Points to remember while using indoor photo studio

Generally when ever  I have to do indoor photo shoot with studio lights, my nightmare starts with all the settings to be made in advance.So here is my brief way to remind me for the future photoshoots.

The instruments I use are

•  Nikon DSLR
• Focal Length: 18 mm - 70 mm (Lens Aperture: F/3.5-4.5)
• Focal Length: 105mm (Lens Aperture: f/2.8)
•  Elinchrome Lighting studio kit
•  White vinyl background
• Sekonic Flashmeter
• Prolinca Infra-Red Trigger

1.Setting Flashmeter

•    Set the diffuser to 'Incident Light Method'  mode.
•   Set  the flashmeter mode to 'Flash with cordless'.

For more reference:
   http://www.theflashcentre.com/using-a-flashmeter-c157.html

2.Lighting a White Background
    I have only two studio flash lights (Wish I had more but my budget don't allow grrr...) but in real these two studio flash are very much sufficient to get going.

•  One studio flash light is for lighting the background.The white background acts as reflector so do not overlit.Set my aperture or f-stop to f8 or f8.8.(More details on setting aperture http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_aperture.html).
• Another studio flash is used in front of the subject with a softbox mounted on it.The softbox gives tiy a lovely , soft, diffused light making the subject to have glowing skin, best results are seen on wrinkled face.Set the f-stop to strictly to f8.

3.Set the camera to manual mode

• Set shutter speed to 1/125s
• Set focal length to f8
• ISO reading to 200

After all these settings here is how the subject looks.

1/125s at f8  & ISO speed to 200


  Here is a test with varing range of shutter speed

Slower shutter speeds (like 1/640s or 1/1250 as in this case) are often selected to suggest movement in a still photograph of a moving subject.
Excessively fast shutter speeds(1/60s or 1/125s as in this case) can cause a moving subject to appear unnaturally frozen. For instance, a running person may be caught with both feet in the air with all indication of movement lost in the frozen moment.

I better stick to 1/125s with indoor photoshoot.