Manifest Studio Shoot – Setup and Lighting
- At November 06, 2008
- By Neil Creek
- In Tutorial
9
A few weeks ago, I was at the Melbourne Anime Festival (Manifest) photographing in an on-site studio in a professional capacity. This was the first time I had ever covered an event in this way, and it was a first for Manifest as well, having an officially endorsed photographer shooting for the attendees.
I thought that it might be useful for readers of the blog for me to describe my experience at Manifest, how it worked and what I learned.
First some photos and a description of the setup.
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The gear used in the setup is listed below, including what I paid for it all, in case you’re interested to know what it would cost you to build a similar setup.
- 3x Vivitar 285HV ($90usd ea)
- 1x Canon 580EX (could be substituted by another Viv) ($400usd)
- Large white drop sheet and stand ($100usd)
- 2x diffuser umbrellas (either kind would work) ($30usd ea)
- 4x stands ($30usd ea)
- 1x transmitter and 4x receivers – Cactus radio flash triggers (total about $100usd)
Shipping for all that to Australia would be about another $150usd, so the total price (if you used 4x Vivitars) is about $890usd or so. I’m not even gonna bother converting to AUD cos the dollar is so volatile at the moment.
Here’s a lighting diagram for the setup I used on Saturday. I had the Canon 580EX and a Vivitar 285HV on stands with umbrellas at 45 degrees to the model, left and right. I had a Vivitar on a high stand back left as a kicker (highlight on the hair and side of the face), and with another Vivitar behind the white cotton background to illuminate it.
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And a slightly modified setup I used on the Sunday. I hated how visible the background was in photos from Saturday, so I sacrificed the kicker and put two Vivitars directly on the backdrop, which did a much better job of giving an even white background. Next time I’ll try to get a 5th flash to put back in as a kicker.
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These setup basically flooded the area with light, nice and soft. There wasn’t a big difference between the key and fill lights. I was shooting at about 1/4 power max on mostly AAs, and I went all day, only needing to change batteries on one flash. The recycle time on this was about one second, so it was nice fast shooting.
Here’s an example of a typical photo on Saturday and Sunday.
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The Manifest 2008 galleries, can be seen in total here: http://neil.creek.name/gallery/v/manifest.
Here’s some photos of me at work taken by my friend Colin, who was my sales assistant on the day.
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In a later post I’ll talk more about the business side of the shoot, and how we went about booking the shoots, what we charged, and how we promoted the studio.
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Rebecca
This is fascinating, Neil… :)
Neil Creek
Thank you very much! I’m glad you liked it. Congratulations to you as well on your wedding :) I’m thrilled for you!
Mandy
Wow great to have an insight as to how these things work!
Thanks
Alan Nielsen
Neil,
Thanks for sharing your lighting setups. Always appreciate the “how I did it” posts.
the_wolf_brigade
Hi Neil,
I’m *very* interested in starting to setup a portable selection of gear to do some portraits with. It will all be on b/w film at this stage, with my main interest being in moody portraits of the wife and kids. I’m going to start with just some basic lighting until I get the hang of things, but the thing I need most is a backdrop.
As you rightly point out, the US dollar to AUS dollar conversion is not even worth mentioning at this stage so I was wondering if you may have done a post somewhere along the line on basic/budget lighting techniques?
I just bought the new Australian “Digital Photography: black & white Volume 1” magazine and it has given me some ideas for what I want to achieve (pg 43 to be exact) but I need the backdrops. I checked on ebay and a proper backdrop will set me back about $100.
Is there a particular sort of material that these are made from? ie. Since I can use a sewing machine competently is is something I can knock up myself?
Finally, in the event that you haven’t done a post on this sort of thing is there a particular site/post that discusses these sort of ghetto lighting setups?
I was going to ask in flickr somewhere, but then I remembered you’d just setup your studio, and there was this post on lighting…
:)
Neil Creek
Thanks everyone, I’m glad you like the peek behind the scenes :)
@TWB I don’t have any of the kind of posts you are asking about. I’ve tried to document the kind of lighting schemes I’ve used whenever I post a photo to the blog using flash. If you have any specific questions about the photos you see here, please feel free to post them as a comment to the post, or even better, in a thread on our forum: http://neil.creek.name/forum
All of the photos I’ve ever taken have used the above or less equipment, so it’s all quite affordable.
I’m also looking for affordable paper backdrops, but I’m not having any luck as yet. If I find anything, I’ll let you know, please do the same if you find success! The backdrop I hace is a simple cotton one, but it’s in one piece, rather than joined with a possibly visible seam. I got it in a kit with the stand and a bag from B&H for about $100usd (when the AUD was better) plus shipping.
If you want to learn about low cost small off-camera lighting you can’t beat http://www.strobist.com You MUST read all of Strobist 101 and 102. If you read and understand those, you’ll be able to do everything I can, maybe more :)
Good luck and please let us know how you go!
Jen Lapuz
It is great to see Anime Conventions covered by great photographers. Lots of cosplayers put so much thought and effort into making their costumes. It is great that you can capture that. I go to Anime Expo here in Southern California and enjoy the whole experience. Great tutorial on a portable setup.
Jamie "Midori"
That’s a great idea that you put this up to give others information of what you do.
Oh My Gosh! One of the photos is me… hehehe.
I was Midori. My friend Rhea dressed up as “Moroko the monk.” We both had a photo session with you at the Manifest Convention a while back in September!!
Thanks that was heaps of fun by the way.
Jamie
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