with the hard light!" look inhabiting Strobist for the last few years.
Hell, I had wild thoughts of leaving lighting gear and the backdrop stands (and half the room we're shooting in) visible in the frame. To hell with careful and 'professional' composition; just let it all hang out! That didn't eventuate in this shoot, except by accident, but you get the idea - I had to do something totally different to my past photoshoots.
A few hours scouring Flickr and here we are:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/presidium/4178875021/
The look. That's exactly what I had in mind.
The next step was to see what it takes to recreate it. Since the unofficial theme of FurDU 'this' year was "Night Life", fiddling around with the laser equipment also seemed a good idea. You know, dance-party sort-of thing. Oz Kangaroo was wearing Max for this night of testing in the garage:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8945912/Fur.....FurDU_test.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8945912/Fur.....rDU_lasers.JPG
(Exposure of the fursuit is a bit (a lot) off in these two, as I was more concerned with trying to get the lasers to show up in the shot than being spot-on with exposure)
The main learnings from the test were:
* The laser generator purchased for FurDU's dance events, while cool, can't really compete with strobes without a crap-tonne of artificial fog in the air.
* Distance ratios between key light to subject vs key light to background wall(s) are fairly important, to make sure the key light doesn't expose the background wall a great deal. In that Presidium shot with the lady they're in a tunnel so there is no 'real' background to worry about.
And here's the shoot at FurDU:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
We discovered later that you can have a bit of fun with those two cans of smoke, too:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atpaw/.....57626413638897
Could it have been done better?
Could it be improved with s'more lights 'n stuff 'n a better backdrop/surroundings?
Of course! All the same, this photoshoot was a really fun learning exercise for me. :)
Now I just have to think of something to do for the next shoot. XD
Category Photography / Tutorials
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1280 x 853px
File Size 243 kB
That's right, yep. The 580EX on the hotshoe wasn't contributing any light to the scene, it was just bossing the two 430EXs around. The setup of the two 430EXs (or Vivitar 285HVs, or Sunpaks, or..) would be the same regardless of how they're triggered, which is why I didn't bother to include the 580EX in the diagram. :)
Really nice idea, @paw, and well executed. The colourful costumes of fursuiters lend themselves well to this kind of treatment.
I occasionally have to use that awful mottled grey background for work, and I agree, it's vomitilicous. My compromise is a plain storm grey backdrop which I can light dramatically. It's about as much as I can get away with when shooting VIP's.
I occasionally have to use that awful mottled grey background for work, and I agree, it's vomitilicous. My compromise is a plain storm grey backdrop which I can light dramatically. It's about as much as I can get away with when shooting VIP's.
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