Hi everyone, long time reader looking for your thoughts on the following system.
The lighting system needs to:
a) properly light a wedding reception hall for wedding photography
b) provide sufficient home studio setup for baby photos etc
I've put together the following:
2 x SB-900 Speedlight
1 x PocketWizard Mini TT1 Nikon
2 x PocketWizard FlexTT5 Nikon
2 x Monfrotto 1005BAC Stand
2 x Monfrotto 026 Lite Tite Umbrella Adapter
2 x Photoflex Umbrella 60” Convertible
1 x Monfrotto Background Kit
1 x white background sheet
1 x black background sheet
Thoughts or suggestions to use different lights/accessories welcomed.
Umbrellas are okay for some uses (I use them myself), but you should probably add a small-to-medium softbox to your kit. An umbrella can scatter too much of its light when used in a home studio. A softbox is much easier to control.
I do like umbrellas for wedding formals, because I usually want some scatter, to fill the room to boost the ambient.
For the reception, though, I usually want more directionality, and just use on-bracket direct flash for fill, with one or two directional flashes on the sidelines. Having an assistant with a light stick is ideal for this, but lacking an assistant just mounting the remotes on light stands and using different channels to activate the right light from the right direction as needed can work.
alohadave wrote:
Expand on this. What exactly do you mean by 'properly light'?
I would like to position one light source (speedlight) towards the main table for when I take photos of the wedding party and position the second speedlight towards the dance floor for first dance/dance shots. Trying to eliminate the blackouts when shooting with on-camera flash.
Can I use the speedlights on a stand by themselves or would I need a diffuser of some sort to spread the light around?
BrianO wrote:
Umbrellas are okay for some uses (I use them myself), but you should probably add a small-to-medium softbox to your kit. An umbrella can scatter too much of its light when used in a home studio. A softbox is much easier to control.
Thanks,
I do like umbrellas for wedding formals, because I usually want some scatter, to fill the room to boost the ambient.
For the reception, though, I usually want more directionality, and just use on-bracket direct flash for fill, with one or two directional flashes on the sidelines. Having an assistant with a light stick is ideal for this, but lacking an assistant just mounting the remotes on light stands and using different channels to activate the right light from the right direction as needed can work.
That sounds like an excellent idea about using different channels for the right light direction. As I mentioned on the earlier post, I would like to have 1 light at the main table and 1 towards the floor with on-camera to fill in.
paramountfocus wrote:
Thoughts about the Pocketwizards?
Since you're using Nikon flashes, they should be fine. Since they'll work in i-TTL, they're very handy when you have changing flash-to-subject distances. You can concentrate on catching the "moments" and let the system handle the power changes.
Note that I'm a Canon user, so I'm not up on the latest Nikon issues; I seem to remember some differences in the way the SB-900 works with the Pocket Wizards compared to the SB-800. You should check into that before committing.
Umbrellas are okay for some uses (I use them myself), but you should probably add a small-to-medium softbox to your kit. An umbrella can scatter too much of its light when used in a home studio. A softbox is much easier to control. I would add a grid for extra control for home studio.
Def add the AC3 zonecontroller for your PWs, it's the best part of the system.
paramountfocus wrote:
2 x SB-900 Speedlight
Get two used SB800s and save yourself some cash
paramountfocus wrote:
2 x Monfrotto 1005BAC Stand
These stands are nice but pretty heafty for speedlights. If you can tear yourself away from 60" modifiers get the much lighter (1.25kg) 1052BAC stand instead. If you are not bothered by weight though go for it.
paramountfocus wrote2 x Photoflex Umbrella 60” Convertible
I'd get a westcott apollo 28" softbox it's awesome and mounts like an umbrella so no speed ring. Umbrellas spray light everywhere and 60" can be unwieldy inside due to size and if you ever shoot outside they are a sail so it would be nice to have a more controllable modifier to use. If you shoot babies a 60" modifier is way too large imo and you may struggle for power - I'd for go for the smallest silver PLM with diffusion fabric or even just a 40" westcott convertible umbrella.
2 x 500BXRi Studio Heads /w built-in remote receiver
2 x larget stands
2 x 66cm by 66cm softboxes
1 x elinchrom transmitter
It works as advertised in my home studio -- I'm very happy with it.
However, my question now is, using the lights for the reception. Does anyone have experience with using studio lights?
For the dance floor, I'm planning to point one of the heads at the ceiling with a 60-90 degree reflector attached to bounce the light back onto the floor. *edit* or point it with an umbrella towards the dancefloor.
Then use the on-camera flash to fill-in.
I would also like to point one of these heads at the main table but I've never seen anyone use a softbox so I think an umbrella would work in this case.
Any thoughts on the size of the umbrella to use? Most of the main tables I shoot have at least 2-3 levels with 10-16 member so the wedding party.
I'm not sure you should have a fixed light pointed at the head table. That's just going to get in the way of the head table seeing the rest of the attendees and vice versa. You're much better off using a speedlight if you have one (excellent choice in the Elinchrom monolights, by the way). For the wedding, you want your lights, whether speedlights or monolights, out of the way of the action. I'd strongly recommend using a speedlight off-camera for your head table shots. You can use a radio trigger, or depending on your camera, the camera's popup flash to control the speedlight, or get a long TTL cord (www.flashzebra.com) and have someone simply hold the speedlight toward the head table when you need it. The speedlight can be modified with a small shoot-through umbrella if desired. Just be as inobtrusive as possible.
There are lots of resources for how to cover weddings. I'd suggest David Ziser, at www.digitalprotalk.com as a starting point. At this point, fundamental techniques for wedding coverage are probably more important than equipment choices.
