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Swim Athlete Photoshoot

Behind the scenes video feat. Phottix Raja softboxes

My go-to 3 to 4 lights set up in the studio, and my experience with Phottix’s Raja Softboxes... that's what's on the menu!

We are back with a studio-style kind of session. It is not a real studio but a temporary one in an empty house that a friend gave me access to for a few days. Something I often do is set up a temporary studio, because, well it’s bigger than my living room. No electricity there, but we had our power station with us. If you haven’t seen my review of the Ecoflow, you know where to go. So it is basically just a sports portrait session with a classic 3 to 4 lights setup.


Swim athletes Marie Kuntzmann and Assia Touati:

This is my go-to for this kind of visual. I kill the ambient so that you can barely see the backdrop I am using. In other words, these images can be made with any dark backdrop you can think of. I am using two Phottix Raja strip softboxes placed on both sides behind my models with a grid. A Phottix Raja 105cm round softbox above the athlete for my hair and shoulders, and for my main light I am using the Phottix Raja 80cm deep octa with a grid for more control on my beam.



The idea was to have that rim light around my athlete coming from the sides and relatively high contrast. I only used one lens, the GF50mm on the GFX100s, and this is an almost full Godox setup, with the AD1200pro the PIXAPRO Citi1200pro the AD600pro, and the AD300pro.



For the image down below I asked Marie to look up and only used the overhead and rim lights:


A few words on these softboxes now and why you will most likely see them in a lot of my future videos. You can choose from a wide variety of sizes and shapes but this is not what intrigued me at first. The one thing I am always looking for is the overall built quality and how fast I can set them up. These have a sweet feature, they are built like umbrellas. This means it takes only a few seconds to pop them open and a few more to add the included layers of diffusion, Inner Baffle (depending on the model), and grid. They are shipped with a nice robust carrying bag, and so far they are serving me well. I hate setting up and packing, and these make it easy, or at least easier than before. If you are looking for a set of light modifiers, really, you can trust these.




I have to give a huge shout-out to https://www.buystudiolight.com/ Thanks for sending me these softboxes… and for letting me share my experience. Do you wish to get yours? Follow the links below:

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