Studio questions

[chris72]

Hi,
I have a 4,5 meters square for studio. Also I have 4 heads, maxim output 400watts, minimum 50 watts. How can I setup the lights for portraits? I am interested in distance of subject, the distance of ligts and watts.
Thank you
George

[denrule]

Hi George,

Congratulations on your new lights. Here is a link for a great guide from opus lights
http://www.opusprolighting.com/downloads/Basic_Lighting.pdf

A word of advice the more lights you use the easier it is to blow it and get frustrated.
Start by mastering 1 light at a time and adding one at a time from there as you build up you’re skills.

All that said I use the four light setup in the guide regularly for business portraits.

The most important thing to remember is light ratios, you will need to invest in a light meter if you haven’t already done so. Set each light one at a time to get the right exposure level. In digital your key light should about 1 stop higher than your hair light and half to 1 stop higher than your fill light (this is flexible depending on how much shadow you want).
The key to portraits is to use as large an aperture as possible to limit the depth of field; this will blur the background as long as you can get your subjects as far away as possible.
For a single person I like a 2 metre space between the backdrop and the model and I like to shoot at f4

I have included an example of a 4 light portrait of a real estate agent I shot a few weeks ago.

Hope this helps

Have fun and post your results

Cheers

Denis