2 light setup

[Kaz26]

Hi,
I am a new photographer and have a home studio. I am wanting to do high and low key pictures with littlies and am using a black and a white backdrop. Can these shots be done with only 2 lights instead of 3? If so what is the best way to do it? I would appreciate any tips

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Kaz26

Hi,
I am a new photographer and have a home studio. I am wanting to do high and low key pictures with littlies and am using a black and a white backdrop. Can these shots be done with only 2 lights instead of 3? If so what is the best way to do it? I would appreciate any tips

When you say you have two lights, are they two a/c powered studio type flash units, or one a/c sudio light and one d/c,speedlight or both tungsten lights?

Benji

[Kaz26]

2 ac powered flash lights.

[stefantell]

I would say that it easier to start with two lights, and make good use of reflectors and other types of screens to reflect and block light.

If you can point us to examples of what you want to achieve, it might be easier to give a better answer.

On my blog, I have some examples of two-lights setups if that might be of any help, mostly ordinary portraits though.

Good luck.

[Murtasma]

For High Key you will want your background lights to be 1 or 2 stops over the main light typically this is a good starting point. For low key you just want to keep light away from the background so one light would typically work better.

It really depends on what your photographing, what look or style you are going after and what materials you have to work with. If you could provide some more details about your setup and what your tying to do we can probably assist you better. How do you plan on posing? How much physcial space do you have to work with? How large is your backdrop? Head shots? Body?