I followed my wife to the gym at 5 AM to see what I could see. At that hour the studio is pretty dark, and with one umbrella my options were limited. Even so, I think we ended up with a good set.
damn dude your wife is ripped! Could have used the umbrella more effectively though. Especially with all those mirrors. Granted, you may have had the reflection of it in the shot, but she would have been evenly lit. Or it could have been cramped so the only option was to put it off to one side. Not bad though, focus is great for how little light there seems to be.
Thanks. Yeah, this was a learning experience. The studio is small and there were other people training, so I was limited in where I could put the stand. I could not find a balance on metering so that the ambient light contributed much, so I decided to go in the other direction. Obviously the solution is more speedlights This is the only image where the background has been lit a little.
Hi Thom! Nice that the club let you bring in a stand and umbrella - a lot of commercial venues frown on that sort of thing. For the background more light would've been helpful. (I know - I show a firm grasp of the obvious! :smile: ). Have you seen Kirk Tuck's work? IMHO he's a lighting wizard and has been using inexpensive LED lights with some success. His website is http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/ And he's done a book on LED portrait lighting ( http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/p/all-about-book-number-five-leds.html ). (Disclaimer - I don't have any financial stake in Mr. Tuck's work or website, I just dig the way the cat works ). What speedlight did you have behind the umbrella? I tried some shots at a Christmas party with my FL-600R and found it underwhelming. I got used to the Nikon SB-900 flashes and I think I'm going to have to upgrade in 2014. I know, in capable hands, the FL-600R can be an effective flash but I'm talking about in my hands . Thanks for posting the shots! Regards, Jim
Great to see her in the gym like that - I'm totally into fitness & bodybuilding so I definitely understand the work & discipline that goes into it! - More power to her! On a bit of a related side note, a friend of mine's wife just got her pro IFBB card this past year....:smile:
Thanks for all the feedback. We train at private studio and have a good relationship with our trainer, so as long as I stayed out of the way, it was cool. My one Metz 50 definitely is not enough for that sort of lighting, but I have to start somewhere. I just started reading Kirk's site. So many good photo blogs, so little time.... Amen
