Some technical background on the black and white portraits I shot for the mentoring program. All shots were taken with a 50mm prime lens (which translates to 75mm on the ASP-C sensor in my camera) and with aperture f/2. I used a 3-stop ND filter to make this possible. The lowest power setting on the strobe at the short distance of apr. 60cm (2 ft.), gave me a meter reading of aperture of f/8. The ND filter enabled me to bring this down with another 3 stops to f/2.
The lighting setup for the portrait series was as follows:
