Class Introduction
Lindsay Adler, Erik Valind
Lessons
Class Introduction
32:47 2Crappy Lighting Conditions: Direct Sunlight
27:47 3Crappy Lighting Conditions: Fluorescent and Mixed
21:00 4Crappy Lighting Conditions: Low Light
29:21 5Crappy Lighting: Dappled, Backlit, and Overcast
12:32 6Setting Your Camera Up for Crappy Light
27:43 7Shoot: Fixing Fluorescent Lighting
06:16Focusing and Shooting Modes
18:35 9Shoot: Mixing Daylight and Tungsten
23:16 10Getting Started with Flash
43:30 11Shoot: Low Light without Flash
19:43 12Shoot: Low Light with Flash
16:49 13Recap and Q&A
16:37 14Crappy Lighting Condition: Backlight
33:16 15Crappy Lighting Condition: Low Light Outdoors
24:10 16Shoot: Direct Sunlight
37:20 17Shoot: Direct Sunlight with Shade
05:47 18Shoot: Direct Sunlight with Flash and High Speed Sync
25:35 19Shoot: Dappled Light with and without Flash
28:57 20Shoot: Open and Covered Shade
11:29 21Shoot: Overcast without Flash
23:50 22Shoot: Overcast with Flash
30:04 23Recap of Shoot
1:40:16 24Scenario Kit: Event
27:44 25Scenario Kit: Wedding
20:56 26The Next Step Slideshow
24:52 27File Managment and DNGs
12:02 28Creating Color Profiles
27:56 29Noise Reduction in Lightroom
12:59 30Using a Color Checker
23:32 31Post Production: Basic Adjustments
25:19 32Post Production: Smart Objects and Color Processing
25:29Lesson Info
Class Introduction
My name's lindsay adler and we're going to do ah little bit of overview about who we are and what we d'oh it's cool and I'm eric balance so I do lifestyle portrait photography commercial shooter um and I met basically the mercy of my client's most the time so you run into this uh crappy light all over the place so and lindsay kind of talk to me about this book and she's like let's torture ourselves and spend a couple months finding the worst light possible then go teach it live I was italian let's do it let me let me give you uh a little bit of an overview of this so when I started my career probably like well right now on the fashion photographer case name I didn't know so it's pretty awesome because I can control everything which is perfect because we photographers are massive control freaks right? Okay, so it completely completely fits my personality and the type of things I'd like to shoot so I get the photograph beautiful models, beautiful hair and makeup, amazing body types and b...
eautiful locations and so honestly sometimes my job seems a little bit too easy because it's all done for me I just show up ok? Okay, clearly I gotta planet and set things up but this is not where I started my career I started my career as a portrait wedding photographer in upstate new york and so I have many many stories about the miserable lighting situations that we ran into and so when I choose to educate the things that I try to teach about are the things like the book so the classes that I wish existed when I was first learning and I see a lot of presentations and a lot of teachers teaching shooting at magic hour and shooting and beautiful light an amazing modification all of this stuff but that is so impractical most of the time and I'm sure you guys have walked into situations like the reception hall where there is mood lighting a k it's pitch black with little candles and you've got to focus you have to get correct exposure and they paid for this expensive venue so you've gotta expose that you see some of that venue in office and it's just overwhelming so what I decided to do it was to put together a presentation in a book trying to give myself the guide that I wish that existed before and so when I was preparing this right now my specialty my my desire is I love shooting natural light on location uh and so what I wanted to draw attention to before we get started with the presentation both of these pictures right here okay there are two of my uh no most well known fashion images they were not shot with a reflector or diffuser or a flash or anything whatsoever zero it's, just the subject there because the most important part is learning to see the light. And so on an overcast day when you lay subject on their back it's just a big soft box when they're looking up at it or in this situation, the light, when she looked right at me on an overcast day was awful. She had deep shadows in her eyes and it was lacking contrast. So I had her turn her at head up towards the sky. And now she's catching the light. So just so you know, everything that we're going to be covering does not take expensive gear. It does not take a lot of intense technique. It's pretty simple. It's just making sure that you have all those tricks in your bag. You want talk about how we tried to keep the gear simple. Yeah, we literally went out and bought the most basic kit lens possible from best buy. I mean, I went and picked up a d thirty two hundred with eighteen to fifty five kit lens on it went and got a reflector. Simple umbrella light stand. So we basically tried to tie our hands. I mean, it's, a very massive fistic we decided worst lighting scenarios, simplest gear. Easiest approach on dh it was a blast, so but it was a little it was it was difficult if we labored through it a little bit, but we wanted to share how we overcame it multiple options without just saying, go buy this gear or wait till later in the afternoon when the light's better because we don't always have access to the top and gear. I mean, did you when you started out? No, my dear, yeah, there are a lot of d I y stuff at the beginning of both their careers, I think, and I was shooting in florida action sports and stuff like that. So it was basically every single day was, you know, beautiful vacation, the sunny weather except it's high noon light doesn't look very good, so I had to figure out very quickly had overcome crappy light like that. Um, so, yeah, we didn't have the best tools that are exposed, so we wanted to go ahead and put it out in the book and kind of teacher technique more than equipment, and I just want to make sure everyone out there in the audience knows this as well. Is that, um I asked my facebook page, okay, everybody, what would you like to know in this crappy like class you know what the big questions you've had and one of the most common responses is how to conquer it without spending a lot of money so we wanted to make sure that you all knew that because it's easy to say well, yeah if you had that camera that flasher it's easy to say that but there's no more excuses when it's done with really inexpensive things that everybody can have so let's jump into the presentation and I'll give you a little more to introduce yourself about what you do okay, cool. So like I said, I was born and raised in florida that's where I kind of started shooting and inspired the rest of my career so I was very active outdoor lifestyle kind of stuff is now my bread and butter it's what I focus on um so that's down in captiva santa bell just kind of like resort style images this is up here and uh that's kind of one strobe and the one on the right you're seeing there is just a reflector like a tiny reflector I've got someone laying down underneath the hedge so again very, very simple gear there we go this shot is on the jersey coast and this again is entirely natural light it was an overcast day the sun was just kind of sitting over in the distance so if I had her look up at me over to the other side, like lindsay was saying with this photograph the lighting was was crappy. So you just have to kind of be aware of the direction of your light face or into it and then wait for a wave and pray she doesn't get carried away on then you get a cool shot way actually did have we had a little waterslide plume kind of experience there? No one was hurt, but I mean, we got we got a fun scare out of it. Which you anything for the shot, right? All right, so I go over to the next one here. Um this again is all natural life, just one reflector light in her face, so it just kind of giving a little direction to the lights, so not a whole ton of equipment, but just kind of again, I wanted to be able to see the environment but yet focused on our subject, so we redirected a little light into her face. It's really simple, easy approach. So I mean, I have access on larger budgets and bigger clients tohave assistance and have hundreds of pounds of gear but that's not a daily how I want to shoot or how I like to shoot or how I grew up shooting s o this is really just a friend holding a reflector because there was no budget for the shoot whatsoever and then one small reflector and a cameron some lenses on my back we literally rode our bikes to the park this day because it was a beautiful day to get this photograph so it's really you could really accessible to take great photos how these right here again one simple reflector on the left and absolutely zero modifiers or lights or anything on the right so thes again I just wanted to show you how my style really is kind of based more around like the fun and the action in the moment but doesn't require a lot of gear to get all the time. Um so I think that's what we've got for me there's one more so this okay uh, fun story fourteen thousand feet up so that's a breckenridge, colorado breckenridge sits about nine or ten thousand feet above sea level. This was a good hike up from there and because of the snow the past was closed so we drove up and then we had to hike all the rest of the way up. So how much beer do you think I'm going to take along? Not the big c stands and all the strobes and that kind of stuff? So this was some speed lights, a light standing a reflector on my backpack with some snow shoes so again, who really don't need all of the equipment if you know what you're doing finding great locations, redirecting light a lot of the techniques we're gonna cover now so I'll pass it over here so the reason that I insisted on having this intro is because I don't get to show pretty pictures and this whole presentation it's literally like let's take ugly locations and an ugly light so I wanted to let everyone know the type of work that I do now mostly okay um and of course that fits my personality I love the studio because I have complete control, but that doesn't mean that I'm on lee shooting in the studio and so I'll do things like perfume ads or fashion editorials for magazine publishing many magazines internationally um but I definitely shoot natural light this is nash relate in the studio and then when I'm on location most of the time I don't bring strobes on location I don't bring off camera flashes I just who's reflector diffuser so actually how we've set it up in the way that we'd like you to learn from this situation is most everything that I'll be teaching is naturally modifying natural light diffusers reflectors seeing the light things like that were more simple flash flash that I usually use is tt l and with flash compensation I keep it really simple where's eric knows everything technical about flash and everything and that's how I mean he does everything manu and he's got it under control so I'm going to do kind of the natural light and how I keep it simple and any technical things of flash she's the master of it so this is what we decided team up we have two totally different perspective by the way canon nikon this is totally good cop bad cop like good versus evil kind of pairing that we've got going on here so if they're ribbing and stuff goes on it's all good natured but yes, yes I will and I have appetite priority with exposure compensation full manual mode all the time every day uh what about other things? I mean there's just the light reflecting lens is prime lenses literally we couldn't be more polar opposite in our approaches and that's kind of why we decided to work together on this project in this class is because we don't want to just show one perspective in our way is the right way we're kind of giving you very looks at it so two different approaches to stylistic different approaches I mean the whole the whole nine and so just again naturally like this is the type of work I do so I just wanted you guys to get an idea of the type of things I do on location none of these images are taken with flash it's all either reflector or a diffuser or nothing at all so with that I wanted to kind of jump into the presentation how we thought we would start off is to give you an overview more or less of the next three days before we do it so you can get an idea of the type of things you don't know where need to know getting overarching view um and then we're going to break everything down so instead of going into really intense detail on every solution, we're going to give you an ideas of the type of gear you might like but we're going to go over flash and detail later cameras settings in detail later and then all the bad lighting setups so so this right here is basically like hang on to something because this is gonna be the entire three days of the entire collier the book and we're just gonna kind of like blast you with it so if your face is melting don't feel bad like make sure you tune it after this because we're gonna explain everything in detail over the next couple days and then if you want to tune in this well this is gonna be all right so how I like to begin is actually you don't have to watch any of this presentation you can turn off and leave if you do this one thing which is a it's it's definitely really, really important in both eric and I really I want to urge people so I wantto going to give you a little story about how I first started off so I was a portrait photographer and upstate new york and I did weddings and family portrait and senior portrait photography and um I got a phone call one day and it was somebody who had seen an ad that I posted a local newspaper and she's like you know hello is this about the photography this is like my first non friend client so unlike this's it was so excited and so this is this is how the conversation when she goes on oh great well uh I'm interested in a family portrait would you be available this saturday as a matter of fact I have time available you know of course had every day available and she's like okay great my family is available from twelve to one on saturday I'm like okay great I'm available then as well and she's like you know there's this park in town ah hickory's park and it's we would really like to shoot there okay, let me tell you about henry's park hickory's park um is kind of ugly we're like really ugly lots of big open areas without trees of no pretty foliage no nice park benches I mean it's just it's not something it's no it's such open fields okay some like all right uh I can't think in high noon um in a park okay great I'm like ok yeah yes I know hickory's park I'd be I'd be happy to meet you there and she was well actually our family's really excited we have planned to prepare for this shoot and we've actually bought matching outfits and I'm like oh that's that's great uh what did you buy? She does well we all got black jeans and white shirts okay? And so I said great outsider hickory's park at the entrance at noon on saturday and I just gave myself the worst lighting situation I could I mean high contrast clothing and bad lighting and and no location to work with and so no wonder my portfolio didn't grow for so long because I just did whatever the client said so what you want to do is first and foremost as much as possible to avoid bad light but what it comes down to is this you are the expert if they didn't think you're the expert they would set the camera up and put on timer and there was user iphone I mean they're coming to for a reason yeah so um what I want you to do is remember you are the boss and they're coming to you for a reason and they want good photos they're not photographers they don't know what it takes to get good photos so you tell them I mean you have any good examples of how you've kind of directed a client yeah, absolutely I mean, if they look at your work I mean, both of us have very stylistic work and they're like okay, well I like the sun flare like the energy I like the warmth of all your photos what you say okay let's not take this at high noon when there's no sun behind your subject and the light is very cool so you basically say they're coming to you for a reason we're the experts professionals we have a style they look at me like, well, if you want this kind of image, you ready to wake up super early in the morning to get that sun coming up? Or do you have some time in the evening where we can schedule we can get that sunset, the light a warm up for us you guide them basically s a rather than just telling them in order to them around you kind of soft suggestions are like kind of like a soft sell you like this is what you're looking for. These are the conditions that will allow that to happen. What do you think about that? I suggest this is when we do it and then what are they going to say? Oh no, we're not hiring you for your kind of photography so let's do it when I want to like no so then you allow them to guide themselves into that so we are the experts they want what we offer and what we show which kind of brings up a really good point and this is unrelated exactly to this lighting but having confidence is probably one of the most important things for starting office of attire front I mean like cockiness like that but I mean being confident saying actually you know the best time for us to get a photo for you the one that really flatter you versus you being like, okay that's when you're available all right, you know that you'll get a lot better better results by the way a little trick my favorite thing when I would hear people say something like white shirt and black jeans if you like you know actually, um I've found that when people wear white shirts and black jeans it tends to make them look heavier and I promise you they will not wear the white shirts and black jeans they'll be like, oh my gosh, what do you recommend? And then it makes your job significantly easier. And so what I actually did for my portrait business as I wrote up a guide and I had a guide to people about the best times of days and what to wear and it's really simple and if you do research online there, other photographers that have done similar you know copy verbatim, but you can use as a guide, especially you're starting off. You don't quite know what would make a good photo. You can use that, um as a good guide. So this is going to save you so much effort. Um, something interesting I think is well that you d'oh. Um, what is thie apse that you use where the apse that you use for? Yeah, but some don't know we can pull them up. But there's a couple different types that I use one is called I brought my phone on me once called like light seeker there, sun seeker. Basically, if you go into the app store android store there's a couple different applications that allow you to put in the day and the time of day that you'd like to shoot, you can use the gps just like you wanted your maps or navigation. And it'll tell you exactly where the sun is gonna rise out where it's going to set up some of the nicer ones will even tell you how high the sun will be in the sky and you can actually have the camera on. I've seen connection of the camera on, and when you hold it up it seizure scene and when you put a time and it tells you this is where the sun will be so, it's, great if you get the opportunity, location scout or your shooting in your neighborhood or a lot of the times I just came from a job in l a, and I'm based in new york, so I was able to scout out three days of shoots, three different locations, find out exactly where the sun was going to be and put a timetable down for the schedule for each day. So we walked on setting. The client was like, it's, like, how the heck did you control the sun it's? Just having that knowledge and preparation beforehand and again, you were not order takers, guys were directors, photographers are directors of a still photograph, so I mean where they're coming to us for a reason, so let's definitely direct them towards the best possible photograph for us and for them and one of the questions that I had on facebook for somebody's, what do you do? Um, in a ceremony when there's dappled light meaning they decided to be underneath the tree and there's late on just the bride and not the groom or something like that? Well, using that app so ahead of time, you can tell them, don't put the altar there for that time a day in that time of year. They don't know that, so if you educate them it makes your job a lot easier plus if you were able to scout that out earlier, you'll know the problem to be able to deal with it honestly during a ceremony if the bride is in full sun and the grooms and shave you're in trouble like that and that's that's what I want you to know as well as there's a lot of things that I'm going to we're going to try to guide you through all the bad lighting situations there's something's where you really just needed to prevent as much as possible but we're going to try to guide you through all the different options you have so eric already touched on this when I was first building my portfolio I had a lot of pictures that were pretty much this the same shot um a girl underneath the tree in the shade because all my clients were trying to shoot at high noon on a saturday and so they all look the same but then when I started to dio is do fake shoots and this is something I absolutely and I know you absolutely on the same thing doesn't have to be a real client go out on location and shoot the type of work you'd like to be hired for because then exactly what he said when they see a photo and the bride says, oh my gosh I love that photo I have to have it you say great let me let me tell you what I need from you so for example this picture if their ceremony was at one o'clock they finish at two and I have from to teo three o'clock to take the bridal portrait this will not happen you have to explain to them what you needed maybe it's shooting another day but this is not very late in the day and I told you I'm on the natural light shooter most of the time um and so what it is is it's a reflector off to the left catching the warm evening sunlight popping it back in her face we'll talk about this a little bit more um for reflectors but if I had held the reflector beneath I would have let her chin in her chest instead I had my assistant which we'll talk about this in a second assistant just hold the reflector is high above her head is humanly possible to try to kick the life back into tall a system so let's talk about assistance people all the time say we have assistants to hold this sam assistance to hold that no these air like a lot of time especially for my business it was her sister her boyfriend her mom um now obviously is a fashion photographer I do but for the majority of my career whoever was willing to lend a hand would lend a hand so that don't you can't use that as an excuse that doesn't work. There's always somebody willing to help you out? Yeah, I mean, I grew up shooting action sports, so I mean, most sports are group group events, so if you're out there surfing or skim boarding or you're running or something like that, chances are you've got a bunch of like minded people, so if you're gonna go out there and like I had a shooting, still shoot things for my portfolio just for fun or mock client just to create it cool image that I want to get paid for later on, I have one of the runner buddies do it or, you know, I have one of the other skin borders or you have your brother, your sister, your mom, your aunt, your uncle, anyone who loves you and wants to see you succeed and their family and their subjects. Family, family, yeah, we talked about this on we were just discussing this yesterday, when you go to a wedding, you've got people in the bridal party and you've got really close friends and stuff who are probably ushers in that kind of thing who aren't going to be in the photos but are always around the bride and groom, so they put them to use these guys are thinking, man, I got to have help on sally down the aisle or whatever now I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs like okay doing here hold this reflector for me and chances are he'll be tall enough to get it overhead you get that directional light perfect. All right? Okay, so now I've said okay, you know, tried to prevent it and educate your clients and guess what I know that's not always the case I mean, like when they say, oh, grandma and grandpa's fiftieth wedding anniversary party is in the firehouse underneath the fluorescent lights in the cafeteria this shot that dream assignment I shot this actually for family had done their senior portrait and the fiftieth wedding anniversary it was eight foot ceilings, green fluorescent lights like green and the sushi looking yes flicker where I would actually like see the flickers in my photo that fat and guess what I couldn't be like sorry guys, you're not allowed to have your fiftieth wedding anniversary there, so I'm gonna go. We're gonna jump in right now that when you can't prevent it, you have to treat it so this will be an overview of the next three days in general so you could get an idea and figure out what you need to know that gaps that you need to fill in everything will dive into even deeper um so where I would like to start is how was talking about with these two pictures learning to see the light is the most important thing because if you can't see what's bad, you don't know how to fix it and a lot of times it's a simple is moving your subject shal for example at the second half apart to uh I'm gonna be photographing in here which when you put these lights on its hideous fluorescent light okay, actually, depending on where it's placed my subject in this room, the light looks better or worse because of the direction that makes a difference or when you're in mix light you khun, move the person close to the window and turn off the light you gotta see the good and bad light so for example on this is a picture of used several times photograph did not balboa park in san diego high noon extremely hot day and I'm not using a reflector or a diffuser or a flash or anything whatsoever this is zero it's nothing but I can re create recreate this all the time because it is a gigantic reflector I just didn't bring it with me um and so I know erik and I both look for this it's a natural reflector so what if some of things you've uses natural electors before, okay so for a tighter shot, if you've got an assistant or someone standing there with a white shirt, believe it or not, that works, okay? And at the same time you confined, ah, different trucks, if you're on the side of the street, if you're doing some street photography or you're in a big city, you find a white truck that is a giant movable. I mean, you're not going to go ask the guy to move down the street five yards or whatever for you, but you're a girl, you said, yeah, she's got a little yeah, she's got some persuasion going on, but you just you move your subject over that way and then on the sand, the sand is one of the most beautiful bottom fills you could ever imagine and the nicer, the beach, the white of the sand, the better the phil. So, I mean, you really look out on the location like that because you know, you've got a natural phil and you're still hanging out on the beach, taking pictures. The life is good, but there's all kinds of them. So long story short ones I look for most are large white walls, large white wall hit by the sun if I can put my subject opposite that in the shade. Say it's a fifty foot white wall it's a fifty foot white reflector so this helped me solve one of the biggest problems I ran into the bridal party wants a picture after the wedding outside of the church at high noon if it's a white church and there's a side of the church being hit by the sun I would put them on the other opposite the side of the church it by the sun and now the entire building is a reflector and it was beautiful light and I use that all the time you're basically just putting her back on the wall okay exactly back on the mall shooting out of them and it's just fill and if the sun's behind them it's nice hair light and so it's really great um so these are the things that I'm looking for it's just seeing the light as much as possible so that's like that's just stepping her back a couple feet no reflect there's no diffuse there's no nothing and this is how I prefer to shoot in actual this is how you shoot fashion photography now uh of course like in a bar and shooting something there okay? You know there's exceptions uh so let's jump into this is what we're going to cover who over the next three days all of these bad lighting situations which one's your least favorite fluorescent hands down you have the manufacturers of fluorescent lights hate photographer hey don like as they age they get worse they're always different colors they flicker sometimes there daylight balance sometimes they're super green sometimes they're like about to throw up green like the rest in light is awful stephanie my favorite my uh my least favorite is low light with no flash for example the church when everybody else can use a flash except for the professional photographer hired to do the job I had that endless time although my little secret is if if you're out of town we can't consider your out of town you know you're not going back to that church is we don't recommend burning bridges but if you need to make your client happy and I'm just saying you don't offend anyone but we're gonna talk about we're actually right now we're in a church um and we're in the church cafeteria basement area for the fluorescent light but we will be photographing in a sanctuary over the next couple days and this is paige black so we'll be talking about how to conquer that as well. So this is what we're going to cover so let's start off with gear and we're gonna talk about the differences between eric and I and so for the questions out there um if you've got kind of more nikon related questions that would be for him if you have more cannon related questions that would be from me olympus or sony you're screwed yeah but what I was going to say is that um we actually discovered when writing this book how many differences there actually are that we didn't realize for settings and capabilities and what things are called so we'll make sure that we address for both audience because if I say um I mean if I talk about backward and focus on where it is on mine is different than yours so we'll be addressing that to bring them back around that really quick the image sensors the esso performance all of the things you might be mind dealing about are stressing about there they're comparable I mean there's functions in names and things that are different the cameras but as faras oh my goodness I like eric's picture I love lindsay's photography now I need a cannon and I'm going to sell all my nikon gear and lose my shirt you don't need to do that the sensors are are comparable both equipment is able to do amazing work and if you look both of our portfolios it's embarrassing the cameras that took the photos that are probably still in both of our plot I know I had some I had some dogs of old use secondhand cameras and some images are still floating around in my portfolio so it's it's the photographer the light to take me you know not the gear so to get into my gear just real quick this is my kid for a crappy lighting um and okay, I just have to address this so uh so the reason I did that sometimes you walk into a lighting situation where you go you're like this all these awful and you have to make magic out of it s o this is my crappy light um, kit over here so I shoot a cannon five d mark three um I I'm not somebody that likes to say you need to buy more expensive gear to do a good job that's not the case the one kind of serious exception is I noticed that the images that I could get in focus in low light um from a five d to five d three was amazing like double or triple amount of the images I could get actually and focus from a five d you know, the first version to a five to three um from the second the third is a pretty big jump as well. So that's that's why I'm going to my few exceptions, we're all saying the additional focusing points the lowlife like all of that made a difference everything else don't worry about it. So if you are looking saying okay, I don't know what kind of gear like do I need a better camera most the time you don't need a better camera give you skills you need right? You don't need higher megapixels we'll have plenty of megapixels it all depends on the type of photography that you shoot and I know you get great images out of any of your cameras so it's it's about what makes it easier for you so mike, it is a five to three have a stigma thirty five millimeter, one point four eighty five millimeter one point four fifty one point four what do you see in common wide apertures? Um, I definitely I start off with kit lenses, so everything I had was like three, five, two, two, five, six um it just made my job more difficult. Generally, the lenses like that don't focus is quickly, so if you're trying to focus in low light because they don't have the wider aperture to actually let light into focus, then by the time that the bride has moved closer to down the aisle, it didn't have enough time to focus and it's a mixture of lens and camp obviously, but those were kind of my location kit and then for any of you wedding or event photographer's twenty four to seventy and seventy two hundred would be my recommendation if you were trying to figure out listen, I have no lenses, I need to figure out where to put my money because it gives you the most versatility because I'll have the twenty four to seventy and seven to hundreds of from twenty four, two hundred at two point eight and so when I was first starting off weddings I had my one camera I borrowed one from my friend so I had a twenty four to seventy on one arm and seventy two hundred the other arm so I could always just papa but and so usually we just traded like I just just do one day it was it was not cute and I definitely like back then we were like the double holster and really fashion photographer so I'm like oh, dear um so good walking with those yeah um so just just to start off with I mean, we both of us now have nice lenses definitely hustled forum but rent I mean there's no lenses are one of those things that you're gonna have with you for a long, long, long long time like some of the lens and stuff I have in my kit have gone four or five different camera bodies with may so that's your big investment, the camera bodies go in and out every eight months to a year or something that your lenses are very important bunch of great online rental houses in the city's check out your rental houses but rental ends before you buy it because it's a big chunk of change you know, the guy refused to go yeah let's protego borrow lends a drama in the city calumet's on most major cities, so just do a quick google search for it, but let's protocol on bar lenses will hook you up and ship it to you in a pelican case with a lollipop like literally oh yeah if you have a job and you're like, oh my goodness, I'm shooting my first wedding, but all they have is my fifty millimeter like it lands don't rack up a credit card buying new lenses for one wedding that might be paying you two hundred dollars like way to go um rented definitely check it out and then you'll know kind of what you need versus what you want and at the same time uh twenty four to seventy is wonderful because a lot of people have crops sensors and it'll be a little bit longer on the crops center like a seventy or a d three hundred s something like that but it's great because then when you step up to a full frame down the road, if that's your path it's gonna be a wonderful midrange zoom for you that was the first very nice lens that I saved up and bought and it's been with me for multiple camera bodies um but what you look at basically there's most of my photography has been on that twenty four to seventy in that seventy, two hundred because it gives me a decent wide a normal focal length. I could do events I could do some portrait's under the seventy two hundred is a wonderful portrait lens. Uh, they call it the effect of those are two of the three pro lenses to get and it's incredible and a lot of my work is lit, so I don't have to worry about bough light fast focusing stuff so I can use my to my zooms, get multiple compositions and even be lazy if I want to put my butt on the ground and type shot wide shot, whatever I want to do and on the other hand, for me, a lot of times because I'll be doing like edgy fashion. I'll have her like in the corner of this room in the mansion where there's like zero light and I'll open up like a window that's like fifty feet away and I try to shoot it cause it looks at deer with the light. Okay, so that's, why I'm saying, like, we definitely have kind of different styles. So the others there's a picture actually in the book, in the low light section that I was shooting, I think it was ah! Twenty four to seventy at twenty four two point and at sixty four hundred eyes so there was that dark but it's edgy it's fashion so that is his good grand and we'll talk about a rambler meant to do that exactly fashion that's what they do in fashion you know, so so I have a couple of crimes in their primes are wonderful for that shallow depth of field then they also make you think a little bit more than make you move your feet fifty millimeter fast lenses are super affordable but again like she said, you notice that you have very fast glass there the one point for the to eight allows you to focus well in low light, shallow depth of field to creatively isolate your subject um and then gather a lot of light too and when it's super low light so it's it's great if you want to save up for those lenses or just rent them. And so that being said, we're not teaching anything that requires you to have these lenses or have one point for is one point to you know don't get me wrong for the curious goods, but it makes your job easier for real so there's some things we'll be like, okay, this makes your job easier, but you don't have to have it but it will be there so that it happens
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Victor van Dijk
Besides all the more or less 'technical, theoretical stuff', the greatest thing I'm taking away with this outstanding course is the plain joy and FUN of trying all sorts of (crappy) lighting solutions!! Speaking for myself, and I suppose also many others, as an 'advanced beginner', I strongly tend to end up to my eyeballs in all technical nitty-gritty, gear 'n' stuff, that I totally mis out on all the sheer FUN of trying out, and often 'muddling through' all kinds of lighting setups! Such a joy to see the fun exchange between Lindsay and Erik! Really catchy. There should be more classes and courses like this, redirecting students to what it's actually all about: sheer creativity and fun! Having said that, Lindsay and Erik demonstrate that there is hardly any crappy light situation that can't be overcome by creative thinking. And more often than not, it doesn't have to be high-tech or difficult! They really showed an exhaustive list of crappy light situations AND their solutions. And I highly commend Lindsay and Erik for their fun energy, and even more important, pragmatism and frankness. I recommend this course to ANY photographer AND videographer, no matter 'beginner' or 'highly advanced'! Lighting is the basis of it all, and most of the time, it isn't perfect...! I highly re
Julie Addison
I thought I understood about light before I took this course. How wrong could I be? I have re-watched this course over and over and I just love it. Quality of light, direction of light - so many crappy light situations. Learning how to actually set a white balance instead of purely relying on the camera presets and learning colour correction by the color checker was also invaluable to me. This course is so affordable. I would recommend it to anyone from beginner to advanced as you will get more out of it than you think. I love the way Lindsay and Erik work together. No right or wrong way - just showing the differences in their styles to accomplish the same end result. Well done guys. Now to have more courses by Erik would be great. Again, can't' thank creative live enough and Erik and Lindsay for this course. Love, Love, Love It!!!!
a Creativelive Student
I hope I can tune in tomorrow. Erik and Lindsay, you guys were awesome today. Some of the things I needed some refreshing on but you definitely had a way of educating. I thought the demos were great and really validating. Light is a difficult thing to keep on your good side, especially with me, someone who primarily uses ambient and available lighting scenarios. This course is great and I'm planning to tune in tomorrow because I really want to see what you have in store for outside. Best of luck guys!! -Sim
Student Work
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Lighting