Gym Lighting

I've been meaning for some time to get some lighting diagrams on here to share some of the things we've been doing with our off-camera lighting. Here's my first stab at putting something together to explain my theories...

We were shooting Jordan Elliott's recent senior session in the Pittsburg High School Gymnasium. I was looking for something moody with a Sports Illustrated look. I had the opportunity to pick up a new 3' strip softbox with a grid attachment and was eager to try it out for the first time in the field.

My first thought was to use a high shutter speed and low ISO setting on the camera to kill off any ambient light from the fixtures in the gym. Now my exposure would be 100% from the strobes I had with me. The first setup was pretty straight forward with the stripbox set to the left of Jordan. I had it positioned about a foot over his head to provide a nice falloff of light towards the ground. I also turned Jordan's body away from the light slightly to provide more dimension to his figure. I turned his face back into the light to provide the nice modeling and shadow.

I started by setting the exposure with the main light on Jordan and then worked to light the dragon logo on the floor. I used a Canon 580EX speedlight with a grid attached to concentrate a pool of light on the logo without lighting the entire area. Using the grid focuses all of the light in a tight circle with a nice natural fall-off of light around it. This was positioned about 10 feet in the air on a light stand angled down. To set that exposure I just increased the power until I liked how it looked on the back of the camera's LCD.

I'm shooting from on top of a 4 foot ladder to provide the perspective I was looking for. I had to go with a wide 16-35 mm lens to frame everything while hiding the lights past the edge of the frame. There's a little distortion caused by the lens but I think it works well in the is photo and is not that noticeable. Here's the diagram to help explain:

Of all the images we made during his session this one might be my favorite.

 

Same thought process as before. I wanted to completely knock the ambient light out from the nasty fixtures in the gym and work 100% with flash. We went with the striplight again for the main light on Jordan and removed the grid this time to allow a little more light to reach around to the far side of his face. You can really tell the difference between the two photos with and without the grid to see how hard the transition between the highlight and shadow side of his face is.

This time we brought in a third strobe over his left shoulder as an edge light to prevent him from merging with the black background. It really gives a 3D look to the image and makes him pop out from the screen.

Again, I had Jordan turn his body away from the light source and had him turn his face back into the light. I do this quite a bit to help show some texture and dimension to the clothing people are wearing. A lot of people like to have the subject turned into the light, but then you would loose all of that dimension and the lighting would become far too flat for my tastes.

The third and final light was flying 10 feet in the air at a hard angle shooting almost parallel to the basketball goal in the background. Again I went with a grid to concentrate the light on the bottom portion of the goal around the basket. I think it feels a lot more dramatic with the areas of shadow and highlight versus having the whole goal lit evenly.

I was lying flat on the ground about 30 feet from Jordan. He was standing at half court along the sideline with the goal at the other end of the gym. I went with a telephoto lens shot at around 200mm to provide the compression to make the goal seem much closer in the frame. It was shot at F5.6 to give adequate sharpness to the goal. The lighting really separates Jordan from the background, so I didn't want to go with too shallow of a depth of field. Sometimes I feel like with the background being too out of focus it actually calls more attention to itself than if it was just a touch more subtle.

Here's the diagram:

I hope to have more of these coming soon. Let me know in the comments or email me if you have any specific questions. Thanks!

-Mike   

Comments

[Lucasridley]

Great post, thanks. What kind of grid do you use on the 580? Are those Ex2 or 1? Thanks.

[Mike Sisk]

I use the Honl Grids to attach to his Speed Straps whenever I go with the grids. We've got four of the 580EX (originals) that we use for our off-camera lighting. We do have a EX II as well but I reserve it for on-camera situations during weddings when I don't have time to do anything off-camera.