Tips on using 3x300W for full body fashion shots
 

Hello,

This is my first post and I am not fluent in English so apologies for any mistakes and nonsense I may write!

Anyway, I need to do a full body fashion shot with a model sitting on a sofa in a dim chamber with antique furniture. The main focus should be on a model (their front), with the background not too distracting. I would really appreciate any tips and advice how I should use my equipment consisting of Panasonic AG-DVC30 and Ianiro lighting kit (3x300W - pls see link: http://www.ianirouk.com/gulliver30_kits.asp)

This is the very first time I will be using dedicated lightning! The Ianiro set does not include any manual, so I have no idea how to use it... How should I place the lamps? Should I use the barndoors or not? What about daylight filters? What about ambient light from a window? Should I use only Ianiro or put some light on in the chamber too? What about camera setting - WB, chroma, exposure? Needless to say, I would like to obtain most professional (film)look possible, like the pictures one can see in "Vogue" magazine, classy and aristocratic.

Thanks
Tom

If I had to say it in one word, I would say "DIFFUSION!". You will probably need to soften up that light quite a bit to make it look like fashion photography. They typically use large reflective umbrellas, softboxes, and/or large reflectors.

The kit you have is only "hard" light. There are some tricks you can use to help achieve the look depending on your environment. You can bounce a light off a white wall that is in front and to the side of your talent. You can pass the light through a thin piece of fabric to simulate a soft box. The larger the fabric, the softer the shadows. Project the light wide onto large surfaces near the talent/model. You can use one of the lights behind the talent to help accent the edges of the body/hair and have the extra light that passes by the model to bounce off one of your reflectors. That way, you basically get two lights for the price of one. Many people use white cardboard "foamcore" to bounce light.

With the lights you have, you probably can't have them too far from the model or the shot will get too dark. If you don't want the background to show up as much, set up the camera on one side of the room and the model in the middle. Keep as much distance between the model and the back wall as possible to minimize the background. You can also move your camera farther back if the room is large and zoom in to make the background out of focus.

If you mix daylight and those lights, you will need to put the blue gel in front of the lights. It cuts down the amount of light, but you could use all three lights with blue gell together to make the fill light brighter. Bring some of the color temperature blue and amber(orange) so you can match the colors to your liking.

Experiment with all the light available until you like what you see.

Use the barn doors if you want to keep the light from shining on something in the background. You can also use barndoors to clip color and diffusion gels out in front of the light.

Make sure you don't get hot lights touching flammable surfaces and don't overload old electrical wiring! With only 300W lights, you should be safe as long as the wires aren't as antique as the furniture. Good luck and tell us how it turned out.