Suggestions on how to pull off lighting a band

[vancouverphotographer]

<p>Hi all, I know a band that's in rehearsal right now and while they have the rehearsal studio space they would like to pull off a group portrait ... I really know nothing about lighting but I have some equipment pooled together from me and my friends - they know a little about lighting but I wonder if you guys can give me some suggestions on how these next two images are lit and if we can pull it off with 2 to 3 umbrellas, 2 Canon 430's and a Canon 580? Thanks very much for any guidance.<br>

<a href="http://thealternakids.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/direngrey.jpg">http://thealternakids.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/direngrey.jpg</a><br /><a href="http://media.photobucket.com/image/dir%20en%20grey/markalvarez19/DirEnGreyGroup3.jpg">http://media.photobucket.com/image/dir%20en%20grey/markalvarez19/DirEnGreyGroup3.jpg</a></p>

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[dhbebb]

<p>When trying to figure out a lighting set-up, check the neck shadows!<br>

First shot seems to be soft overhead light, either softbox or maybe just room lighting, but with fill from front and below, maybe a metallised reflector (or two as it's a large group) to get some detial in the eyes. Probably is a large softbox as there's quite a concentrated reflection on the metal object in the background.<br>

Second shot depends mainly for its look on being overdeveloped, seems like a hardish light to the right and somewhat higher than the lens - the picture seems to have been comped together from 2 or 3 different shots. I don't know exactly what a Canon 430 and a Canon 580 are, if they are small camera-mounted flashes, they could be useful for getting a hard lighting effect like the one in this shot if used directly, conversely they could provide some useful soft fill if you bounce them off a wall/ceiling. Hope you've got a flash meter!</p>

[vancouverphotographer]

<p>Thanks for the reply David!<br>

Yes, the 430 and 580 are external flashes but unfortunately none of us own a flash meter.</p>

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[dhbebb]

<p>OK, not having a flash meter is a bummer - I advise you to get to the shoot location well ahead of the subjects and do test shots (I presume you are shooting digital) so that you have exposure questions sorted before the subjects arrive, thus allowing you to concentrate on them. If you are using studio strobes, make sure you have a means of hooking these up to the camera you are using (if it hasn't got a PC socket [3 mm coaxial], you'll need a hot shoe to PC socket adapter). Your studio strobes will almost certainly have built-in slave cells, so they will fire when any other flash is triggered in their vicinity (if you absolutely have to, you can trigger the studio strobes with a pop-up on-camera flash).</p>

[vancouverphotographer]

<p>Thanks again David. We will be shooting digitally ... we'll just have our flash flash units with umbrellas, not studio strobes. Our Canon 580's will have to do the triggering.</p>

[john gettis]

<p>One thing you can do ahead of time is test your set up in conditions that are as close to what you are going to be in as close as possible. Try reading this by Steve Sint<br>

<a href="http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?op=article_031504">http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?op=article_031504</a><br>

scroll down to the $6 meter portion. This will give you at least a starting point for your exposures. Hope this helps John</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>Quite a few problems for you to solve ahead of time, Dale! Do you have cables which allow you to hook the Canon flashes up to your camera while they are some distance from this AND provide TTL exposure functionality? Can you hook up 2 or more flashes to one camera? If you don't have the special TTL flash extension cables, then the only possibiilty would be to adapt one flash via a shoe to normal PC cord adapter and then adapt the other end of this to the camera via a PC to hot shoe adapter. This would get one flash firing, you could then get any others firing by using external slave cells (you'd probably need a hot shoe to normal PC cord adapter to connect the slave cell to the extra flashes). If you were hooking up the flashes this way, the best idea would be to forget TTL flash exposure control and switch all the flashes to manual - you can then work out approximate exposures by guide numbers. All this can work and produce a result like the first of your examples (the second example, as I said, has been done with direct flash and would be much easier, if less effective) but it's going to take a lot of planning and experimentation in advance. If you have any other questions, just ask!</p>

[gary_watson]

<p>Check the "Strobist" site. There's a recent entry on band shots with minimal lighting gear posted in the last 7-10 days.</p>

[jerryfergusonphotography]

<p>I don't think it would be too hard to replicate the lighting on the photos you shared. David's steered you in the right direction. As Gary mentioned, <a href="strobist.com">Strobist</a> is probably the single best resource out there on off-camera flash.<br>

My advice - don't overthink it too much. Go with what you're comfortable with.<br>

If you're more comfortable using reflectors, do that. If you feel comfortable that you can pull it off with strobes, go that way. If you feel more comfortable tweaking things in post-production, just shoot raw and get close with the lighting and Photoshop it the rest of the way there.<br>

Bonus - my favorite band photographers: <a href="http://www.davehillphoto.com/gallery/music">Dave Hill</a> and <a href="http://www.joeyl.com/">Joey L</a></p>

[vancouverphotographer]

<p>Thanks everyone for the tips and suggestions - much appreciated.</p>