Types of light

So, to start things off again, not really a practical post here... more of a thought post.

Have you ever really thought about the different types of light? I don't mean tungsten, daylight etc. Rather, more generally, the broad forms of lighting which can result in a final image?

It's obvious, but I think it still bears thinking about:

1. Ambient light
2. Ambient minus Controllable Ambient
3. Ambient minus Controllable Ambient plus Flash
4. Flash alone (which is really just a version of the one above)


1. Ambient light

In any non-studio situation, I'll always look to make the ambient light do the heavy lifting for the lighting of an image. If you want to light with ambient though, you've got to start thinking in terms of direction and quality of light. Positioning a model next to a window is the classic example of doing this. This step, when done well, is the first step to rising above the everyday photographer who just clicks a photo of what is in front of him or her, without thought about how to improve the quality and direction of the light.


2. Ambient minus Controllable Ambient

The next stage is thinking about how you can control your ambient. This can give you a touch more flexibility than purely the idea of moving into good light. So what can this mean? Example might be to switch off lights and purely use daylight through a window. It might be equally to close a window, and purely use internal lighting. Similarly, using a diffuser in front of a window which is streaming direct sunlight into a building would be another example. I'd also include the use of a reflector in this, where the reflector is reflecting ambient light. This step is the first step to moving on from being a basic ambient light photographer, to being someone who crafts and controls the light around them. This is a fundamental step to great photography.


3. Ambient minus Controllable Ambient plus Flash

This further stage is where it really starts to get interesting. You now have the power to control ambient light almost completely, subject to having sufficiently powerful lighting. Subtlety is the absolute key here though, and it should always be your approach to work through step 1 and step 2 before coming to step 3, although I do have a habit of jumping to step 3 then working backwards when speed is important. I've called step 3 the addition of "Flash" but it's any light source. For most photographers now, that'll mean flash, but for many it can mean constant sources of light such as Tungsten, Halogen, HMI, Fluorescent etc.


The fundamental point to step 3 is the fact that suddenly you're adding new light that wasn't there when you walked onto the location. This can be immensely subtle, such as a small hair light or background light just to bring a subject out, although they're still lit by ambient light in the main.

But sometimes subtlety isn't what you're after, and that's the exciting thing about adding your own light. Suddenly you have the opportunity to build light on top of ambient light, and by doing so, you're controlling the level of ambient. I've found people seem to have trouble with this, so I thought I'd try the approach of this bar graph:

Think of the height of the graph as your overall exposure. If you underexpose, your bars wouldn't reach the top of the graph, and if you overexposed, the bars would go right over the top of the graph. This graph simply assumes there is a correct desired exposure of some form which is indicated when the bars accurately touch the very top of the graph.

So as you can see, if you're only using ambient light such as on the left bar, then it's contributing 100% to your exposure. However, as you add flash power progressively, you can see that the level of contribution from the ambient is decreased. The reality is that you're adding flash power then adjusting the camera to correct for it, which is thereby reducing the ambient light taken in.

You should now see that there is a fantastic opportunity to use a flash light as key and ambient as fill. If you want subtle flash effects, you only slightly overpower the ambient light and it should have a "clean ambient" feel to it, while if you want a contrasty and dark feel, then you significantly overpower the ambient light with flash. Another way to think of it is that you have absolute control of the contrast ratio between your flash and the ambient, right up to the available power of your flash. The more contrasty you want the scene, the more you overpower the ambient, and thereby reduce the fill light coming from ambient.

4. Flash alone

Flash alone is slightly a myth. If you had enough light to focus your camera, then there is likely some form of ambient. Essentially though, this would be studio photography, where you're working in a dark room with ambient heavily overpowered by studio flashes. Why is there a distinct difference here? Well it's a whole different ballgame, because you're suddenly in the position of doing all the work with no ambient to do the heavy lifting. As such, it becomes more about light modifiers, reflectors, diffusers etc.

Pocket Wizard Webinar

For anyone interested in Multiple Off-Camera Flash using the new TTL Pocket Wizard system, there's a webinar on in 30 minutes from when this is posted (for anyone who happens to read this soon enough!)

http://www.pocketwizard.com/webinar

Ambient vs. Lit

I'm very much a photographer of the lighting orthodox. I come prepared with a vehicle full of gear, lug what I need to where I'm taking a photo, and then spend the next 20+ mins getting set up for the shot. That's what I do, and that's how I get the results that I get.

But sometimes you have limited or no ability to carry large amounts of gear. Perhaps you have a very rushed job which allows you only a few minutes to "get the shot" or perhaps you are travelling and are living out a couple of bags, one of which has to travel on your back with ALL your gear in it?

Well I recently did a shoot where I had limited gear because of the hike to get to the place on foot. I took my standard camera backpack, a light stand, a brolly and a reflector.

Of course, being me, I started out with the light stand and a flashgun on it. Taking control of ambient light and pushing it down into submission as subtle fill, and I got this image:



You can see that the flash is providing the harsh light from the left of camera, with distinct shadows (under her chin etc.), while ambient light is providing a little gentle fill. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a "bad" image, but it doesn't really inspire me.

So I decided that I could either flog the dead horse, or try changing things up a little. This is normally where I'd hit the kit bag and drag out some more gear and play in ever more intricate ways, but in this case, I was out of gear! You'll note I was in a woodland area, so I decided to make more use of ambient light for the shot, so I turned her round about 90 degrees, and brought her more into an open area, to take this shot. Still a harsh light hitting her hair to bring out colour and texture, but a very soft skylight to give nice light on her face. Suddenly we've gone from the flash doing all the hard work to ambient doing all the hard work, and flash just adding a detail of light.



Now, things were improved significantly in the look of the image, but I still wasn't that taken with the smoothness of the light on her face, aside from the glaring issue of an overexposed flash on camera left.

So basically, I had an ambient light large softbox "on a sky hook boom arm" above the model and slightly to the right and a hard kicker light on camera left. So thinking on those terms, I could move the kicker light, move the model, but couldn't move the softbox (not being god and all), so I opted to move the only two things I could. I wanted the "softbox" above and behind me for a nice soft full look, and I wanted the kicker to be more of a high hairlight. So I got the model to crouch down and look up towards the sky, and positioned the flash to the left and behind her, to become effectively a hair light. This was the result:



Beautiful soft catchlights bringing out her awesome eyes and a nice little kick of flash to bring out the tones and texture in her hair. Sorted!

So moral of the story I guess is to think about what is around you - windows, open areas with trees and any limited area of soft light can be a great softbox, while sunlight can be a great kicker light or hair light when working with ambient light. Sometimes you have to control it, and sometimes you can mix it up with flash, but have a good basic understanding of handling ambient light is just as important as knowing how to light things with your own gear!

Take a look at Mitchell Kanashkevich's work for example - just sit and study the images slideshow on the front of his website:

http://www.mitchellkphotos.com

Think about how he's using limited gear and a lot of understanding of ambient light in order to create these stunning images, even using a fire torch as a keylight in one image. Control of light that you'd be proud of if you set up the lighting gear yourself, but showing great understanding of his surroundings and light sources "to hand" to make these images.

You'll notice he has some ebooks - one of these "Seeing the Light" which I haven't read yet, but from the information provided about it, has some beautiful images and explanations on how he gets his results.

If you want to save a couple of dollars and get another ebook free ("Understanding Post-Processing"), sign up here:

https://photowhoa.com/mitchell_kanashkevich_book_bundle

I've also heard from Kevin at photowhoa.com that there are some great bargains in the pipeline, so might be worth signing up for the email to see what comes up! It's basically a groupon for photographers.

When does a photographer become a blogger/workshopper?

With the uber-elite of photographic blogging becoming ever more attractive to the legions of fans, it got me thinking, are they in danger of losing what their initial appeal was? Lets face it, would anyone listen to them if they hadn't done their fair share of pounding the beat of commercial/journalistic photography?

I've actually just come back to my feedlist after a few days away, and was just a little dismayed to see a person, who's blog used to really be enjoyable, now filling his blog with a line of endless adverts for his workshops. In other words, he's no longer giving details about his photographic jobs. He's moved fully to the other side and, to be frank, is looking to no longer be a photographer any more. He's a workshopper.

Not that I'm getting at them for doing this - everyone needs to find their niche to earn a crust - but just that I think there's a danger that if you stop being a photographer, your blog and your brand can start to go stale. Then again, it could be worse - you could be too busy being a photographer and your blog be as slow as mine! Anyhow...

Appropriateness of imagery

Just been having a gander at the strobist site (this entry in particular) and it got me thinking about appropriateness of images.

Note: The following two comments have since disappeared from the site, but they still raise an interesting point

Someone called David (not Hobby) said:

"I think this shot is just awful.

The lighting is far too clever by half and the man looks positively shifty and untrustworthy. It is neither flattering nor interesting

I know it is sacriledge to criticise the sainted strobist, but this is just pants and someone should say so."

This got a highly defensive and sarcastic response from the site author David Hobby:

"Wow, your own work must be TRULY amazing to allow license for that kind of condescending comment. Your photos must make me laugh and cry at the same time. They must speak in several languages at once. I cannot wait to see them."


I find that sometimes photographers, especially those of a strobist persuasion who like to light things, tend to get overly excited about the lighting.

When I personally approach a job, one of my first thoughts is about what the images are trying to say. For example, if I'm shooting a politician, is the end result meant to say that he/she is powerful, strong-willed and in for the long run, or perhaps saying that he/she is welcoming, caring, compassionate and trustworthy?

Having figured out what I'm after, I'll then look at the location, lighting and general styling of the shot to work out how I'm going to shoot it. This is where appropriateness comes in. If I'm after the first option, I might shoot in a dramatic location, make the lighting and post-processing very contrasty, perhaps shoot a lower angle etc. etc.

For the second option, it might be a very much lighter and softer feel, perhaps a shallower depth of field, overall lower contrast feel.

With this in mind, I'm not really saying much about my personal thoughts on the image linked on strobist, but I do feel that the photographer discussing that he wanted to try out a cool idea for lighting and the job allowed him to do so, is somewhat the reverse of the way it should be done.

If anything, I personally think the gridded key light gave a less "holy" feel and a more sinister creepy feel. This isn't to say I dislike the image at all, but I do question the appropriateness of it given this was intended for a local magazine talking about local hospital Chaplains. I'm not so sure that these images would have been a hit with the Chaplains themselves, portraying them in such a dark and moody way.

And as for very defensive photographers, I think we all need to remember that the majority of people who like, or even love our images, are non-photographers, so to suggest that someone who criticises the image must be able to demonstrate their ability to light or photograph better is a bit much. That's like saying that film critics should be able to direct a movie well before they criticise a movie. There may be an argument there, but it certainly doesn't necessarily follow.

Two things that I do agree should be taken from the On Assignment entry though: first that you should always try to come up with a creative and interesting approach to images, no matter how boring the subject, and secondly that testing an idea is very important if you're going to do something a bit off-beat. You don't want to be fiddling trying to get the idea to work while you're on the shoot!

Black Friday deals

Just thought I'd pass on that Jacobs are having some special deals. If you're in the lookout for any of the kit that happens to be on the specials, it might be a good time to buy. Of course, shop around - just because they say it's a special deal doesn't mean it is the best around!
Jacobs Digital

And for the US folk, there are some deals going too. Koo has done all the hard work, so I don't have to!
black-friday-deals-for-filmmakers

Canon EOS 60D Review

Well I sat around looking back and forth between the Canon 60D and Canon 7D for the last couple of months. With my Canon 40D well on its way towards its advised shutter use of 150,000, I'd felt it was well due an upgrade, making it my backup body.

I'd held out for quite a period for the Canon 60D because I felt the price jump to the Canon 7D wasn't really worth the money if the 60D was going to be an upgrade to the excellent Canon 40D/50D series. But as the launch came closer, it quickly became clear that the 60D wasn't going to be the same breed of camera as its bloodline.

The first difference was the lack of a magnesium alloy body which at first glance sounded like the dreaded "plastic" body. I was quite disheartened at that thought, and was almost ready to purchase a 7D. However, I opted to wait a little while and see what the 60D was like both in online reviews and in my grubby paws.

So having got my paws on one, my instant thought was that it still felt very solid with the aluminium body. It may not have the strength of magnesium alloy, but it still feels a solid camera. I don't plan on flinging it at the ground anyway, so good care and attention is always part of making your equipment last.

Another difference is the flip out screen. I was concerned this was a bit of a gimmick, although my work with video production has me well used to the idea of flip out LCDs. In actual fact, I find that it makes little difference most of the time, and there are occasions where being able to flip the LCD out is very handy. Most importantly, it feels solid and the hinge mechanism doesn't feel flimsy.

Taking a photo, is when I noted a significant difference. The shutter has a more clunky and less controlled sound than the 40D had. This might be reflected in the fact it is only rated to 100,000 shots. It is also significantly louder so if you like a quieter DSLR, this isn't going to hit the spot!

As for image quality, at 18 megapixels I was a little concerned about noise, although I'd heard good things about the 7D, so assumed this wasn't too much of a worry. I haven't really been able to compare like for like with the 40D, because I use Capture One and they haven't yet issued an update for the 60D, but from raw files I've processed with the supplied Canon software, I can say that the detail is absolutely excellent. It has the slight softness that I like, which comes away nicely with a very small touch of sharpening. Anyone used to Canon images will know what I mean.

Low light performance was of significant interest to me, as I often shoot in situations where flash isn't an option. I would say that ISO 3200 is now a valid option for regular use, unlike the 40D where I wouldn't have gone above ISO 800. Roughly speaking, ISO 3200 is the new ISO800 in noise terms from the 40D to the 60D. But given the larger images, I'd say it is actually even a further improvement, because the noise will show even less on a 12x8 print for example, because the pixel count is so much higher now.

But one of the major factors for the 60D is its performance in terms of video work. I can see that the 60D will be one of the new darlings of the video guys. Aside from the obvious - the flip out screen - the quality of video is absolutely excellent with a nice high bit rate. I haven't tested a 7D, but I suspect the quality will be almost as good, even though there are slight file quality differences. Another important factor for some people will be the manual sound level controls which are now featured in the menus. This isn't really an issue for me as I record audio using a Zoom H4n or another video camera, but it is a nice feature to have. Full control over manual settings is excellent to have, and the video mode has a live contrast based autofocus. It works not badly, although you have to be careful in low light. It isn't something you can use while recording though because it changes exposure and has a tendency to seek. That said, if you're recording and want a quick change of focus which will be cut afterwards in editing, that shouldn't be an issue.

For interest, I took it with me to a live dance and singing event which I was recording with the excellent Panasonic AG-HMC151 as a live test and a little bit of a comparison. Focussing is quite hard, but can be done via a monitor plugged into the live feed. This is excellent in standby, but annoyingly it goes to low-res when recording. Trying to do live manual focussing is not something that is made remotely easy. That said, the contrast AF did a reasonable job provided I was careful with it, and the images were pretty sharp even in what was fairly low light (ISO 1600/3200 range).

In terms of quality, I think the image was smoother and less noisy than the Panasonic, but lacked detail in the blacks. I'm going to have to adjust the contrast a little on it to make up for this, but I'm sure it is just a matter of settings. It certainly punches well above its price range, as all the VDSLRs have done so far. If you can accept the limitations of using a DSLR for video work, the quality is more than adequate.

One other thing that I noted was the lack of a sync socket for older flashes. It's a good emergency feature to have, but nowadays with the number of radio trigger and optical trigger options which run off the hotshoe, I think it probably isn't far off time this old system died a death. If it is terribly important, there are also all sorts of adapters available for the hotshoe at relatively low cost.

Like many males with larger hands, I find all the modern dslrs with non-pro bodies a little fiddly and awkward, and the 60D is no exception. I therefore always add an external battery pack, so I purchased a Canon BG-E9 pack which has made a world of difference to the handling of the camera.

In comparison to the pack on the 40D there are a couple of changes. The most noticable is the way you load batteries. The end of the pack at the left hand side (away from the battery connector) has a little lock mechanism which you quarter turn and a drawer slides out which holds the two batteries. This can be replaced with an alternate holder which supports AA batteries. I personally find this a little more fiddly than the back opening to access both batteries because I can't hold the camera with one hand and change batteries with the other. That said, the battery life is another factor of the 60D - I've had the camera a couple of weeks now and only just done a second charge (of two batteries in the grip). That's around 500 images and 1.5 hours of video. I expect the battery performance will improve with a few charges, so I suspect battery life isn't going to be much of a concern!

The other minor detail with the battery pack is the ON/OFF switch for the vertical shutter button. The 40D drove me nuts whenever I went to shoot vertically and it didn't work, because I'd accidentally bumped the small circular ON/OFF switch positioned on the outside of the camera. It is now repositioned to a sliding switch in much the same position as the old battery compartment release switch which means it is almost impossible to knock accidentally. So that's an excellent improvement.

So overall, a bit more clacky on the shutter, and a little strange on the battery grip layout, but in every other way I'd say a vast improvement over the 40D and I assume the 50D given it wasn't a significant change from the 40D. I'm exceptionally pleased with my purchase, so I have no concerns about recommending the Canon 60D.

Safe Lighting

If you've read my blog over the years (that's the years I bother to write updates of course!), you'll know how much an advocate of creatively lighting images I am. But sometimes there are jobs which don't allow for this. Broadly speaking there are two types. Firstly, run and gun jobs where you have no setup, and this generally is a damage limitation routine involving on-camera flash, and any off-camera flash or reflectors you can get someone to hold for you. The second type are those where you have all the time in the world to set up, but when the flood gates open, you just have to keep your head above water till the job finishes. This is where safe lighting comes to the fore. You want a setup which is reliable, capable of keeping the pace with the job, and doesn't require you to change anything (or very much) during the shoot - in other words it's a safe setup that you could hand to your granny and she could take great shots. Well, almost!

So I thought for this post, I'd take you through a job I did recently and how I planned for it. The brief was that a makeup (fashion) show was taking place whereby student makeup artists were showing off their work. As part of the assessment, they required to have photos, and they wanted something more professional than quick digital camera snaps. The images were to clearly show hair and makeup, and have the models all wearing white in some form.

So my first questions were the timings of the show, and what time I would have available. The basis of it was the show came in two parts, and I'd have up to 55 makeup looks to photograph between the makeup being finished and the models having to go up on stage. The numbers weren't really stacking up, as even at less than a minute for each model, I'd still be most of an hour photographing that number. We managed to get it sorted out that I'd get more time by spreading out the models over more time, so that I didn't get so many all at once. As it happened, there were less than 55 looks for each of the two parts, so that made it easier.

So in planning my lighting setup, the first thought was to background. I opted for a medium grey, but used one honeycomb light to give it a nice pool of light in behind the model on longer shots, with a slight gradient showing in tight headshots. The grey meant that there was good contrast with the model, whatever hair colour they had, and also good contrast with the outfits. You don't want details being lost in a black background if the hair is being assessed!

Next off was the key light. I decided to go for a large softbox, but to give an even light, I opted to have it on-axis above the camera. I'd sometimes do this just on a normal light stand, and stand very slightly to the side of the light stand to photograph, but in this case I opted for a boom arm. The first advantage was not having to work round a light stand, but secondly that once balanced, the light can be moved up and down with just a light touch. This makes a huge difference to the speed of shooting when you're working with models ranging from 5'2-6'4 one after the other. You'd otherwise have to put the camera down, grip the strobe and undo the light stand, slide it up and then retighten it, before picking up the camera again, only to do it again when you realise you've moved it too much or too little.

On-axis lighting is generally very good for showing up detail, especially with a softbox, but in darker hair, it's important that you have some light to show up the detail, or else all you'll see is a falloff to black. I wanted a good soft even coverage, so a softbox (or octobox as it happened to be) was a reasonable choice. I aimed it across the line where the model would stand, so the model was effectively standing in the edge fall off from the softbox. However, flare was a potential issue, so I opted for the honeycomb style front mesh which prevented the light getting into the camera lens. It's great in this situation, although I'd never use it as a keylight, because the pattern of the mesh makes for some really ugly catch lights in the eyes.

Lastly, a reflector on the opposite side bounced some of the light back into the other side of the model's hair, giving an image with overall even lighting, but enough contrast to make it interesting, and certainly something nicer than just a digital camera shot.

To get the lighting right, I just did the old shoot and chimp routine. Firstly, I set the power on the background light, and fired off a test shot. A slight adjustment, and another test shot got that sorted.



I then did the old shoot the hand to get the light right routine, starting with the key light. I tend to leave my hands slightly darker, because I know you'll get models very pale with makeup sometimes who can end up overexposed. I then switched on the hair light softbox and did a quick test shot, adjusting so that you could hardly see the difference between the light on the front of my hand (key) and the light on the side of my hand (hair light). I then marked the floor with some gaffer tape as a note of the position where the light was right on any model. At the same time, I also taped down all the cabling. The last thing you want with dozens of folk wandering about is people tripping over cables!



I then felt that there was a little too much contrast across the background, so I opted for a wide beam spread honeycomb on the background light.



I can't show any of the photos from the shoot unfortunately, but hopefully it gives you an idea of the thought process behind creating safe lighting for this type of shoot.

One last thing - as much as I'm a fan of battery gear, this is definitely a job for mains powered strobes. You don't have to fear running short no matter how many images you take, you have the power to stop down well for very sharp images and you also have all the advantages of modelling lights, which let you visually see when the model has a nice catch light, and how the light is falling.

Here's a couple of setup shots which should make it easier to visualise everything mentioned above.

Edwardian Shoot

I did a shoot recently for the combined purpose of showing off makeup for a makeup artist and showing off an outfit for a costume hire company.

The above image was one of the outdoor shots. You'll note how the model stands out well from the background. There are three main reasons for this as far as lighting is concerned - contrast ratio, light quality/direction and colour temperature.

The first, contrast ratio, is actually held quite fine. It looks greater than it is because the background of steps is dark and grey, while the model is brightly dressed, but in reality, the exposure difference isn't that great. This gives a softness to the overall feel of the image.

The second, light quality and direction, is created simply by an average sized brolly to camera right (reasonably contrasty because it isn't too big, but softer than direct flash), held by a light stand and supported by a voice activated light stand to stop it falling down the stairs. Just slightly above the level of the model's face, such that you have fall off down the model, but it is a fairly even light to show off the outfit (important when that's a reason for the shoot!)

The third, colour temperature is created by a warm gel on the flash fired at the brolly. Only 1/4 CTO in this case, but the difference makes the model pop with a little warmth.

On their own these techniques can give a reasonable image, but bringing them together helps give that little extra bit of pop!

Victorian Photography

I had an interesting brief for a shoot a little while back. As part of a makeup course, a student was required to do a theme based around victorian times. The initial thought was sepia toned, semi-blurry images which looked really authentic, but I felt that wasn't going to show the makeup off particularly well, and as you may have guessed, I'm a bit of a colour junkie, so it wasn't happening.

So I suggested an alternative look with a 16:9 format of image to look like film or television drama, and an overall feel to the image to go with that. Well, the idea got the go ahead, and after a little discussion we came up with a good location for the shoot in the grounds of a victorian house.

I decided as a bit of a change to do something more in the way a victorian photographer would have worked. Luckily I didn't have a half tonne victorian camera so I had to be a bit limited in my victorian approach, but I wanted to try my best to be otherwise consistent. The main option available to victorian photographers was controlled available light. In fact, very little has changed in the way that reflectors are used nowadays. I gained a lot of insight from the image of a studio contained in this page (external link).

So having decided I was going to work only with reflectors, we then found a spot at a small gateway on the grounds of the house.



I placed two reflectors out on the grass in front of the gate reflecting the sunlight (which was coming from above/behind the gate) back towards the gate.

This first image is from behind the gate with roughly the view the model would have, albeit from in front of the gate.



This second image shows the reflectors more clearly.



This was the resulting shot. You can see the reflectors have balanced the light reasonably on the model's face and zoomed in it's possible to see she has nice catchlights too.



The downside of the shot is that she has very harsh sunlight on her very light hair and white dress. My first option was to move her a little further back towards the gate, so she was more in the shade of the trees. This worked to an extent, but there were still spots of light filtering through the trees and giving her very bright hotspots.

I decided the only option was to block the direct sunlight, so I moved the reflector which was further away and only lit her with the closest reflector. This meant a slightly more directional light source with more contrast across her face, but still with plenty of ambient fill from the rest of the sky. With the second reflector, I removed its cover meaning it became a translucent disc. I stuck it fully up on the stand to about 12 feet and got the makeup artist to support it at an angle so it could block the sunlight and stay out of the shot. Having people about saves a lot of hassle with boom arms and large amounts of ballast!

You can see in the following image that the light is now much more balanced, with soft light on her hair through the translucent disc above and behind her, and reflected light from the reflector out in front.



It was a bit of an interesting experiment to work purely with reflectors for a day, because I'm usually putting together large lighting setups. There are some limitations of the approach though.

The first is sunlight. Depending on where you live, it's not exactly something you can rely on. Reflectors act like a great light source on a bright sunny day, but are extremely subtle on a dull day. If you need great light no matter what the weather, reflectors aren't the solution.

The second is squinting models. You turn two of these reflectors (even just a white one) towards a model on a very hot sunny day and you get a reaction similar to a vampire trying to escape the burning light. Flash happens so quickly that models don't suffer too much for the art, so there's no squinting or running eyes.

One advantage on the other hand is that you never run out of power to compete with sunlight. The brighter the day gets, the brighter your reflectors become as a light source.

Another advantage (and conceivably disadvantage) is weight. You get a nice big light source without having a back breaking amount of kit. The downside is that being big and lightweight, they have a fantastic ability to go wind-powered wanders, so if there's much wind at all you'll need ballast or humans to hold them in place. That said, if you have a calm day and get a sudden gust, you're not having to worry about hundreds of pounds worth of lighting equipment falling over and being damaged.

Colouring the world

OK, I can tell you're all getting bored waiting for my reappearance! Woah, it's been a mad month and a half. So much happening!

Anyhow, I've spoken about using gels on your subject in order to control the colour balance of ambient light before (Summer's day shoot, on a dull late evening). The most common version of this sort of adjustment you'll see is a warm gel used on the subject and when you shoot tungsten balanced, you make the world very blue. It's an interesting look and understandably popular.

The post I did before was doing the opposite - using blue gels on the subject to make the background look warmer when it was already rather dark and blue looking.

The image up at the top is slightly different but exactly the same principle. Anyone who's played with the tint (green <-> purple) colour balance settings in an image editor or raw editor will know that you can get a funky green or purple look to your images if you drag the slider one way or the other.

But in lighting terms, if you fire a green gelled (plusgreen or fluorescent) flash at a subject, then white balance for the gelled flash, you'll find that daylight balanced light sources will go a purple colour. And vice versa...fire a purple gelled flash at the subject, white balance for it and you'll get a green ambient wherever daylight balanced light sources are present.

The image up at the top there was lit with three flashes. It's a while back so I can't remember settings or precise gels used, but there was a flash gun off to high camera left about a foot in front of the model with a shoot thru brolly. It had either a half or full minusgreen gel on it and the camera was white balanced for this gel. The second flash was at low camera right without any modifiers, and had either a quarter or half minusgreen gel (either a quarter or half less purple than the main light), so resulted in a more green tinge to the left of the model's face. Lastly there was a similarly gelled flash in behind the model which gave her a highlight round her hair and also showed up the falling rain. This of course made the rain stand out as whiter than the very green ambient lit background.

And I can confirm that no models or photographers were injured by damp flashguns in the process of making these images!

Winter Scene

I had an interesting theme for a shoot recently, which involved creating a winter scene for the shoot. I used a combination of fallen branches I collected from near my house, fake snow from a snow machine and fog from a fog machine to create the look.

I used two 550EX (equivalent to the Canon 580EX II) flashguns with CTB (cooling) gels from behind the setup in order to light the fog a cool blue. I had one on each side of the setup.

I then used three lights to light the model. I used two Bowens monolights with softboxes on either side (Esprit Gemini 750+/750+ Kit). The power of these lights means that I was able to back them well away, and give a good even spread of light across the image, with some nice light down the sides of the model. The softboxes meant that even though the lights were a few metres back, they still weren't giving overly harsh shadows. Softboxes also tend to make the light a touch more directional, so I was able to turn the softboxes towards the camera a touch, in order to reduce the white light hitting the fog, which would reduce the blue effect significantly.

Lastly I had a 550EX (equivalent to the Canon 580EX II) firing into an umbrellabox on a boom arm. This means I get a nice overhead (or just to the right) light filling the dark spot that would otherwise be left down the middle of the model when lit by the two softboxes. You can see what I mean in this image where the flash hadn't quite recharged, and only the monolights fired.



Here's a few views of the overall setup, so you can visualise what was happening.

Product Photo: Battery Striplights

I've had some serious lackings going on in the blogging front the last month and a bit! But hey, I'm back. Haven't had much in the way of product photography going on for a while, so I figured I'd put up this entry.

Well, you've seen the final shot above, so let's look at the thinking which got me there. Firstly, I wanted to show a few things about these products in one shot. The first is that they're battery (or mains) powered, so I wanted them lit with no wires going to them. The second thing I wanted to show is the different ways they can be positioned (either flat or propped up with a fold out stand). They're actually surprisingly stable despite how they look. The battery has been positioned at the bottom so they have a better centre of gravity than you'd expect. That said, if you bump them, they'll probably knock over, and more than likely damage themselves, so I'd say they're probably better laid flat!

So first things first, I had to show them lit. So I fired them both up with both tubes lit (you can light one or the other independently or both). I then set an aperture with a reasonable exposure (f/8), a reasonable shutter speed of 1/200s and settled on ISO 400 for a good combination of noise and sensitivity. This gave me the following shot.



However, the light coming from the tubes themselves isn't really doing very much for the product, so I added in a silver reflector lit by a flash for a nice soft fill evenly across the products.





To give the image a little extra pop I thought I'd put some light on the background. My first thought was a plain flash snooted, with the generally vague idea that it might look a bit like the lights were lighting the background themselves.





I then tried a different angle, with a wide angle lens to try and give a bit more impact to the shot. It also showed in more detail the method by which the stand works, which was quite good.



However, there was no getting away from it...the image was looking pretty dull, and I'm not known for dull images - I love really saturated vivid images. So I headed to the box the lights came in, and looked at colours. The logo of the company was blue, but was very small. The box was predominately black (goes with my background), with a large red stripe down the side and a big yellow star behind the product. So back to the setup, and two snooted and gelled flashes later, I had the final image.