Basketball team photos

[Baker]

<span style="white-space: pre;"] Hey all, I need a bit of advice. I was volunteered to take the team picture and the individual pictures of the 7th grade team I have been following. They bought new uniforms and warm-ups this year and are trying to save a bit of money by not bringing in a pro photographer. Normally I would figure this out on my own through trial and error but I'm not going to have much time in the gym before the team arrives due to other teams using the gym for practice as well. I made a diagram of what I was thinking of as a setup for the team and individuals on[url="http://www.lightingdiagrams.com/Creator]lightingdiagrams.com[/url]that I will post at the end.


<span style="white-space: pre;"] I guess I am just wondering if I can pull this off with my current gear. I have a 430 EX II, SB-28, and Alien Bees B400. UnfortunatelyI only have a stand and umbrella for one speedlite. Also I only have one way to trigger my flashes, a cheap radio trigger that fires one speedlite which in turns triggers the optical slave in the B400. I'm worried that there is too much open space in the gym for the optical trigger on the B400 to be effective. I have been thinking about getting [url="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=WishList.jsp&amp;A=details&amp;Q=&amp;sku=6 85034&amp;is=REG]these[/url]for awhile now, maybe now is the time to pull the trigger. They also make an AC receiver for studio lights that works with the same transmitter so I would get that as well. Then I could fire my speedlites and B400 with the same transmitter.


<span style="white-space: pre;"] I almost forgot! Depending on the lighting in the gym I will gel the flashes for either tungsten or fluorescent(I have seen both at different gyms)


<span style="white-space: pre;"]<span style="white-space: pre;"] Any opinions would be very much appreciated!





<span style="white-space: pre;"]<span style="white-space: pre;"] -Chris





<span style="white-space: pre;"] Here are my ideas for setups:


<span style="white-space: pre;"] For the group picture the front three would be kneeling.


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[Sean Setters]

Looks like a decent setup to me. Might want to push your ISO a bit to achieve a good DOF for the group portrait. Maybe refer to DOF calculator to figure out the optimal aperture. Also, you could use the SB-28 as a rim light for the group.

[Baker]

Thanks for the input Sean. I

[erno james]

you lighting gurus are awesome! if it were me, i

[Baker]

the diagrams you've posted look great. Chris. I might borrow them for future reference if okay with you.

Sure thing, feel free to use them however you like.

[Sean Setters]

Thanks for the input Sean. I'll check it out. Also, I just thought about this but how does one gel a B400 while its in a softbox? Perhaps I should use a shoot-through instead?
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The best way I've found is to buy large gels and use a modeling light in your strobe. Then tape the gel to the strobe or speed ring at the four corners so that it mostly covers the flash tube output. It doesn't work absolutely perfectly (there will always be some ungelled leakage), but it works well enough. I used that very technique for these shots:






I used 3 warming gels stacked together taped in a 22" HOBD (beauty dish). I was trying to shift the ambient color spectrum to blue while maintaining a decently warm light on the subject.