Ha, thought that title might get everyone into the thread just to find out what was going on. Thought I'd share some test shots from my new basement studio and to do that I had to model so I rigged up a nice little setup to enable me to take some great shots.

The setup: Camera mounted to tripod with Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 which is then tethered to one cheap gateway laptop.

Lighting: 2 AF540 flashes set to slave and fired wirelessly by the K10D set as master. One silver/black umbrella on lightstand, one white umbrella on lightstand one AF360 in hand on some shots.

Well, basically I used every technological advance made by Pentax to get these shots so hope you all enjoy and I'll give a decent description of the setup for each shot.

As always please enjoy the shot, but C&C is welcome.


One AF540 bounced into umbrella from stage right.


One AF540 fired with home-made soft snoot at harsh angle.


One AF540 fired through white umbrella from right and one AF360 pointed at background.


Same setup as above but AF360 flash softened with soft snoot into background paper.


Shot though white umbrella + 0.3 flash output hand added from emotional effect.


Shot through snoot directly into face, which blinded model for at least 15 seconds and have noted not to try again with this model.


I hope you all enjoyed and anyone just jumping into off camera lighting that would like some insight please feel free to bug me. I've currently been hanging out with the geek-e-ist of lighting experts and have spent some quality time learning so if I could help others in their quest it would be my honor.

[Falcons]

wow nice shots and thanks for the descriptions.

But you will have to forgive my ignorance, what exactly is a snoot?

[codiac2600]

Thank you Falcons and to answer your question a snoot is anything that you place on your flash to direct the light in a tight beam. Basically I have a cardboard box with no ends and place it on the flash and it makes the flash just shoot a small beam of direct light, but I also added a plastic hex pattern to the front which makes the light soften a little.

[daacon]

Great head shots ! Enjoy the studio looks like you are well on your way.