You don't need to have a bunch of fancy equipment to get decent portraits. All you really need is a basic understanding of how lighting works, and a couple of proven lighting setups to get good pictures.

The equipment
Multiple lights, fancy reflectors, and expensive equipment aren't required to get decent portraits, but they sure help.

Seriously, though... You can shoot portraits with just a single flash unit. You need to be willing to accept a lower level of quality though.

You just can't get studio-quality portraits with only one light, unless you're going for an artistic approach. Artistic photography really isn't the focus of this article, but rather the more traditional studio portrait.

I've seen lighting setups ranging from one to five lights, but two lights is the most common, by far. In this article, I'll cover both single-light and double-light setups, showing the benefits and pitfalls of each.

When using more than one flash, a requirement is a slave flash unit. A slave is a photo receptor cell that will trigger a flash to fire when it senses a burst of light. Because light travels faster than any shutter can operate, the microsecond delay between the firing of the first flash and any subsequent ones won't matter.

Some flash units come with built-in slaves, but most don't. For units that don't have a built-in slave, you can buy external ones that you plug the synch cord into. The one I use has a suction cup to attach itself to the flash, and it seems to me that I paid about $15 for it.

Reflectors, umbrellas and softboxes aren't a requirement for portraiture, but they definitely help. By softening the light, these items make your photos less harsh and reduce shadows, giving you better results. There are also some budget methods of reproducing these that I'll cover.

One light
Many cameras now come with an on-camera flash. While this is fine for snapshots, it's really not the best thing for portraiture. Figure A shows a portrait that was taken with a single, on-camera flash.

FIGURE A

A single on-camera flash is not ideal for portrait work. Click picture for a larger image.

Note the deep shadows on either side of the subject. This really isn't what you're looking for in a portrait. You also risk the dreaded red-eye when using an on-camera flash, as the light is directly in front of the subject's eyes.

The photo in Figure A is a good example of the downside to using a single light. You're going to have shadows. There's almost no way to avoid them.