I have ordered my first studio set and hope it arrives this week. I'm getting 2 flashes with umbrellas and a softbox and was afraid that it might be a flash or two short of making good pictures, but then I stumbled over this thread and Boy was I pleseantly surprised. When I see the result you guys have made with just one lightsource, I almost wanna cancel one of the flashes I have ordered :-)
What a superb thread with lots of information for beginners, I really hope it will continue to grow, I for one will be checking in here every day from now on, and if I ever make some decent pictures, I might even upload a few here :-)
Don't cancel the second light, just leave it in the box for a month or two. Get that one light out and get to know what it can do for you. Then break the second one out and realize that it can do the same. Two lights can do a plethora of things. Among them will be the ability to slectively light your backgrounds while still utilizing a one light setup.
And yes, this thread will get you really excited about shooting with one light.
These were taken using natural light coming through a glass brick wall. Ultimately the light source was about 8" wide by 40-48" tall.
I am not sure if this is cheating because I feel it would fall under two lights if using the strictest definition of "one light", in that I am using the glass block window as one source and a strobe as teh second source. One is natural light and one is artificial.
AB800 w/ large AB softbox Camera left just out of the frame
beige-ish wall to camera left & behind me.
i also think i had a friend holding a reflector to camera right as well.
Here is another shot. Canon 5D 135L 1/125 @ f5.6 1-AB800 with beauty dish and sock with a 42" silver round reflector for some specular fill and lower sparkle in the eye.
I'm not a regular FM poster, so I only just discovered this thread. Great inspiration! Two of mine that I posted yesterday on the people forum, both made with a single strobe/18cm reflector/barndoor plus a small reflector on face level on the opposite side. Background light in the first image comes from the same strobe.
