The Daily Blog #65
Headshot Photobooth
The Clintonville Chamber of Commerce had an awards dinner Friday night celebrating the Business of the Year, Business Person of the Year, and Volunteer of the year. Since the Chamber is all about supporting small businesses, we decided to set up a business-savvy ‘Headshot’ photobooth.
I decided to use the projector screen that was already set up for the back drop. We had brought a grey paper backdrop, but we decided to use the white projector screen because of how reflective it is. Projector screens are very efficient at reflecting light, which means that I didn’t have to use a huge amount of light to get the screen to appear pure white.
I only used one Lp180 speedlight on the projector screen background. To ensure a more even spread of light, I placed the speedlight on an LP605 stand and aimed the light up toward the background with a large Rogue Flashbender. This was also an efficient set up for the battery life of the flash, since 1/32 power was used the entire shoot. I think I barely put a dent in my rechargeable batteries.
For the key light we used a 22″ fluorescent ring light. I chose to use a constant light source because it would allow me to easily auto-focus in the dimly lit hall of the Clintonville Woman’s Club. This ring light was bright enough to allow me to shoot the photos above at f/8 at ISO 800, and around 1/100 of a second. I would usually opt to shoot flash for headshots, but having some light to focus with is crucial. A large fluorescent source of any kind is great (I linked to some good fluorescent lights below), and can be very helpful in a situation when flash isn;t quite optimum. I had the main light positioned at about seven feet in height, and about four feet from the subjects. The high orientation avoided any ring light reflections in glasses, and helped add some shadow and contrast against the bright white background.
Gear used:
- Nikon D7100 DX Camera
- Tamron 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD
- LumoPro LP180 speedlight flash
- LumoPro LP605 compact light stand
- LumoPro 10ft light stand
- Rogue Flashbender
- Cactus v5 triggers
- Lexar 32GB Professional 633x UHS-I SDHC Memory Card
- Fluorescent Light
You could win the lens used in this blog by entering the Cityscapes Photo Contest! Just click below for more details.
Cityscapes: Travel and Architecture Photo Contest
Sponsored by Tamron
Click here for details!
Nice.