[Puella Magi Madoka Magica Cosplay] Rainy Day Location Shoot: Recording Flash Lighting Setup to Simulate Sunlight

Today, I'm sharing the location shoot record from this time in Chengdu. Chengdu is indeed a rainy city, and this shoot happened to run into a rainy day. In order not to waste the meticulously prepared styling, we found a covered outdoor platform, utilizing the architectural structure and natural environment to complete this set of works.

For the shooting equipment, we used a Sony A7M4, paired with two lenses: the Sigma 85mm F1.4 and the Tamron 28-75mm G2. The 85mm prime lens provided an excellent bokeh texture, while the zoom lens was used to quickly adjust the composition in the changing rainy environment.

The biggest difficulty of this shoot lay in the lack of natural sunlight. To restore the atmosphere of "sunlight spilling down" in the frame, we set up a Godox flash behind and to the side of the model. With the help of a 4.8-meter-tall light stand, pointing down at a 45-degree angle, we successfully traced the highlight rim light along the edges of the hair strands. On the front, two flashes with softboxes were arranged for facial fill light and shadow filling. Combined with the humidity in the air and on the ground, it created a clean, bright anime-style photography lighting atmosphere.

For the outfit, a pink and white color-scheme dress was chosen, complemented by a red choker, lace-up shoes, and white lace over-the-knee socks, maintaining a very high color saturation. The wig was a short pink twin-tail style, paired with large bows on both sides, looking exceptionally energetic. In terms of poses, we specially designed some standing-on-one-leg postures, which heavily tested the balance of my center of gravity at that time. The puffy petticoat inside the skirt also made the overall silhouette much fuller.

In terms of props, it was coordinated with a set of bow, arrow, and staff decorated with green vines and pink-white flowers, alongside a red ribbon. In the third photo, we used the shutter and the ribbon's movement to capture some accidental dynamic effects. The pink heart-shaped arrow and the red string also perfectly echoed the theme of Puella Magi Madoka Magica cosplay.

Although shooting on a rainy day brings troublesome weather conditions, the puddled platform ground instead provided extra highlight reflections, giving the frame an added layer of color texture. The hard light from the flash hitting the wig produced an extremely pleasing hair light effect. This technique of simulating sunlight is highly practical on overcast and rainy days, and the final finished photoset turned out even more ideal than expected.

Through this actual shoot, I truly felt that reasonable flash lighting setups and outdoor location choices can overcome the prejudice that good photos cannot be taken on overcast days. I look forward to trying more themes of different styles in the future.