What this setup creates
A two-light setup featuring an overhead gridded softbox as the key light and a gelled background light to create a dramatic and artistic portrait with cool and warm tones.
Light placement
Key light overhead camera-left, background light low camera-right.
How to build it
Key light is an overhead softbox with a grid, positioned camera-left. Background light is a strobe with a blue gel, placed low and camera-right, facing the backdrop.
- Lighting style
- Two-light setup with gridded key and gelled background.
- Key light
- 45 degree
- Light quality
- Soft light, Low contrast
- Shadows
- Clean shadows, Moody
- Background
- Colored gel, Seamless backdrop
- Colour
- Cool tones, Warm tones
- Visual mood
- Dramatic, Cinematic, Fashion-forward, Commercial clean
Camera settings
Suggested starting point- Aperture
- f/8
- Shutter speed
- 1/160s
- ISO
- 100
- Focal length
- 85mm
- White balance
- Flash
Inferred typical studio portrait settings for a clean, sharp image with good depth of field and ambient light rejection.