Anna & Natasha

I recently bought an Alienbees lighting setup. This is my first attempt using the new lighting equipment.


Anna







Natasha





Thanks for looking,

Spyglass

[MCR]

Superb portraits! My favourities is second - nice colors!

[Damn Brit]

Great stuff, I'd never guess it was your first time.

[AlexanderMayorov]

Good portraits. I like eyes of the second photo

[gawan]

I like them both, the second has an extra advantage of a happy mood that makes it my favourite!

[Igilligan]

I really need to spend some time learning these kind of flash set-ups

I am amazed that these are your first attempts with your new flash rig. I prefer the second shot...

what lens did you use on the first shot?

How did you like working with the system? What did you learn that you can tell a newbie?

[tlfaust]

I'd love to learn from your experiences. Would you mind putting finger-to-keyboard and give us your take on this?

Nicely done photos, BTW - that's why I think they'll be alot of us eager to hear of your adventures...
Thanks

[roentarre]

You have a great illumination technique and the first shot has very very good skin tone rendering there.

[spyglass]

Thanks for looking and the supportive comments. In the spirit of learning I would enjoy sharing my experience and personal learning curve on this.

I used my K20D and a DA16-50 lens for both shots. If I did it again I would have probably used my DA50-135mm to give myself more working room. The lighting for the shot was two Alienbee AB800 (true 320w/s) strobes in 24"x36" softboxes. The Alienbee strobes are quite reasonable priced (cheaper than a Pentax 540 flash). Two huge advantage over standard hotshoe flashes are modeling lights, and an simple output slider control. You can move the slider to select anywhere from full output power to 1/32 power. The modeling lights can be selected to track the slider. This basically give you a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get). You can see where the light will fall, the intensity (ratio between your main & fill light).

If I had to plott my lighting journey so far it would read like this:

Started with natural window light and reflectors (window source being my Main, the reflector bouncing light back as my Fill). This introduced reflectors to me and taught me how to use them. I have several now, the smallest fits in my camera bag and goes everywhere with me. It is the handiest device I own, you can use it direct light onto flowers or illuminate their underside, fill light onto faces or product. etc. The drawback with natural lighting is getting mother nature to play along, lower lighting levels, and timing.

My next phase sent me to the hadrware store where I bought aluminum spun refectors and kitted them with Phillips halogen lamps (150watt & 100watt). I built a 3 dimmer box and started playing around with constant lighting. I was happy with the results, but the lights had to be quite close to the subjects (heat and glare were always an issue).

I next bought two umbrellas and started playing around playing around with bounce and shoot through. Two AF360FGZ flash units and the benefit of wireless seemed like a perfect solution. The problem was that I never really knew where the light was going to fall until I fired a few shots. This might not be a problem if you have a dedicated studio and can reproduce placement and fall into a routine. But subjects quickly grow tired of your continual experimentation and the phrase "hang on I think I've almost got it figured out". I found that I tended to stick to one setup and did not have the time to try various arrangements.

I was just about to buy two AF540FGZ flash units when I tripped across a Youtube video where the authour (a 12 year old kid) was singing the praises of the Alienbee lighting devices and sporting jaw dropping results. I started to read up and educate myself on the product. I also compared price and specs to many other manufactures. It was the simplicity and durability, and the customer support that made my mind up. If you look on Ebay you will see that the equipment sells for the same price used as new (either people are crazy or the gear is rock solid - I have decided on the latter).

So you can see that my journey was heading toward the Alienbee or similar lighting setup for some time. I was just unaware at the time. Hind sight is a wonderful thing, could have saved me money and time, but I did get some education and enjoyment along the way. I think the appeal of this hobby is that learning, struggle and small rewards. (sorry for the long winded lead up, just thought that it may help with understanding what my expectation are and what approaches I tried along the way)

The setup I used in the posted shots were as follows. Camera was center for both shots. I placed a softbox on either side of the subject. Left side set to act as my main. Right to serve as fill. The softboxes were roughly at a 45 deg angle to the subject pointing downward (camera center being 0 deg). The softboxes were about 71/2 ft above the floor, and about 7ft away from the subject. The Main light was roughly around 1/8th power with the fill around 1/16th (following the 2:1). With the modeling light fearure you can easlily place the lights and see the effect, shadows, hight light opportunities, etc. It is really a quick drag & point, slider adjustment, and fire exercise. I found the process easy and fun.
My setup came with a wireless trigger & receiver. The trigger (transmitter) mounts to your hotshoe. The receiver connects to one of the stobes. All other / additional strobes are slaves (they have built in slave sensors. The strobes can also be used as a dedicated wired setup if you are worried about stray flashes from other photographers setting off your strobes.

In the first shot I stood on a chair to gain an elevated position. I like the effect of the subject looking up slightly. You can see the dual catch lights in the eyes.

In the second shot I was straight on at eye level. Again youe see the dual catch lightsin the eyes and can get a sense of the difference of intensity between the two.
The softboxes provide a nice even, soft, light. They come with internal baffles if you want additional softness and slightly less output. The strobes comes with a 7" reflector. You can buy modifiers that snap in to control and channel the light, nylon socks to difuse, barn doors, gel holders and gels, snoots, etc.

I am going to buy 2 more strobes (I currently have 2 of the AB800) and their command control device that lets you adjust up to 4 strobe from the hand held device. My advice so far would be buy the AB800. The AB400 might run lean on power for large areas, and the AB1600 would be too powerful. To get an appreciation of the power and spread pattern I took one of the AB800 outside in my back yard and fire a couple of shots. It was able to produce day light results with an 80 deg spread up to about 25m. (made my 360 seem like a birthday candle).

Alienbee makes a cool portable power supply for the strobes. I am currently building my own (pure 300 watt sine wave inverter, and four 12volt 7.2ah batteries. This will let me use the strobes in the field.

Like I said before..... think 12 year old kid...... WYSIWYG operation.....decent results......easy. Once I get a few sessions under my belt I will be able to put the equipment aspect on autopilot and focuss on style, and subject matter. I will post some more example and details once I get a few more sessions under my belt.


Thanks again

Spyglass

[vievetrick]

Awesome shots and write up. Do you remeber the YouTube name or have a link? Thanks for the details

[Ash]

Nice setup.
Simple, and effective.
This thread might go well as a lighting tutorial - thanks for sharing it with us.

[ajuett]

Love the eyes in both shots, nice work!

[spyglass]

Vievetrick I thought I had bookmarked the link to the Youtube video but I can't seem to find it. I even hunted around on Youtube to see if I could find it again but no luck. It was about 4 months ago.



Once again thanks for looking everybody, and the encouraging words.

Spyglass