I'm going to use some of my new lighting set up this weekend and wanted to test a few things. I'm also going to be using it in March when I photograph gymnastics teams and that's a daunting task. I'm not sure if you realize but there is so so so much that goes into lighting. Camera settings, flash settings, placement of flashes, the camera, the subjects in relation to the backdrop, backdrop lighting, etc. etc. etc.......
My brain can't stop thinking about how little I know and how confused it is so I just had to try some things tonight. It was a tough task to start while Olive was still awake and just before I had to make dinner but my brain made me do it. I had more luck after Olive went to bed and I gave my brain some time to calm down.
I thought I would share my tests with you. The backdrop is haphazardly hanging from blinds on doors and it's wrinkled. And save for humans, I was photographing random things. Don't judge me. And please don't judge the quality of photos. These weren't even trying to look decent.
In the end I think I have a good place to start but it depends on so many factors once I'm in the field. I will certainly do more testing before the big session in March but I'm feeling more prepared to use the lights this weekend.
One amazing thing I learned is that my 7D can trigger speedlites remotely. I bought a wireless transmitter system for my 5D (because that's all I ever use!) and was using that but realizing that, because of the size of groups in March, I may also need some fill flash to fill in the middle. The 5D, for some odd reason, does not have a pop-up flash (Canon thinks it isn't a pro feature.. but it is) so I grabbed my 7D... but you can't use the pop-up flash AND the wireless transmitter in the hotshoe. I tried to depress the shutter and the manual transmitter button at the same time and that's basically impossible. Then I remembered a little snip it I read while skimming lighting info today and I realized the 7D could do it all for me! And it did! Hooray! I knew I still and that camera for a reason...
Olive wore her bee dress all day today and insisted on buttoning only the top and bottom buttons of her sweater.
This is when I switched to the 7D.
I had Tyler move closer to me, closer to the background, moved the speedlites, changed their angle, diffused my pop-up flash, etc. trying to get rid of the shadow directly behind him.
He was having a great time.
Finally it worked. And I wrote down a lot of notes so hopefully I can replicate the placement of everything.
And then super duper fast I threw this one into Lightroom and played around with the white balance and exposure. I'm going for an almost white background.. doesn't have to be exact.. but the backdrop I have is cream. I could light the background to blow it out but I don't have enough lights for that so I'm just thinking that if I light the entire space well enough and customize the white balance I should be okay. I can also take it into Photoshop and work with masks to do it for real but I know next to nothing about that right now. I will do that with this photo soon just for practice. When ti isn't 11:30pm. :P
Thanks Tyler!!!!
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