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For the benefit of anyone interested in off-camera lighting, but hesitant to dive into the greatness that is Strobist.com, I have taken a few photos to demonstrate very basic lighting in both a three light, and single light setup. Setting these shots up took less than 5 minutes, and can be done literally anywhere. If you are a photographer and you want to offer more, for less, I would strongly advise buying at least one of the wireless Strobist kits available at Midwest Photo Exchange.

This is straight out of the camera, and while the background is not completely white throughout, fixing the right edge is trivial at best. Even a tighter crop would fix the “problem” in an instant.

I'll break down this photo in this post.

The background:

First thing first, if you have access to a white (or grey) wall, you can do almost anything. Firing a strobe into said wall will give you a perfect background for headshots, and just about anything else. You can also gel the strobe for different color backgrounds, or do the same later in post. I like taking whichever approach requires the least work after the fact, so I go for gels whenever possible.

Strobe + Wall = Background!

Popping light into the background can also help add texture and help your subject pop out. In a single light situation, I am generally always inclined to use that light on a background surface for a different dynamic. Sure, you could bounce into the ceiling for a nice soft light – but that is not very exciting. Sometimes it is totally appropriate, but sometimes it just is not even possible (think of a black ceiling – your bouncing will not do much there). Examples of both techniques below.

Single light, into the background.

Single strobe, bounced into the ceiling.

Lighting the subject:

Back to the insta-studio setup. Once you have the background situated, you will need to get some light onto your subject. One of the easiest, and fastest solutions is to put two light sources at 45˚ to your subject’s left and right, and have one be providing about twice as much light as the other. You can get far more specific, but where lighting ratios are concerned, that will get you in the ball park.

If you are cramped for space, as is often the case, use a shoot-through umbrella for the main light and bounce into an umbrella for fill. The stands will be in roughly the same position, but the fill umbrella ends up roughly twice as far away as the main light. I do this often to keep both 285HVs at the same (and usually lowest) power setting so my refresh times are the same for both lights. If you are shooting AC monolights, this is not nearly as much of a problem.

Umbrellas setup as described above.

Now all of that is easy to see in the setup shot, but for some (myself included) it helps to see exactly what each light is doing. Pay attention to the captions below (series shot at ISO 200, f8, 1/200s):

No lights firing

Background light only - note that some fill has spilled in as it bounced back off the umbrellas

Main and Background Light

Fill and Background Light

Main and Fill Light

You have seen this already. All three lights firing.

That is about all there is to it. If you seek more information, I will again direct you to Strobist.com because there is far more information there. This is just the tip of the iceberg. When you dive below the surface, you will come to love light. You will also start to see everything in a different way. Pretty cool!