Am interested in shooting indoor portraitures using 35 mm format B&W film. What would be the basic lighting setup required to get started and to be able to create a spectrum of effects? Thanks.

-- William Bolton (wbolton@earthlink.net), January 26, 1999

Answers

I've just started to fool around with indoor portraits. So far I am having very good results with a basic 3 light setup. I'm using 2 Sunpack 522's and a Vivitar 283. (Brand really isn't important these are just what I could schrounge up.) The 522 are bounced off of a 12" umbrella for the main light and a 24" umbrella for the fill. The main is controlled by a Wein "peanut" slave. The fill, close to the camera, is controlled by an extra long sync chord. The 283 is used as a background/hairlight, controlled by another "peanut". I aim the unit at the background and I get a "halo" effect on the subjects hair. The biggest problem I've had is aiming the umbrellas. This is solved sort of, by juryrigging flashlights to the light stand and aiming them in the same direction as the flash units. By the way I've found a great filter for B&W (or color for that matter) Portraits. It is called a Tiffen SoftFX and gives very pleasing results with my 43 to 86 Nikkor zoom.

-- Robert Orofino (rorofino@hotmail.com), January 27, 1999.

All of the studio equipment that is out there will work for you. There are a few that you can do if budget is a concern and you don't plan to work in color. You will find alot of lighting choices at the hardware store: lights with reflectors for about $8-10 or quartz lights starting at about $15. Heat will be generated using hot lights but you will get to see the effects of the lights before exposing film.

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), February 01, 1999.