Rineke Dijkstra strobes

[lolorent]

Hello,

I'm a 4x5 user and I'd like to be able to mimic (cause I'm just a little copycat ) Rineke Dijkstra's lightning setup she uses for her outdoor portraits.

Let say I'd love to be able to do that :


I'd use a 150/5.6 lens or my 210/5.6 for that. Probably at f16 or f22.
What I'd like to know it's what kind of strobe I need to buy for achieving such a picture. I've read Rineke uses a Lumedyne and we can see that here :


But Lumedyne produces various model and can't guess what is enough?
Would a portable unit as a Metz 60 be sufficient ?

Thanks a lot for your answer and, please, forgive me by bad english.

[Ben Syverson]

To get that look, with the subject lit, and a sunny day in the background darkened, you need to overpower the sun. There are two ways to do that: use a really powerful strobe, or use a very fast sync speed.

For example, in the Dijkstra go-by you posted, let's say it's Sunny 16, and for the sake of argument, she's shooting 100 ISO film, so it's a 1/125 @ f/16 base exposure. Throw in bellows factor and it's f/11.

Okay, now forget the background and imagine the subject in a studio. Do we have a strobe lying around that can do a full body portrait through a small light modifier at f/11? Yeah, just about any strobe can achieve this. I can almost get there with a Nikon SB-26. If you drop the requirement for full-length, this is definitely a job for a speedlight.

All that's left is to dial down the background, which you can do by increasing shutter speed. Since LF shutters frequently go to 1/500, you can very easily drop the background by about two stops.

[lolorent]

Thanks a lot for your answer Ben.
I'm really a newbie in the world of strobes...

Considering I could use 400 ISO film and not 100 (if only Kodak continues to produce Portra...), if my strobe is as far as the camera is from the model (let's say 2,5m in order to have a full lenght portrait) and if a small umbrella absorbs 2 stops, it would require a number guide of 28 at f11 or 55 at f22.
So the Metz 60 should be enough!

Yes my shutters are new copals and they can go up to 1/500.
I'll try the setup when I'll have a bit more free time but things seem clearer now.

Thanks again and congrats for your beautiful 8x10 portraits.

[Sevo]

and if a small umbrella absorbs 2 stops, it would require a number guide of 28 at f11 or 55 at f22.
So the Metz 60 should be enough!

A small umbrella does not absorb 2 stops at full body portrait distance, it's more like four to six. But if you have that Metz at hand, try it first - it probably will fail to get quite that bright or soft a effect, but it will give you some data to base your power estimates on before you set out to rent portable generators...

[lolorent]

Good eve Sevo,
No I haven't got a Metz at hand to give it a try, it was just a plan...
If I consider what you write, whether I forget about f22 and try to be happy at f11 or I try to find a portable unit (Alienbees, Lumedyne, Bowens,...) that could deliver at least 800ws. If I chose the later solution it will be considerably more expensive than a Metz, but LF is never really on the cheap side.

[sully75]

This is probably going to cause a sh1tst0rm of freaking out, but I would definitely suggest you work this out with a DSLR before you attempt it on film. You could burn through a small fortune in color film before you figure this out, with a DSLR you could get some instant feedback.

[sully75]

Quite possibly that picture was taken toward the evening when it might be a little easier to overpower the sun.

[Noah A]

I don't see why using a digital camera to experiment would cause any freaking out, but on the other hand it ain't rocket science. If you can't get it in one or two tries, then it's time to start over and learn the basics.

Looks to me like a portable strobe (probably the Lumedyne shown) off to camera right, and it's about a stop over the ambient exposure. In this case it looks to me like the sun is basically coming from the same direction as the strobe, however it looks like it was a bit cloudy.

I think you're right on with a 150mm lens and f/16 or so. Looks like a bare reflector to me, not an umbrella (which would definitely mean you'd need more power since the umbrella would eat up a few stops).

Personally, I'd go for something like a Lumedyne, or better yet a Profoto 600b or Elinchrom Ranger. It's nice to have a reserve of extra power should you need to overpower really bright sunlight, or if you need your strobe farther away, or if you decide to shoot with an umbrella, etc.

I use Profoto Compact 600 monolights, sometimes with a DynaLite XP1000 power inverter or a gas generator. A Compact 600 puts out around f/22.5 @ ISO 160 in an umbrella at around 5-6 feet. That works for headshots and 3/4 length, but for full-length I'd have to back the light off and would probably end up around f/16. I'd like to switch to Acute 1200 packs but can't afford to right now. You can never have too much light with large format.

[Frank Petronio]

I'm not a fan of Paul C. Buff junk but these look pretty cool and people are using them to power other brands of AC monolights and strobe packs: http://www.paulcbuff.com/vm120.php

You could find an inexpensive older AC strobe to use. I think Rineke is using a too small silver umbrella with 400 watt/sec Lumedyne but you could match that with any brand of strobe.

For that matter, you could also sync two large Metz strobes, etc.

[Ben Syverson]

Thanks for the kind words, lolorent!

The ISO typically won't matter, because like the aperture, it affects the foreground and background equally. But in general, lower ISO gives you more options.

Think of it this way. You have one light that can light the subject to f/11 @ ISO 100.

With ISO 50 film, our subject is lit to f/8, and Sunny 16 tells us 1/250 @ f/8 for the background. So by closing down to 1/500, we darken the background by one stop.

With ISO 100 film, our subject is lit to f/11, Sunny 16 tells us 1/250 @ f/11 for the background. So by closing down to 1/500, we darken the background by one stop. (Our aperture has changed because of the ISO, but the relative light levels are the same, so it's a wash.)

With ISO 400 film, our subject is lit to f/16, Sunny 16 tells us 1/500 @ f/16 for the background. Whoops, if we can't switch to 1/1000, we're stuck. You could close the aperture to f/22 to drop the background by a stop, but then you need twice as much light on the subject.

I agree that a DSLR is extremely helpful in working out these light levels before you expose film. But there are two very big gotchas. First, make sure you subtract bellows compensation from the DSLR's ISO. So if you have a stop of bellows compensation and you're shooting at ISO 100, set your DSLR to ISO 50, and it will give you a correct bellows compensated exposure. Second, keep in mind that DSLRs don't sync as fast as a Copal 0, so there will be things you simply can't test, such as the examples above that utilize a 1/500 shutter. The DSLR can still be helpful in that scenario; you just have to use your imagination and stop math skills a little more.