2 Strobe Group Shot

[dgrau]

Or "How to make a photographer sweat"



Camera: Nikon D90
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 28 mm
Exposure: 0.00
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off-camera: SB-800 & SB-600

For this shot I had several factors working against me:
1) I only had 2 strobes with umbrellas in my kit
2) A very short time to setup and shoot
3) Never having shot such a large group

I positioned the umbrellas and strobes to the left and right of the camera, being sure to cross light the entire group (e.g. each umbrella pointed across to the opposite end of the group, instead of directly at each side). I vaguely recalled this being a tip from several pros, as I believe they said it helps keep the light even across the group. I also used a light cut of CTO (maybe 1/4 max) on each strobe to help keep things balanced (the ambient light was somewhat warm already). I would've loved to get creative and tweak the shutter speed and manually control the flash output, but due to time constraints I just used the built-in Nikon CLS to trigger the flashes (all using TTL metering).

My only post-processing (via Lightroom) involved reducing the color temperature, boosting the vibrance/clarity, adjusting contrast, and cropped to omit distracting elements. Also I had to use 1 graduated filter to give a +0.33 exposure to the top row, just to keep everything even.

I didn't think this was quite worthy enough to be in the "How I Took It" section, as I feel there is room for improvement. I'm never sure if I have the right white balance for skin tones, and I'm still not so good with giving proper directions for posing. That said, I'm willing to take the hints, tips, and critiques that would help me in the future.

[Sterling]

Still looks like there is a really red cast.