I had a chance to do some studio photography with Sean Allott this weekend.

I must say, it was quite an experience! A lot had to do with the lighting and setup and even though I had attended a few lighting seminars, when you start doing a 3 hour session you certainly find out that there is much skill involved to get that lighting right.

We were using two front lights, a rear hair light and also a light pointed on the backdrip so that it was intentionally blown out to achieve an all white background.

Sean used a flash meter to set each flash unit to work best at 1/125th shutter speed and F8.0 aperature. This of course is the sweet spot for most lenses and a decent enough shutter speed to get crisp focused shots.

We also used the Studio Coach ColourBalanceCoachDisk to check our exposure and set our white balance. It worked very well.

The hardest part of the whole excercise, believe it or not, was working with the model. I had a hard time being creative and I was actually a bit overwhelmed due to it being my first time working face to face with a model in a studio setup.

All in all, it was a great experience that every photographer should try. The shots turned out fantastic and I learned quite a bit and of course it sparked new interest in studio photograhy.

 It certainly is worth having all the right lighting equipment!

Scott.