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Is There a Best Time to Shoot with Natural Light?

Lesson 15 from: SLR Lounge Live Q and A and Image Critique

Pye Jirsa

Is There a Best Time to Shoot with Natural Light?

Lesson 15 from: SLR Lounge Live Q and A and Image Critique

Pye Jirsa

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Lesson Info

15. Is There a Best Time to Shoot with Natural Light?

Lesson Info

Is There a Best Time to Shoot with Natural Light?

going back to some natural eight you up. Piat said, What is the best time to shoot with natural light isn't the only golden hour. Can you talk a little bit about Sort of what happens as it goes through the day with Yeah. So, naturally, I love shooting at relate at all times of the day. There's generally a time of day that is gonna be not so easy to work with. Andi all know that time of day is around noon, right? Just grab this guy. So let me have you guys go and get this app. Wish I would have designed this app. Sold so many of them. Do you know they raised the price of it since we started promoting it. All right, Sunseeker isn't happening on your phone. I think there's different versions for android and whatnot. But what it allows you to do is you can bring up in five. I have no idea where my phone is. Sorry, but you can bring it up and actually see where the sun is tracking in the sky. So it gives you a real time view of where the sun is going. Now we know that the sun does this in g...

eneral, in the sky unless you live somewhere like Alaska. Okay, this is typically right around 12 p.m. And that's that's the most difficult time of data shoot. And I'm not saying that I don't shoot in that time of day. We do a ton of stuff in that time of day, but this is like on the side of when you need to manipulate the light the most. This is most This is least this is least I like doing these kind of things to kind of give myself rules of thumb, right. So I know that if I'm shooting anywhere in this range where the sunlight is coming down on my subjects I know I need a lot of light manipulation. I need a lot of power because the sun is gonna be so strong. This is when I know I'm probably gonna be using like my pro photos. My might be one of my be, too, because they have a lot of juice. They can overpower the sun with a soft box attached. Okay. But I know that if I'm shooting here in this window or in this window, I can choose whether or not I really want to add light or not. I mean, I can manipulate and just move my subjects to get what I need. A lot of times a reflector can bounce exactly where I needed to go, and it's totally sufficient. You can go out with just a Reflektor and just your lenses and not even do any like flash modification in that time. Now we still will, because it'll still help to bring out colors and Alistair to the kind of things. But that's where we'd say it's the least needed now. Why don't reflectors work well during this time of day? Reflectors are terrible at this time of day. You know why That's one of the reasons that make you squint. The other reason is it's really difficult to catch and throw the light where you need it, right, because if the sun is directly above you and you're trying to bounce it somewhere, if the sun is right over there in the sky, easy. You just put this up right here, and I can shape it and send it right where I want. But the sun's up there like what do you your light fill. It just doesn't work right. You can't push it where you need to go. So what ends up happening is like if you if you watch a Hollywood set, what do they do at noontime? Have you guys seen like a Hollywood set? They'll put up a big tent with a giant scream that goes over the top of it. Okay? And they film underneath that. They'll shoot underneath that where it's, they'll create their own soft light, basically toe to shoot with. Sunseeker will tell you, Ah, a lot of times like when we talk about this through the course is when we're going out and shooting, like with a wedding. We do a little pre prep. So in the morning I go to the venue in on their usual like an hour early, and I will just watch where the sun is gonna track from Sunseeker. And I'll see Okay, it's going this way. This way, this way. What's beautiful about it is we we always say, like, let's say that this is 7 p.m. Seven PM is sunset right? And we go, Oh, cool. Have till seven PM We're going to plan our our sunset shoot right at seven, and this is gonna be awesome. And then you get to 7 p.m. And you walk outside and it's dark because you forgot toe realize that you should have adjusted because there's a gigantic mountain where the sun drops behind. It could be a mountain. It could be a building. It could be anything. And I know what happened. You guys where you're like crap. I lost my son a lot earlier in the day. So what Sunseeker will allow you to do is you'll see you'll see where that line is going in because you're looking at it on your camera. You'll go, Hey, the sun drops behind this point at 5 45 That's what we need to be out there to shoot if we need. If you need sun kissed images, we need to be other before that time to shoot pool. So it's helpful. And on this side, if you're waking up at four AM toe shoot the sunrise you have, they need a new job or you're a landscape photographer. One of the other haven't have. I had one client my entire life that was willing to do that. I wanted to do that

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Pye is an awesome instructor! He explains everything in a way that you understand it. He is a wealth of information. Love all of his classes!! I love Creativelive and SLR Lounge! Continue doing the great work that you do!!

fbuser a48cf323
 

Pye is an amazing teacher! I've learned so much from him over the years - both in person and through his tutorials. What's even more amazing is that he is able to do it LIVE! He is able to clearly explain complicated concepts through easy to understand lessons. I highly recommend his courses to learn everything from the basics to advanced topics!

user-592217
 

Wow! Pye is an awesome instructor! I've learned SO many things - nuggets of gold!

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