One of the biggest difficulties in practicing or doing photography can be the amount of time and space that it takes to accomplish your goal.  Sure, anybody can grab a camera and happy snap themselves into some potentially nice photos, but sometimes you want to do more, get better, and have a result nicer than previously mentioned happy snaps.  The problem is that once you find some time, you don’t always have space.  This is where speedlights come in.  They are small, they are portable and they are quick.  Mix them with the big lights though and you’ve got something really special, especially if you don’t have a lot of space.  This is another reason I love the Elinchrom ELB500 kit as well, the heads are the size of a speedlight but with 500w/s of power, there is a lot of latitude there to do almost anything.  (At the time these photos were taken I did not have the ELB500 either on loan or my own). 

(Nikon D850, 200ISO, Sigma 24-70F2.8ART@55mm. Phottix Indra500 above camera with Phottix 26″ White hard sided beauty dish, Phottix Indra500 with 30 degree grid below camera for fill, Nikon SB5000 on each side of behind the cat used for rim lights, triggered by Phottix ODIN2 Recievers. All triggered from a Phottix ODIN2 on the camera hot shoe. The background is a 5’x7′ Promaster collapsable background.)

For some time now Shannon has wanted to set up a studio and shoot some photos of our cats.  The problem in this situation is that we don’t have a ton of space for an in-home studio living in a home built in 1947.  Garage detached and full of junk, and the fact that the cats don’t go outside means it’s inside or bust.  Luckily cats aren’t very big but forget using some long lenses without a decent distance to back up.  The trick with cats, or any animal for that matter, is that they don’t particularly pay attention much, so you need to have a little bit of space, and you also need light in the studio to really capture the mood you re looking for.  This is the setup I chose to put together.

The background is black, yes, for a couple of black cats, and the lighting is set to match.  For our background, there are two Nikon Sb5000 speedlights on Phottix ODIN2 receivers and the main light is one of my Phottix Indra500 units inside of their 26″ hard sided beauty dish on a Manfrotto 420B stand.  The Manfrotto stand has become one of my favorites as of late because it’s essentially a 13′ stand that is also a 8′ boom.  Great for when you want a boom, but carrying a C stand around is somewhat…. inconvenient…

(Nikon D850, 200ISO, Sigma 24-70F2.8ART@55mm. Phottix Indra500 above camera with Phottix 26″ White hard sided beauty dish, Phottix Indra500 with 30 degree grid below camera for fill, Nikon SB5000 on each side of behind the cat used for rim lights, triggered by Phottix ODIN2 Recievers. All triggered from a Phottix ODIN2 on the camera hot shoe. The background is a 5’x7′ Promaster collapsable background.)

As you can see, coupled with the 24-70, the three light setup is very effective on such a small scale.  The backlights give the cats a nice sheen on the side, as well as they can move around a little bit.  It’s not something that we will redo to a regular degree, since now we have shots of the cats, but at some point,c I could easily see adding another light on a colored background to give a nice little glow around our furry subjects.  More soon.