Back to the Minimalist Roots. Lighting portraits in the studio with battery power.

Jenny.

A portrait taken a few  years back with a Panasonic m4:3 camera

and an adapted lens...

 Back in the mists of time I starting playing around with three or four Nikon speed lights and Nikon's on-camera flash triggers. When I realized that I could do 95% of the jobs we normally did using big, plug in the wall flashes with the ease and portability of battery powered flashes, coupled with being able to control groups of flashes from the camera position, I followed my usual routine of diving in deep end and convincing myself that this would be the future of photographic lighting. Yeah....that was a few years before I convinced myself that LEDs would be the future of photographic lighting, etc., etc.

It worked out pretty well on a number of commercial/editorial jobs and so I wrote a magazine article about this "new way" of lighting --- which then turned into a book deal. That was back in 2008. Six books ago...  Isn't it amazing how time flies? 

In the ensuing 14 years I experimented with lots of different lights including HMIs, LEDs, a short revisit to tungsten spotlights, lots of different battery powered monolights which convinced me that consistent modeling lights were a nice thing to have, which led me back to traditional, A/C powered monolights.

I never gave up the LEDs and use them A LOT for location/environmental portraits where overpowering or matching the intensity of the sun isn't part of the mission. But I recently donated all of the "plug in the wall" flashes to a young photographer and decided that, going forward, I would depend just on the collection of battery powered lights I've accumulated; along with a couple of cheap radio triggers that seem to always work flawlessly. The feature that pushed me into tossing the big, heavy AC units was the addition, though a magic speed ring, of good, solid modeling lights with the Godox AD200 Pro flashes.

While a blogger of note in the photo world recently remarked that No One wants to pay for portraits nowadays I've been keeping the collection of flashes (and weird cameras) pretty busy in the last couple months with a series of environmental portraits for a large ad agency and, in the past week and a half, five studio portraits of doctors for a large radiology practice. Apparently they did not get the message about the cancellation of portrait photos as a thing. At least not yet. Thanks goodness; I can keep my hands off the retirement funds for a little while longer...

I'm setting up the studio this morning to make yet another physician's portrait today. The lighting is simple and straightforward which is what generally is called for if the image will subsequently be used with a different background, which is added in post production.  

We use a simple gray background with a light directed into the center of it. The main light consists of two Godox AD200 Pro lights attached together in a speed ring that has bright modeling lights built in. The speed ring/adapter is also from Godox, it's called an AD-B2. With two lights in the ring the total maximum output is 400 watt seconds. And I can get hundreds and hundreds of fast recycling flashes from this set up when I used 1/4 power on both units. Those two lights in the magic ring get stuffed into a 60 inch octa box. 

The "above' was written before the actual photo shoot. 

The "below" is being written after the shoot and after the preliminary post production of getting online galleries up...

My appointment with Allison was not completely locked in yesterday. We'd traded emails a couple of times to narrow down times when I would be available and when she could break away from her office and head over to the studio. Our goal was to match up a time that would work, get a nice series of portrait images and also make images that would match up well with the other 160+ doctors and physicians assistants I have previously photographed for the group. 

I said my schedule was "flexible" for the day. Excepting swim practice, of course. She said she would check in, see how the schedule flowed and get back to me. At 11:07 I got an email letting me know she was on her way. She'd be there at 11:30. I was working on something else when the email came in and was surprised by the knock on my studio door at 11:35 am. I thought we'd be aiming toward a late afternoon time...

But having general anxiety disorder and an (un)healthy dose of hypervigilance I had already set up all the flashes and modifiers, positioned the background and checked the exposure settings. In fact, I got that done the evening before because....the unexpected sometimes happens. 

The one thing I hadn't really sorted was the camera. I knew all the big stuff. Where to find the "format" feature in the menu, how to set the aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and ISO. And shooting in Raw there's loads of mishap buffer should it be needed. But the one thing I couldn't find was how to put the preview mode in the right setting for use with flash. A standard thing since the dawn of mirrorless cameras. You have to be able to turn off the exposure preview to get a bright image to focus with when using flash, manual focusing and higher shutter speeds. 

As Allison went into the house to change from her scrubs into her "business" attire I frantically went through the menus a couple of times. I finally found the right setting. Fuji calls it "turning off the preview." Leica calls it something else. And Panasonic has its own way of labeling the command. Breath of relief. 

I was using the new (to me) 90mm f1.25 TTArtisan lens in the GFX mount. No adapters needed. But no AF or other automation supplied. It's easy as pie to hit the rear dial of the camera and get a magnified preview with which to focus accurately. I shot most of the images at between f5.6 and f8.0 but after we  captured a couple dozen good, safe shots I asked to shoot some with the lens at f2.0, using available light (and resetting the "preview"). We did that and after Allison went back to work I had a dozen images at the lens's most vulnerable settings to work with and examine in post. Near wide open and near the minimum focusing distance. I needn't have worried; the lens is quite good enough for any kind of portrait work. Maybe not quite as lofty a performer as the Fuji 110mm f2.0 but close enough for my needs. 

In fact, I liked the look of the resulting files enough to also order yet another third party lens --- to be revealed in a different post.

Two AD200 Pro bodies mounted together onto an AD-B2. 

This allows both flashes to power bare bulb tubes in the modifier.

That cuts recycle times in half. And doubles battery life.

It also gives me two LED modeling lights that are controllable 

 in three level. The highest level is perfectly fine for studio work.

A back view of the two flashes as mounted. 

Both are controlled by a XT-2 Godox radio trigger. 

I used an older (and well used...) AD200 (original) with a round 

flash head and a dome diffuser to light up the background. 

There is a rubber bumper protection attachment on the back (left of frame) 

to prevent hitting the back LCD panel, which more or less kills the unit. 

I like the physical buttons on this trigger better than the menu driven controls

on its predecessors. The flash trigger worked perfectly. And it's relatively cheap. $59.

I added a bit of back light at 1/64th power. Just a touch. A light touch. 

It's a Godox V1 flash. Also controllable from camera via the X2T.

Finally, a photo of my trusty light dome. 

Add more and more diffusion for a softer effect.

Or just bring the light closer and closer to the subject. 

It feels like I've circled back to 2008 with the flashes but that feels offset by the use of the Fuji GFX50Sii MF camera. But at the bottom of it all is the reality is that a good portrait is much more about making a good connection with a sitter and having a nice, fun, honest conversation. Oh, and good timing. 

We'll work on that scheduling thing....