hi all, I have been putting together a rather complete speedlite kit (3 kits, 9-11 lights/battery packs, and TT5's with softboxes, grids, snoots, fresnels, grip gear, stands, and other accessories all in a small rolling case, each case one third the size and 1/4th the weight of my previous 2 pack, 3 head broncolor kits) To the case I add one convertible boom/15 foot stand and one small tripod strapped outside.
So this weekend I was giving a small demo of that setup, all thats in the case and also brought the big 86" PLM to play with in conjunction. Here are a few of the shots from that.
It was a rainy gray day, so I was using a CTB in fact I used 1 1/2 CTB to make the main lights very blue and when balanced for a warm tone the gray day became far warmer and near orange glow.
To see some great behind the scenes footage from that shoot click here: http://vimeo.com/6731465
Speedlites in action... 5D2, 7D, TT5's from Stephen Eastwood (extras) on Vimeo.
Canon speedlites, on both 7D and 5D markII Using the ST-E2, or built in 7D
flash or TT5 Pocket Wizards(E-TTL compatible).
580ex2's, 580ex, 550ex's
Check my tutorial page for details and a "whats in my speedlite kit" list! As
well as a how it was lit section under what can be done with speedlites
http://www.StephenEastwood.com/tutorials
For these I was using limited gear as it was simple, I had the speedlites, (all 580exII's) with CP-E4 battery packs and Pocketwizard TT5 units on each. Camera had a TT5 and ST-E2 for ratio controls. main light indoors, not PLM (Parabolic light modifier shots) was a westscot halo with 1 and 1/2 CTB's (Color Temp Blue gels, 1 CTB changes tungsten to daylight, 3200k to 5700k so 1 1/2 was a 4600 degree cooling down ) and I had a 580 on a boom with Honl Grid and 1 1/2 CTB, as hair/rim light, and one in a wastscot Apollo 24" open faced shooting at the background to add light to a dark scene. That background light had no gel so it was warmer in color temp by 4600 degrees) I dragged the shutter a tad to burn out the windows and as the sky was fairly dark and gray the extra blue gels helped in creating the orange glow. (I adjusted in camera to account for the blue gels and be even slightly warmer than the accurate temp to give the model a nice pleasing warm light, that made the daylight outside coming in nice and warm in comparison)
For the sundown roof and puddle shots I went outside with two lights, one in the open face apollo and one in a halo, the halo still had 1 1/2 blue (CTB) gels and the apollo on the hair had 1 CTB gel making it warmer than the main, I White balanced for the main and a tad warmer making the hint of color in the sky much, much warmer than what was actually there. The puddle was from the rain of the day, (it stopped raining maybe 20 minutes earlier)
The face shot (banana) was a halo above and an apollo with cover below ratio'd down from camera to work as a low fill.
All lights in my halo or apollo face into the back reflective material and bounce out to create a soft light ( to create more of a center hotspot you can face them forward out the diffusion material)
on the PLM shot, I had one speedlite with TT5 and mini ball head (making it ride along the shaft tighter to be more centered, I had an omni bounce to create a wider spread of light to better fill the 86" parabolic, and was using a 580 in a halo as a main light.
All lights are controlled through the camera, camera set to Manual, ratio on and lights are grouped in A, B or C, I had A (the main) at 8:1 over B (in the parabolic)
a full list of what and where is here: I have far more lights and modifiers in my kits, but this was relatively simple.
http://www.stepheneastwood.com/tutorials/speedlite_equipment_list.htm
And if anyone cares most all clothes boots and jewelry was designer except the black hat and blue top. I bring my own (store clerks love me, I buy a ton of clothes and jewlery when I was only looking for one thing, I am a shopaholic when it comes to womens clothes I can use IN SHOOT's that is) :D
Banana was not a designer accessory, but quite tasty from what I here.
The following is all speedlites 580exII's with the 7D and using the built in flash as the controller only.
first: 1 speedlite in a halo one lower fill in a apollo
next I had one main in a halo, 1 backlight with grid flairing in, one backlite without grip flairing lower right, and one kicker off to the models back.
One in an apollo, one rear lighting the room from behind and highlighting the hair.
one in my hand ober my head off to the side, colors added in post.
B&W done in Post.
Below some intermingling of a hotlight and daylight with 2 speedlites in a 5 foot shoot through for a main light
here is mixing daylight with 3 speedlites, two in a 5 foot shoot through, one from the rear camera left gridded, the mains were gelled 1CTB and WB was balanced to make her warm which in turn made the daylight very warm
shooting into the light (fog machine was adding some haze)
Below 4 light set ups, two high rims with grids and 1/2 CTO's two in a 5 foot shoot through
Changing the CTO's to 3/4 blue gels and aiming one of them in created a more blue look for this one
What about Beauty? I do that more often than anything, so why not try it with speedlites (as if my model above were not beautiful enough)
So here we go. First one is simple, again two speedlites in a 5 foot shoot through, backed to maximize power output. One on the background (a medium size scarf) and one with grid to the models left for a rim.
getting more complex again the same two in the main and one on the background (now a different medium size silk scarf) and two rims with grids, placement for highlights and spill is more critical and without modeling lights on the speedlites a test shot or two may be needed to fine tune placement.
Now lets go for gold, gold props frame the face, same main, two rim/back lights on the model, blow out is intentional and forced by using FEL to lock on the skin and allow the rims/back to be set higher in ratio
and for this lose the over powered rear lights for a deeper effect and less blow out from behind.
Now for a bit more subdued. Same 5 foot main, but placement of the two speedlites is not one higher and one lower, I can now ratio them as one fill one main, high or low, which adds some versatility to the single large light source and as seen in the catchlight almost appears as two sources. One backlight on some crumpled red tooling, having it out of focus is a must.
just raised the main and turned the model helped in this situation.
and if you are doing some fun commercial clean light this set up worked well for that by simply moving the main more frontal and level with the model and adding back the rim behind at a lower setting, one speedlite working as a back light on the medium silk scarf behind, depth of field allowed to to go out of focus making it just a see of color.
below, one speedlight above and in front with grid and 1/2 CTO BW in post.
This was with 6 speedlites, grids, snoot, Kacey Beautydish and grid, lastolite trigrip diffusion and a bunch of butterfly's see the behind the behind the scenes video here
below done with 5 speedlites and canons optical system. one gridded with bastard amber gel on models right/behind one gridded overhead toward models left/behind one with 1/cto behind the vose/vase one in a Parabolic to fill the models left and one main in a small white bounce umbrella to models right/front
More tutorials can be found here: http://www.StephenEastwood.com/tutorials
Stephen Eastwood
http://www.PhotographersPortfolio.com