In this editorial fashion lighting tutorial you will learn how to use the white satin panel. All the editorial fashion images in this article were created with a single white satin panel and a single monolight. I find that monolights rated at 400ws, or more, will work the best.
Seamless paper users take note: I shoot between f/2.8 and f/5.6 to avoid or minimize seeing the ugly seamless paper ripples in the background. A shallow depth-of-field will help blur the paper ripples. In the images below I shot on a painted cyc wall….but I still shoot near wide open to avoid seeing cyc wall blemishes.
Editorial fashion photography is my favorite fashion style since I can shoot whatever poses I like. Modeling agency’s also like editorial fashion as the images demonstrate that a model can move well. But it is not just about movement…the model must also have a believable expression and display confidence in the wardrobe.
The two models I photographed, Ellie and Cassland, are with TCM Models & Talent. They were both brand new to modeling at the time. The agency booker did warn them that I like difficult poses and they would be asked to “bust a move”.
Knowing beforehand that this was the second shoot for the two girls, I wanted to spend my time and energy on posing and great facial expressions. As it turned out, both Ellie and Cassland quickly adapted to the studio environment and crew. We ended up photographing some of my favorite editorial fashion images.
Ellie J photographed with the white satin panel
Ellie J white satin panel lighting diagram
My friend and designer Oscar Milano Mai was kind enough to provide the wardrobe and styling for the shoot. Oscar provided the jewelry and directed the hair and makeup as well. All I had to do was light, shoot, and pose.
I never changed the lighting pattern throughout the shoot, we simply changed the props and poses for variety. We added some good music, I happen to like commercial-free internet streaming radio.
Cassland white satin panel fashion lighting
Ellie J 2 white satin panel fashion lighting
Cassland2 white satin panel fashion lighting
Happily, the images from this shoot, immediately provided both new models with paid shoots at local photography studios and also in the Los Angeles area. I have since photographed Ellie and Hayley again on several fashion campaigns with local designers.
When photographing model portfolios I use the KISS principle…..keep it simple stupid, lol. The single goal is to get the model local work as quickly as possible. In turn, this makes me more valuable as a photographer and the modeling agency sends me more paid model portfolio shoots.
A great resource for wardrobe designers and wardrobe stylists and hair/makeup artists is Model Mayhem, I use local talent from MM all the time.
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28 Comments
It never ceases to amaze me what you can do with just a single light (albeit it modified with a satin panel). I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what distance was the flash head from the panel?
Yes it is very simple to work with the large panels and large reflectors. Dean Collins did it back in the day and I also learned this technique in the early 90′s when assisting. Many of the fashion studios shot with very few lights, usually 1-2 lights. On a United Colors of Benetton campaign we used 2 lights for a large even white background and a single strobe head w/panel for the model light. Later the photographer used the same lighting pattern for a Gap Kids campaign. The latest web catalog for Macy’s uses the single “naked octabox” lighting effect. Single lights can provide a very classy look to your images and never goes out of style.
Cheers,
Thorsten
Thorsten
I love your work, it’s amazing. Quick question. What is the color of the background? Did you illuminate it?
Thank you Hector,
I used plain white paint from HomeDepot and painted the cyc wall. It is the same paint color as the white posing cube.
The wall is illuminated buy the same white satin panel that is lighting the model…one light is lighting everything. The next step is to take one shot with a white/gray card for my RAW processing white balance. In this case I balanced for the “gray” part of the card or about 4900K-5000K, that is it, lol.
One benefit of the white satin panel or white nylon panels, is the nice flesh-tones. The light quality is just a bit warmer and has a softer shadow edge than what we might get from a softbox.
Cheers,
Thorsten
Hi,
I love your tutorials and your photos…! I plan to make a panel and buy a strobe, so I want to know if 500w/s is enough for shooting the hole body, or do I need 1000w/s? And I don’t understand how do you make panel “stand” ?
Well, it is not really about how much power the flash has but more about the reflector on the flashhead. We use the standard 7″ reflector that comes with a flashhead. 500ws is plenty, we typically shoot at 250-300ws even with multiple fabrics. To support the panel we use a lightstand and a couple of clamps. Or one could make a more elaborate upside-down T-stand for a couple of dollars more.
Hello
Found Your work on flickr. I love the simplicity of Your lighting setups and amazing results that comes out of them. You’re a truly inspiration for me.
Just wanted to say hi
Regards
Paul
Thanks Paul, the older I get….the less gear I like to use. I do spend more time on the little details such as model posing, expressions, and wardrobe details, and now…locations.
Seasons Greetings….Thorsten
Found Your work on flickr. I love the simplicity of Your lighting setups and great results that comes out of them.
Could you share DIY details?
Regards
Valters
http://photologs.net/fotografs/
These panels are inexpensive pvc plastic tubes with ripstop nylon stretched across and fastened with elastic band. PVC is found at the local hardware store and the ripstop nylon is available at local fabric stores…try Google for your specific city. Here is a small post with video about the panel and the three DIY Octabox variants.
Hi Thorsten,
Just one silly question-what kind of music you play in studio?
Best Regards
Vic, Sydney
I use internet streaming radio, Chilltrax in the radio section of iTunes is nice.
Hi Thorsten,
Thanks for the great tutorial using just one light. I also repeat the first question asked in this thread ( which wasn’t answered) – how far from the panel was the flash head? It’s hard to judge the distance looking at the diagram. Look forward to exploring more on your site – my first visit here.
Cheers,
Danny
Hi Danny,
Gosh, how did I miss that? The strobe to panel distance is between 3-4 feet. This distance is going to vary for your specific brand of strobe reflector, in these images we used a Paul C. Buff White Lightning x1600 with the standard 7 inch reflector. I moved the light back until it filled the satin panel.
Do you use the panel horizontally or vertically? Thanks.
That depends on the subject being photographed. For people that are standing I use the panels in a vertical position. For product and still-life work I may use them horizontally.
Just looked at your ModelMayhem portfolio, very nice work!!
Thorsten
When you are shooting, do you use a light meter? Since you mentioned that you mostly shoot at 2.8 to 5.6, I guess you go with a test shot.
There are many style and you got yours.
Thank you Thorsten.
Yes, I ALWAYS use a lightmeter. A lightmeter lets me know what each light is doing and it is much faster to dial everything in. In the studio I always shoot tethered to the laptop and view the RAW image AND histogram in Capture One Pro. Final adjustments are made based on the Capture One Pro histogram and image on the profiled laptop screen.
I shoot between F/2.8 and F/5.6 for several reasons.
First, 2-3 stops from wide open is where our lenses have the best image resolution and sharpness. I only need a depth-of-field of 1-2 feet when shooting these skinny models, LOL.
Secondly, I don’t want or need to put the seamless background paper ripples or cyc-wall in focus….that would just require additional PhotoShop post production to blur or retouch out.
Third, the lights recycle much faster if they are on a lower power output. Why shoot at F/16 if I don’t need it. 400w/s is plenty of power.
I shoot at these F/stops for technical reasons. Outdoors I shoot at these F/stops because I might want to focus the viewers attention on the model….and not on the telephone pole 1 mile away, LOL. Photographers use F/stops to tell a story..what needs to be in focus and where do I direct the viewers attention.
Hope that is a good clarification…..Thorsten
I’m planning to build your version of white nylon panel, but I don’t know yet which type of transparency thickness to pick. Can I use a cotton type fabric too? I’ve ran a test shot with a white pillow cotton fabric and the diffusion result is not bad at all.
I ask because there are so many kind of thickness translucent fabric at the fabric store.
And also it will be use with speedlight, like sb-900.
Thanks a lot for you last clarification
I would stick with the ripstop nylon, why reinvent the wheel. Ripstop nylon is what the lighting manufactures use and it is durable and inexpensive. I have no experience with cotton fabrics.
In photo school we had one class with speedlights and the panels. The unit I used was a Vivitar 283 with a guide number of 120. The Nikon SB-900 has a guide number of about 132 so you should be OK.
My guess is that the SB-900 with a Nylon Diffuser Panel will give you about F/8. I will have to ask Tim to run a test later this week with his Canon Speedlight.
The important thing is to use ripstop nylon instead of cotton bedsheets. Next thing we know, you will have to become an expert on Egyptian Cotton and thread counts, LOL. Some folks use $1 shower curtains with mixed results….and weird catch-lights in the eyes. Ripstop nylon has worked for me for the last 20 years!
Thank you very much for the fast reply
Just brought about 30′ of 3/4 PVC pipes and joints today. Just cannot wait to try this thing. And will definitely go with ripstop nylon.
Found this link today.
This is sport nylon of the type used to make flags, which feels coarser and thicker, but is more translucent than the rip stop nylon.
Also I will have to reconsider the 5′X8′ panel dimension since that my ceiling is 8′ tall, it could touch the ceiling. In your video they look not so tall. It is when you measure the all thing that it come so huge.
This guy has two set of frames his highest panel is about 6’6 high.
Is the 1’4 will make any difference for full body shot? http://endernygen.blogspot.com/2008/12/diy-step-by-step-light-panels-tutorial.html
The lighting from your 5′X8′ is unique and way better.
Oh, and the last photo of cassland2 white satin panel, I’m in love with the raccoons eyes style of lighting. Superb!
What white satin does comparatively to white nylon?
I have ran some test and noted that the Nikon SB shooting at bare gives a rectangular diffusion. I have build a 6″ DIY 1 dollar plastic boll reflector and the diffusion is somewhat less spread and circle around but still give a rectangular diffusion in the middle.
The strobes spread the light circularly, some details I guess. I should not have sold my Elinchrom4
Thanks again Thorsten
We used ripstop nylon to avoid a colorcast. I hope sport nylon diffuses enough, ripstop nylon is better. Here is a quote from your link:
I know of one instance where a person had odd “starburst filter highlights” in all his images because of the sports nylon not diffusing properly. Ripstop is what all the studios used that I assisted in…..and why I recommend it!
I may have found what you mean, today I got two type of fabrics, I brought both just in case. It happen to have some difference between the two. One nylon has some square pattern on it and is more white. I guess this one is sport. The second ripstop is called Taffeta, it looks less white and it’s plain flat no pattern on it. I will use this one as I have compared it with the one of my softbox which look the same. I will post some photos on my flickr to show them. But investigating this link http://www.diyphotography.net/homestudio/blz/soft-panel-frame-designed-for-hotlight I see that his nylon has square pattern on it. I may be wrong between the two.
I also got the black riptsop nylon too. I’m ready to build.
Ripstop Nylon has the square pattern on it. Here is an article and images of Wendall Webb’s setup. David Griffin, friend of mine, also wrote about the panels in this article. And finally we have a few closeup images I found on a Google image search.
We use the black ripstop to block light, works great. Now that you have the fabrics, try placing an extra layer of white ripstop over the front of your softbox for extra diffusion and hotspot removal.
We can also take the black ripstop nylon and place two strips over our softbox, thus creating a striplight softbox. Fabric stores are a great resource for the creative lighting photographer.
I really want to thank you a lot Thorsten, for all the support and help.
As soon that I can get your video, I will get it, so much great info.
You are wonderful guy, I like your style.
Cheers!
Just finished my first panel. I had to cut it to 5″7″, it could not clear the ceiling.
It is so amazing the light I got, I have done exactly as your set-up, I used an sb-26 with 7″ DIY reflector and played and played again.
Next step white satin panel.
Excellent! 5×7 is a better size for home use. The 8 foot panels I have fit snug against the ceilings, no supports or stands needed, lol.
Hi Thorsten,
I just wanted to say what a fantastic video tutorial on lighting! I just wish I saw this sooner. Oh how it would have saved me so many hours trying to work out how things were done with lighting. I am a fan of your site now and look forward to your posts. You provide lots of insightful information with clear diagrams and beautiful photos at the end of it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Cheers,
Wendy
PS : I am definitely heading down to the hardware and fabric shop so I can get materials to construct your panels and I can’t wait to give them a go!