Lighting question

Lighting question

I’ve been booked to take some images at a Dance competition

The Dance competition time table is to run over two weekends and I’m delighted that I have been chosen to set up a studio with in the dance competition for portraits of the dancers in there costumes. I will be printing on site and have a assistant to help set up and run the day with me, I am even going to teach him how to print from Photoshop

I hope this is going to be big for me as there will be many Dance schools in an attendance.

The main question is this I have studio flash head in abundance but for ease, constancy and speed would it be better to light the back ground with Continuous Lighting. I am planning to use a white back ground with coloured lee lighting filters to change the mood of the background. Studio flash heads(mixed lighting)will be used to light the subjects

Or....should I just stay with studio flash heads

James

these are the lighting heads I'm thinking of buying link

I think you are right to have a continously-lit background and flash for foreground. I would avoid anything glossy, and white in particular.

You aren't going to have time to change colours of the background during the shoot, so I would consider going for a chroma-key background (green or blue) and lighting that evenly - but NOT brightly (first mistake of chroma-key!). Either get some Rosco paint and apply to a sheet of wood or poly beforehand, or buy a pop-up Lastolite backing. Try and get some decent seperation between the backing and the subject, and practice beforehand to work-out what settings you need (particularly what effect the flash has on the backing - I can't help you there as I have only done chroma-key with continous lighting)