I received my mew model on the mail a few days ago (a $29 female head and shoulders plus $15 brunette wig) her name is Niky and today I shot a series of pictures showing the effects of light placing.

First I took a picture of the whole set up showing where the light was in relation to Niky and then photographed her 3 times using that set up.  The first picture shows only the light with a gold reflector, next image is with a silver reflector  and no reflector on the last picture. Then repeated the process every time I changed the location of the light. This will show what one can do with just one light. I might do the same later with 2 and 3 lights but I figure this can be useful for someone starting out in a budget.

  This post is not a lighting class by any means, it’s more like an aid. The first pictures are taken at 90 Deg to the left of Niky (our right ) and then I worked my way around to be right in front of  her face and also one series of pictures is right from up above her head. The pictures taken wtih the second flash as a hair light should be taken with either a grid or snoot or some modifier since they are to harsh for my taste, also the one with the flash on the camera lower right is perhaps not the best location (hight wise) I like the ones with the flash on camera top left corner better. 

To keep things consistent the camera ( Canon 7D ) was sitting on a tripod, and shot with a cable release, the lens ( Canon EF 24-70 f2.8 L ) set to manual focus. White balance was fixed at 6200K. The flash ( Canon 580 EXII ) was set to manual as well and kept at the same distance on the different lighting settings. The soft box used is a 24″x24″ Lastolite Eazy box mounted on a Manfroto stand and an avenger boom, the flash was trigger with a Pocket wizard mini and a Flex. Last, to be kind with the flash I set the ISO to 800, f4 and 250 speed.

I sure hope this could assist someone, I wanted to do this for a while not only to share some experience with others but of course to learn more and practice. So far I can see that Niky has no chance against a person but you can’t beat it for staying still and not blinking while shooting. It is a great tool to practice a number of lighting effects, best $50 I spent in a while.

Regards

Alex Elias

 PS: Comments, questions or thoughts are welcome and appreciated.