Lighting setup for fashion dad & daughter

Just before Christmas I gathered some friends and their families for a photo shoot in a rental photo studio. It was a full day with shooting parents and their kids (with different success, some liked it a lot and were great models, others had a bad day and ran around trying to avoid getting caught on film). But, child photography is really hard, and including parents can sometimes making it even harder. So, except for a day or so every year, I try my best to avoid it.

A four light setup

For this shot I did not use my ordinary Profoto flashes but instead the four Elinchrom flashes (2 x RX600 & 2 x FX400) that were included in the rent. I never intended to create a fashion photo, but this one looks a bit like one. A little bit maybe.

Having never used Elinchrom equipment before, it took some testing to get the light ratios right. I did not use a light meter, but the histogram on the Nikon D700 worked just fine.

Please click on diagram for more studio lighting setups

Elinchrom Octa as soft main light

To light the whole body as well as getting even lighting on the white background (a seamless vinyl-like type) I put one of the Elinchrom RX600 in the biggest Octa they had, a 140 cm diameter. This light was placed camera left with the center at about 1.8 meter.

Adding some contrast

But I wanted some more contrast to it, so I placed the other in front of the Octa on a boom with a beautydish attached to it. I don’t have any photos with just the Octa, but I think that without it, the light on the faces would have been softer and with less contrast. See image below for relative placement of the two flashes.

Medium sized softboxes as rim lights

The two FX400 were placed at approx. 45 degrees angle on either side of the background, with medium sized softboxes (60 x 60 cm), pointed at the model’s back. Again, maybe not so visible in this shot, except for the light on the model’s left side of his face.

Seamless cyc background

The cyc was not lit separately, only the light from the main light made the white background light grey. I tried lighting it with the rim lights first, but the distance was a bit too short to get it right. That kind of lighting is (in my opinion) hard to do without a light meter or checking the photos on the computer, the camera display is not really much help in showing if it going to look good or not.

You can see what effect I used on the different flashes in the setup diagram, but I don’t know what it translates to in Wattseconds (Ws) or any other measure. Sorry.

Key light (RX 600 + Octa): Setting 2.4
Fill light (RX600 + beautydish): Setting 3.0
Rim lights (2 x RX400 + softboxes): Setting 2.0

Developed in Nikon Capture NX2 and some minor adjustments made in Photoshop, nothing more. Mostly to even out the light on the background, but I left a little shadow at the top left corner just to make it look a bit less sterile.

As always I used my Nikon D700 but not with the trusty old 85mm/1.4 this time (it wouldn’t give me full length portraits in the relatively short distance between me and my models). Instead I used a 24-70/2.8 zoom that allowed me to be a bit more flexible, even though I like the 85mm better for studio portraits.

Lighting setup diagram based on Kevin Kertz design.