Manifest Studio Shoot – Setup and Lighting

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.