I've been getting quite a few questions about the gymnastics advert we did awhile back so I figured I'll give a brief walk-through the thought process and include just a few before and after shots.We were using a D700 on F2.8 24-70mm. We had one 90x60 soft-box on the left and two rim lights on the back left and right. We gel-ed the right flash rim with 1/16 CTO to give a little bit of a kicker.
As for the settings. I can't be bothered to check but I used a slightly wider aperture to make sure we got it all in focus regardless of movement. Also when I shoot, I tend to check my histograms, making sure nothing is blown-out but still pushing my highlights close to clipping points in the particular case.
In my opinion, this way, when you up the contrast in post... everything drops nicely and you don't have to deal with high colored noise levels which seems to show up in the background when light kisses anything there by a tad. Had I shot it to look more like the final shot but in-camera, I would really not be able to do that much without putting a lot more effort in photoshop.
I guess what I am trying to say is, when you shoot, do what is best for DI and not what looks good on your lcd screen on camera. And I know, we should have tethered but we had to move a lot on this one and work fast due to limited time. Oh and lastly, just painted out the light and the remaining reflective materials in the background.
