We used an empty living room as the shooting space. The lighting was simple, as the walls were white and allowed for a lot of bounce and fill. I set up 1 AB1600 shooting through a 5' umbrella that was high and camera right. There was also 1 SB-28, plugged into an external battery back (SD-8), that was slightly behind the subjects, and camera left. This allowed for a lot of big, soft, light and it translated to photographs wonderfully.
This was my first time using the external battery pack on the SB-28, and I have to say I was majorly impressed. I did not have to replace batteries once, and the recycle time was around 3-5 seconds for full power. I can't wait to use this set up when I shoot my next wedding reception. The pack takes 6 AA batteries, but you still have to put the 4 AA batteries in the flash. That is a total of 10 AA batteries, total, to power the flash. I actually purchashed an off brand battery pack, that I will be testing, and posting a review of, as well.
For the shoot, we started off by re-creating the older pictures. This broke the ice, and got the easy stuff out of the way. From there, we shot a couple of the group just smiling. At this point, my wife and I, decided to try and have the group play a game. As a way to get more geninue smiles and interactions, we had them each try to hum a song, and have the others guess. They found this funny, and ended up with some great shots of them laughing and just hanging out. From there, we shot a few more regular group shots. I found that having them play the game actually allowed them to relax and feel more confident in the shoot. This is when we got the most genuine smiles! Definitely is something we will play with more in the future.
If you want to see the re-creation shots, and some other select shots from the shoot, click "Read More" below!
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