Lighting for Nude Shoot

<p>I'm an amateur photographer working my way up, and I just got hired by a friend to do a nude set for Suicide Girls. I know my stuff, but when it comes to lighting, I don't.</p>

<p>My question is what would be the best lighting set up for this type of shoot? It'll be indoors with not much natural light. I've considered using a ring flash because I like the style and it would save on renting costs, but I also want to try using strobes or something of the sort.</p>

<p>Any insight is much appreciated.</p>

<p>A couple or three strobes with large soft boxes will do the job. That will give you the capability for lighting the entire body. You might also consider having grids on the boxes to control light spill. You will need background lights (strobes) if you are planning on doing a lit white background. The ring flash will give a fairly flat light for the foreground if that is what you want. Side lighting with the soft boxes can give a more dramatic shadowed effect. (standard comment to read "Light Science and Magic" insert here) Also the Strobist archives lighting 101 http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html and lighting 102 http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/06/lighting-102-introduction.html can provide some insight. Also, right here at photo.net http://www.photo.net/learn/nudes/</p>

<p>It all depends on the quality of light you want, and the scale of the shot (entire body, upper body, etc.). Very large soft boxes, bank lighting, or parabolic lighting can work well for gorgeous skin tones. If you want edgier lighting, that's a different story. Maybe you could describe your shot in a bit more detail so we can be more accurate. I don't think ring flash is a good way to go if you're shooting a full body shot. You definitely should use strobe lighting, but again, it depends on the vision you have for the shot.</p>

<p>a nude set for Suicide Girls. To me me this would indicate harsh lite and dramatic lighting, soft lighting I do not think will do, hey I've been wrong B-4 ; if this means anything[a nude set for Suicide Girls.] just my two cents very old at that:</p>

<p>Thank you both for the advice. More detail? Color photographs, but a black and white color palette. Indoors (on bed, floor, walls). I want fairly dramatic lighting with low contrast. I'll be working mostly at f/1.4. I'm shooting on a 7D. I do want edgier lighting, this isn't glamor, it's the beauty of grunge. Any of that help?</p>

<p>For the type of shot that you're looking for you'd probably want to venture away from f1.4. Second I'm beginning to think you'd want to use snoots and grids a lot to channel just that little bit of light along specific curves and angles, using the body itself as a self-reflector of pointed light to sculpt your images.</p>

<p>I'd also do extensive use of coloured gels - mostly green I would say - and try to create tons of shadows. Another thing I'd do would be to move them away from the bedroom and into some sort of abandoned industrial-type space.</p>

<p>my 2 cents</p>

<p>I have never been able to get my strobes to power down enough to shoot at 1.4 with strobes even at ISO 50 a 1/200 (fastest sync for 5D2). My experience is shallow DOF don't work the same with strobes as with natural light. To get a similar results with strobe I recommend using light falloff which requires a smaller aperture. In other words to blur the background set strobes as close to model as possible but both as far away from background as possible. use your lowest ISO, highest shutter speed and teh smallest aperture you can. This will cause the light from the strobe to fall off very fast. The models will easily be twice as bright as the background by doubling the distance or more. The only way you will be able to shoot at F1.4 is probably by using just the modeling lights only and not firing the strobe at all. However, you will have a terrible time focusing and part of the photo may be out of focus. If you are shooting nude you want everything to be in focus espeacially if shooting more than one model at a time.</p>