Photography

The Art of Lighting

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:19:38 +0800

One of the biggest challenges or obstacles when photographers move on to strobe or multiple strobe lighting situations is that often they complicate the matter. Often when people look at my group portraitures they think it must have been lit with a number of lights in a very complex way. The truth of the matter is that, it wasn't.

Lighting should not be viewed in a complex way. To me there are only three stages of setting up lighting for portraits; Background, subject, and hair/rim lighting and in that order. No matter what people say, you ALWAYS light the background of any portrait first. This is a general rule. Reason being the background is one of the key elements that allows you to shoot your preferred lighting ratio and preferred aperture. In some scenarios, the background doesn't need to be lit (ex. backlighting by a strong sun). If this is the case we first meter the background and then adjust the subject lighting/camera setting according to that measurement.

Most of the time when people light and they find the results not to their expectations, they start to add lights and gels and reflectors,etc... The problem is, I would say 90% of the time the problem is that they do not have the right lighting ratio and they are setting up their light by reference to technical data rather than using what is most reliable, their eyes.

When it comes to using a trusty viewfinder, or playback monitor, I can tell you that nothing is more reliable than your own eyes. The equipment only assists but your eyes should be the deciding factor. I think the problem with a lot of photographers today is that they seem to rely on equipment more than their own judgment. Lighting, like photography has not changed one bit since the beginning of photography. All the advance equipment we have today has only made it slightly easier but the science or theory behind making a good portrait has not changed one bit.

I have seen photographers that have simply placed a light because their experience or what they have learned in school told them to do so. The thing is each photograph is unique and carries it's own characteristics. Meaning that the lighting setup will be different from one photo to another, and just because in the last portrait photography session the 3 point lighting setup worked out doesn't mean it will in another.

I have seen so many people making the same mistake of metering the subject and lighting for the subject before lighting for the background. It might work for some people, but for me, I don't really get how can one light for a subject when not knowing the light measurement you are getting in your surrounding environment within your framing?

At the end if you still find lighting to be complicating and frustrating. Just take more photographs on location or in studio. Don't wait for a client to hire you, call out some friends and ask if they would like to have their portraits taken. The good thing about taking portraits for friends for free is that because they are not paying for your services, they won't mind if you experiment a little, make a few mistakes or take a long time getting your correct exposure (you don't want to do that in front of a client). Practise is the answer to great lighting in photography. To add on to what I have just mentioned about simplifying your lighting setup, I have drafted the following guidelines when planning your lighting for a portraiture.

1) Meter Ambient Lighting

Meter for the background and meter for the subject. Sometimes (outdoors), you may not even need to light the subject. Find out which direction your ambient lighting is coming from. Re-position if necessary

2) Light your background

3) Meter for Subject

When metering for subject most likely your light will not be dead center flat. Meaning that you should always meter left and right side of a subject.

4) Determine whether a rim light/hair light is necessary

5) If taking a wide group shot you may want to meter for hands, feets and dresses, just to make sure nothing is too underexposed (this is very important if you are using a very soft light with a strong falloff, the exposure can be drastic with very minimal distance).

At the end I will stress on knowing your lighting ratios. Knowing your cameras is not enough, because without lighting your 4k or 36MP stills or video camera is not different from any low end consumer end camera.

Gossip Gals....

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 17:56:37 +0800

Just this Saturday I had the opportunity to take out my Photek Softlighters for another photo shoot. The results did not disappoint at all. The quality of light was simply stunning. Mind you all studio photographers that with the use of the softlighters I highly recommend a high power strobe, something like a 400W strobe I would say is the minimum.

The famous Photek Softlighter is used by acclaimed celebrity photography Annie Leibovitz very often and is one of the most effective light shaping tools I have ever used (including Profoto light shaping tools).

The bride and groom was generous enough to allow me to post a pic from the shoot. This pic has not yet been fully edited and simply just been played around with in Capture One Pro.

Rather than bringing complex light shaping tools that are a pain in the ass to setup. I now carry 5 Photek Softlighters on the set or location and that pretty much does it. I love how the Softlighter has such shallow light falloff which allows me to create these wonderful low key high contrast protraits which brings so much "liveliness" into the portrait. Not to mention, assistants love it too because no longer do they need to setup complicated lighting equipment that takes so much time to assemble. The versatility of this tool makes it a definite "must own" for a pro.

Continuous Light Photography (One Light)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:21:56 +0800

The following photos were shot with...

100W Continuous Flourescent Light

40 x 60 Softbox

5D Mark II

Both 50mm Carl Zeiss 1.4 and 100mm Carl Zeiss 2.8

Pros

You see what you get

Not as distracting for model (strobing vs. continuous light)

Cons

Must shoot with a very fast lens due to insufficient power from flourescent lights

Depth of Field is pretty shallow due to use of wide aperture

Very difficult for freeze subject, must as model to be still.

Softbox or Umbrella? What should you use? PART 2

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:02:15 +0800

SAMPLE SOFT BOX PICS

*Shot with a 400W Continuous Flourescent Light

SAMPLE UMBRELLA PICKS

*Shot with a Profoto Large White umbrella with a Godox EX 600W Compact Monolight.

Both the sample softbox pics and the umbrella pic were shot with the light + light shaping tool up close to the subject. Which do you prefer?

Softbox or Umbrella? What should you use?

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:41:41 +0800

Well the truth of the matter is that like everything else in Photography there isn't a correct answer. It's really a preference and although this preference does make the subject look and feel different, you can't really say which is the right way or which method is the correct use of equipment. It's like lighting, could you say Loop lighting is correct and Rembrandt is wrong? You can't... it's a style and a method which can be applied in any circumstance.

Even with that said though you could say that there are times when certain equipment is more often used then others (maybe you can consider that to be the reason to consider it to be the correct answer but I wouldn't).

Generally speaking an umbrella has a wider light spread than a softbox, and this is true whether you are choosing to use a shoot through umbrella or a reflective umbrella. With softboxes, the distance of the light falloff is much shorter. Umbrellas generally give a greater contrast while softboxes like its name, gives you a softer effect that softens even the shadows.

One general characteristic you will find in umbrellas that is not as problematic compared with softboxes is to do with "hotspots". With umbrellas you tend to get "hotspots" (where lights concentrate in the middle of the area lit), and with softboxes because the light is more contained by the way it spreads (due to the construction of a softbox and the diffusor), you tend to get a more even light on the lit area (the downside is greater light falloff (meaning greater distances between the light and subject will have significant drop in light).

I have seen people use softboxes to light up a close up portrait and then again I have seen people use an umbrella to do the same with the similar amazing results. Once you have experience with softboxes and umbrellas you will understand that you can't really categorize one for certain specific scenario because it depends on many variables you are shooting for.

Ex. I would never use umbrellas to shoot products, but I have seen people use umbrellas to shoot products. I never use a softbox to light a face (mainly because I believe the contrast which an umbrella gives to shadows sculpts a subjects face giving it much more definition than a softbox), but I have seen many great photographers light up a face with a softbox. The only time I may use a softbox to light up a subject's face is probably during a glamour shot for a cosmetics ad. In this case I want the skin to be smooth and shadows and dark contrast may not be something the client wants.

In this photograph of Bloomberg Anchor Susan Li, the photo was shot with a Photek Softlighter II. This umbrella is often used by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz and that especially during the Louis Vuitton Campaign shot by Leibovitz. The Softlighter II is a bounce shoot through umbrella. The main reason for it's popularity is due to its short light falloff distance, and the softness it produces while retaining a strong contrast between shadows and highlights.

Full Body Seamless Super White Background Photo Shoot

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 11:12:50 +0800

This entry is more about the background then it is the foreground. If you ever get hired for a full body photo shoot you will find out that the background lighting is just as important as the foreground lighting. One thing that it is much more simpler is that there are only a few things to spot for background.

(1) Even exposure

(2) Hot Spots

(3) Under Exposure

In today's world of digital photography, all of the above can be fixed by a little photoshopping, but I always believe that it is better to get it right in camera than it is trying figure a quick fix in post.

Shoot in ratios (1:2)

To make this as simple as possible. Light the background 2 stops higher (I only go around 1-1.5 stops, don't like to stretch my limit) than you would with the foreground.

Ex. Foreground = F10, Background F16

Why?

Google "Inverse Square Law" = Double the distance = 1/4 lighting. So distance of your background to your camera matters. Meaning lighting the background to what you think is the exact metering of your foreground will be infact underexposed in your camera due to different distances between subject and background.

Now that you get this idea, what should you use to light a backgound? If possible something with a wide spread like a large umbrella or a large softbox.

Why?

No matter what you use the light modifier will still have hot spots and a slight uneven spread of light. The hot spot will always be in the center and as you reach the outrim of the light you will see a softer dimmer edge. So the trick here is to fill the background with lights so that there is minimal eveness. My two cents is, for a medium shot, two lights (left and right) will do, but for a full body shot you will need a minimum of four lights just for the background. Some people think that if you use a bigger softbox that it will illiminate this problem. It does help but you will still see a difference in lighting in your background. In post just pull the exposure down and you will see.

Note

Remember when using more lights on your background that you should try to move your subject as far away from the background as possible (8-10FT). If not possible, you can try blocking the flare or spill from the background light with a large black matte board of any kind from both sides behind the subject.

Fallacy

People think that with modern technology anything can be done with post editing, but there are somethings that can be fixed or done without the proper variables (ex. light, space). If you have a 100 sq ft. room there is no way you will be able to get a full body extremely sharp portrait of a average size adult with a super white background. The environment of your studio just will not allow that not to mention you would probably have to go pretty wide on your lens which will most likely warp the exposure.

*A shot like this (model is sitting down) would probably still need a space of minimum 250 sq ft. Remember, equipment and tools take up space as well, and not to mention the photographer will not work will if he is backed up against a wall trying to fit in that full body portrait.)

While I sound like I know what I am doing, I am sure referring you to a seamless expert wouldn't hurt neither. Zack Arias is very well known for doing seamless white portraits. Go check it out!

http://www.zarias.com/white-seamless-tutorial-part-1-gear-space/

In Studio Freeze Motion

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:38:33 +0800

So you are in the studio and you are planning to shoot a set of freeze motion photographs with your newly purchased set of strobes. You set the Aperture to F10-11, iso 100, and shutter speed to 125 as usual. Take a snap... woah... wait a minute, there's motion blur. How could this be?

125th of a second is definitely not fast enough to freeze your subject in mid air or whatever you plan to do. In Fact, 1/200th of a second or 1/250th of a second is no where close. As you reach 500th of a second, maybe (depending on what kind of motion you are capturing). But most likely you will have to crank the shutter up to 1000th of a second. So what can you do? For you avid photographers out there, you are probably thinking, at 1/1000 of a second I will most likely get a curtain in frame (camera curtain that is and not the curtain in your living room), and you are correct. The camera is unable to sync anything above 1/160th of a second (Most Canon DSLRs). Even if you set your speedlites to HSS (High Speed Sync), you will only get 1/200th of a second (Nikon users, 1/250th of a second). So.... How do they do freeze motion in commercial photography? Is it simply wires and a lot of photoshopping?

ANSWER

The answer is not to speed up your shutter speed but to slow it down ("wait a sec, you sure you are right?"). A camera captures a photograph by allowing light in into the camera, so basically if you have a camera shutter opened for 1/10th of a second in a pitch dark environment and if your lights are flashing at 1/2000 of second you will still be capturing the photograph at 1/2000 of a second (doesn't really need to be completely dark, but you will need other tools if you want to take the same picture under minimal ambient light, but that's another blog entry). So basically you are not relying of the speed of the camera shutter to take the photograph anymore but rather the speed of the flash to compose your photo. Now wasn't that easy? And you don't even need an expensive light to do something like that. A cheap chinese monolight will easily give you 1/800-1/2000 flash duration (professional monolights can go up to 1/8000+).

Once again this is another example where your technique is more important than your camera.

Learning To Shoot

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:33:22 +0800

The other day, as I was browsing for some new gadgets in SSP, just as I was about to make a purchase some kid (probably a university student) comes over and asks me for some advice. The first question he asks...

(1) Excuse me sir, but will this (a small size light stand) be enough for my 580 EX II?

Always willing to help, I replied... "Yeah it should be enough, mind you though it does not hurt to buy a slightly bigger stand because there may be a chance that you will use lightshaping tools with your speedlite and it may not be strong enough to support some heavier lightshapers."

The young man then asked. "What are lightshapers?"

I replied "well depending on what you are shooting and your own preference but most common is adding a shoot through umbrella."

Then the young man asked. "What does an umbrella do?"

I then replied (starting to get slightly impatient because I needed to go to the next store to check out the new Dis from Godox). "Well there are several ways to use a shoot through umbrella. You can bounce a light and reflect the light to a subject or you can shoot through it hence the name "Shoot Through Umbrella.

The young man then continued to ask. Well why are some of them silver? and why are some of them white?

I replied. "Well silver is for a more contrasty look which in the meanwhile still gives you a more diffused effect. So it's great if you are using it on a speedlite because you don't have much power to work with or waste. White shoot through on the other hand is probably the most handy umbrella and what most beginners start with when they start using umbrellas due to the convenience/price and the ability to use the umbrella in different ways."

He then thanked me and I approached the counter to pay for the 2 new 30x90 strip banks that I just bought. Suddenly the young man appeared next to me again like Yoda and asked.

"Well I am trying to shoot something outside and from a low angle (don't ask me what it was, I didn't want to know). Firstly do I need to use a speedlite? and secondly, if I use an umbrella how should I set it up so I get the best lighting for my portrait."

Wow, what a question I thought. I might as well shoot the thing for him. Some of you prosumers or photographers reading this blog post may say "Why bother answering his questions, it's most likely he has never used a light before and the more you explain the more complicated it will be for him to get his photo.

You are probably right about this and most likely I am assuming that he did not get the photo he is aiming for. However, if you think about his questions, they are not stupid questions at all. These are the questions that make camera owners into photographers. Separating the truly passionate from the trendy camera owners. You ever see someone on a street with like old crusty Canon 400D or 350D with a stock zoom lens but yet they shoot amazing photos? I have. These photographers took similar questions and not that they found an answer but took the risk to make the mistakes and learn from them. That is photography, many experiences that give you good experience. Good photographers are people that most likely have failed a lot more than beginners (ironic eh?). But what makes a Photographer a great photographer is someone that is willing to take a number of shots after shots of "bad" photos, and practise their technique until they find (not the 'correct' method) their own style.

My last words to that young man was. Photography is not as difficult as you think. You are seeking my help today because you think I am more knowledgeable or more skilled than you, but I can answer your questions only because I have failed more than you and attempted failure more than you. Have fun with your camera and remember if the photo comes out "poorly" that it can only get better if you let yourself understand what was wrong with it. He then thanked me sincerely and left the shop. I'll probably won't recognize this guy again, but if he gets what I am saying maybe I will bump into him next time at the same shop and it will be him looking for a strip bank.