I set up my studio stuff away from home for the first time to see if I could do it. It wasn't too bad! The pics came out quite good, and I learned a few things.

Shedding German Shepherds and black velvet do not mix well.

If you forget to bring a squeaky toy to get ears, a quietly whining dachshund in the X Pen next to you will do in a pinch.

A 6 foot wide backdrop that looks huge behind a wiener dog at home, is not so big behind two large dogs.

My questions:

What kind/how big of a table do you guys use to put the dogs on? Or do you use a table at all? There happened to be an agility table where I set up so used that and it seemed to work better than the floor especially to encourage dogs to stay and to lay down. That table would be too large to travel with, and a grooming table seems to small and tall...

What am I doing wrong with my background light....I was using a gel and if the light was too low, there would be no change in the background. Too high and it would change the color but blow it all out (using mottled medium gray muslin). Also on seamless white paper I get very little color and again blow out, I was picturing a nice gradient of color over the white but maybe white isn't the best choice? There was no room to put the light behind the dogs even when on the short table (it would have shown in the shot) so I had it just off to the side.

Maybe seamless black paper is the way to go with gels?

What kind of material do you usually use for the ground, the same as the backdrop or do you put down something else? Any suggestions on the something else? I had the black velvet handy so took it along but it grabbed and showed every dog hair.

What extras do you guys bring to have on hand...I"m guessing extra bulbs for the strobes, anything else? I did see I only had barely enough length in the cords maybe extensions (certain kind?) and a plug in strip? How about a second trigger for the camera?

Is there a way to set off the shutter while standing away from the camera, something remote (that would be SO nice)

Lastly any tricks to not getting dogs shadows on each other when using two dogs. It wasn't a huge problem but if one turned it's head just right there would be shadow. I'm guessing for that you may need to move the two strobes closer to center...

Muchas thanks for any suggestions!