Lessons

Lesson Info

One Light Set-ups: Pop Quiz

I photographed children is there uh, different setups that you would do towards people that will not over your lights and that kind of thing? Wonderful question okay, so first of all I will preface with I'm not a good children's photographer but that's more because I can't make them do what I ask so that the defense of people still kind of thing however lading lies yes, first of all, I sandbag the crap out of anything that's around so the sandbags we had on before you're putting it on the legs so that things don't move don't use stands with wheels because those will go go all over in general with children I am for large and soft light sources like a three by four soft box or four by six soft box and more to the front for a couple reasons one if it's more to the front and they move they're always in almost always indecent light. Ok, if I had a big like I'll be the category ah big soft box to the front and then a big phil card to this sign, they're pretty much going to have acceptable li...

ght no matter where they move and the other reason I like that set up is the one I used in particular had the big soft box and then v flats, which will talk about but big white foam core and then they couldn't get out they're stuck right there's they couldn't run away and they couldn't mess things up so that's what I used but if you watch there's tons of classes on creative live on photographing children several classes and they tend to use just big large soft boxes all right so are wonderful behind the scene guy mego has opposed to that put together the ten images of the ten different lighting set ups that we have just learned how to create so we're wondering lindsay if we could go through and review maybe even use it as a little pop quiz for these guys in the room and the folks at huh? And I talk about because what you talked about earlier was really learning how to see light and looking at the shadows looking at images that already exist on how to determine where that came from it's such an important exercise when you're learning that so what do you say guys guys at home because I'm ready tio put pressure on people okay all right so here's what I want to say first of all leading into that um when I was first trying to embrace photography as a professional without a doubt I could not see like I don't know if anyone else has had that experience when people would say to me I mean literally they say to me look at that highlight I didn't really see it and I don't know why it just I couldn't I couldn't process it so what? I started to dio as I started to go around with the camera and then whenever I'd see light that I thought was nice like I would just my head I'm like ok that's that looks decent I would ask whoever I was with can I take your picture and then I would try to look at and say, why do I like it and look around so in other words, I wanted to be I want to be encouraging because I absolutely for years could not see ah highlight and what's the difference between high contract like it took me a lot of practice so now I've kind of gotten better at it, so let me, uh let me quiz you on a couple of these. All right? So let's see let's, tio all right, so first of all, I wanted to know who once retirement ok, you want to be tormented? Good. Okay. So for this, like, first of all, I want to ask, um, how would you describe that lately? Give me a couple words that we use to describe that type of light and then tell me how we did it and how you know, well, I know it was done with the beauty box or the yeah, but the folded right and I think it's soft and chloe, I like that word globally. Yeah, so if I went into the what we talked about, I would say it's soft light, because again there's not much grady in from shadow to highlight it's flat because there's not this is very flat light, the lightest centered and no shadows. If this is nico, nico can use him into the eyes for me. How I would tell if I didn't know how this was lit as I look into the eyes there and go ok, so I see the octo ball octagon shape center, so I know it's a knock to box centered and then I feel the weight. I don't know what they are, but because they're not speculate because they're not bright. I know it's got to be a reflector, and I know it's got to be a white reflector and I can see they're kind of wrapping around that's how if I didn't know as I could see the catch like they would look at it and then nico, if you want to back back out the other way that I would know if I'd say, ok, so the lightest center I let it couldn't see those catch lights in the eyes, I could only see the one but couldn't see these reflectors, I also know that there's minimal shadow so it's got to be reflectors underneath, but it's not sparkly so would have to be white. I might not know for sure, but I'd say, you know, there really isn't much shadow anywhere somebody gases it's a least one right white reflector underneath. I could get that close even if I couldn't see the catch lights. Okay, ready for done. All right, so how would you describe let's do this one someone who wants to describe it and tell me what it wass both students have you? I know you all know it. Okay, region for the I guess the region for the microphone. Ok, although so be a split light would it be? Would it constitute as high key? If it was let in this way, they wouldn't be soft. Ok, so the first part, split light is perfect. Definitely because there's like only on one side of the face. How about I was talking about where the shadows air coming and I had two words for it broad light and the other one was short, light show e I think of it like this teo, I think of it like her face looks shorter, right? Like it's to face a shorter because there's less there's, less light illuminating the states, the shadows or towards the camera um the other thing you could do to this is this is also like I said I'm just adding to that it is split light but it's almost like a rim light on her face like it's it's room light split lights whatever you want to call it um the light this was okay and so this is where we get all complicate when people talk about things the light is it's technically kind of soft because it is a soft box from behind but the scene has lots of contrast what I mean by that is like there's highlights in their shadow so it looks dramatic so how I would describe this is I would say it's split light short light and this one low key because it's mostly shadows there's just a sliver of high like with the rest of it you know I was right it's that is a softer light source it is split light and so on. All right, you where did we have the octagon? You know worked about. Okay, so too I want to pretend this is her she's gonna minister here. Okay, that is in kind of a back forty five or more more than forty five degree angle back sixty or so and what I'm looking for the whole time and I'm just looking for where that light is and if if I start to get the light too far in and it starts to show up in my photo, I kind of move her head to see if that helps to get the split light. So it's a mixture of like, where can I put that light? Where can I move her head to get it? And, uh, usually anything. Anything where the light is from? If this is where she is, anything with the light from here back gives you split like that's. What? Start short, like anything from sideways back when she's facing towards camera and then the rest is going to be more broad. Light from the front. I had another question, actually on that image. That was just up. Which was what if I wanted to have split lighting, but remove the harsher highlight that's on the forehead there. What would you d'oh? Okay, so if you want to bring that back up, all right. So this is what I showed in the examples of what happens when you have directional light when you have. And we had the example of the older gentleman with the light off to the side and light breaks across and you see wrinkles and you see textures and that's, what happens because you're casting shadows, so I do see texture that did anyone see it looking at her now like it she's gorgeous perfect skin so that's the danger of going dramatic is it brings up all sorts of things that you didn't want to see if you were looking to soften that up if you wanted it to be not quite as texture you want to be a little smoother you could do a couple things first of all retouching okay, but that's cheating okay, you could try to put more there's a diffusion panels like little slag little things you can stick in front to soften the light even more what do you what do you call them? John there's a little diffusion borden if you they're just trying to cut down on the light like to tryto tio just another piece of fabric or something yeah, like it would literally just be one of the peace of the fusion so we can take yes, never the expensive kit that I was just talking about when you buy that they have called vellum think it looks like that this is pelham is like a tracing paper that's made from animal it's it's an animal product villain tracing tracing paper like see through transparent trans lux is a brand name on one home that one that one trans lux that one I never use this stuff so that's why I'm like I haven't used it in college yeah, the camera guys probably know it better than still guys they're like we're not talking quiet but it's it's basically looks like a piece of diffusion but it's paper and you can put it in between light on the subject and it softens it even more if you're going with that much of wrapping light like that far raking across the skin it's you're going to have to retouch if you wanted to be perfect we need some final q and a in the day yeah yeah so let's say when we were shooting earlier in the segment and somebody had asked if I only have eight foot ceilings could I used to smaller soft boxes one above the other to cover the entire figure if you couldn't get the south box up high enough definitely there's something that I call stacking the light and I'll use that a lot where all used well let's pretend on the subject ok I use one light to light the subject's face and so maybe if you have short ceilings it's not going to be a four five foot soft blocks it's going to be maybe a beauty dish and then a soft blocks from below but the key is to make sure that soft box isn't too strong because if it's too strong it search filling in from underneath and we showed you how it would give those upward shadows so I call it stacking the light get beauty edition of soft box would work great or an octo box and a soft box would be fine because that everyone has a tv dish but that requires two lights great. I like how people are getting creative though with their small rooms because there's a lot of people out there you know how how that's where you start? Okay, uh yes alright. Grab the mike, please. Background e I noticed you didn't mention history rams at all. Okay, so the question was they didn't mention history when you say I'm assuming I'm going to make the assumption that everybody more less knows where history graham is, but I'll go into it a little bit when you look at the back of your camera and I hit the info button okay, a few times I'll actually get a graph and the graph is the history graham and the history ram is showing me the distribution of pixels in my image, which basically means hoops so they're gone far left hand side is going to be the blacks and the images, the dark tones and then on the far right is the white. This is a perfect this image is actually the best image average demint demonstrate this if you could look at the history graham that history tells you almost nothing and it looks completely wrong because that white light behind her it has no detail I was in this image we were shooting with the soft box behind her head it was blown out white and it's not even it doesn't even show up because it's beyond with graph shows because it's pure white and then if you look on the very far left there's a little peek of black well there should be no correct image that looks like that except for it is or if you even just drink back ah couple more to what we did before if you go back to the one where she was split light in short when I look at that history graham there's a couple peaks on the very far dark side and then like looks like nothing else except for tiny peek at the far right so that is what my image looks like, but I could never look at this this distribution of pixels this graph and no with it were right or wrong what it's useful for and what it's really good for is if you're taking a picture and you don't have a light here is really important for this if you're lighting a background white to know whether it's pure white if you really got that background white or to know ifit's way overblown way overexposed and also talk tomorrow but a couple things you can look for think it's day three some things that you can look for to see by looking at your history grams is my background to over exposed is it giving me lens flare and you can actually just tell by looking at the history and so in other words, it's useful to see if you have pure blacks were blown out highlights but in a lot of creative stuff like can't quite tell what it's supposed to look like anyway, ok all right we have a question about your beautiful image that you're using for the class hero image yeah and folks want to know how you live that ok perfect so this was lit with a soft box but it was a square soft blocks no particular reason that's the one I had that day it was about a three foot square soft box and if you notice see how narrow the depth of field is okay, I don't usually do that in the studio but I did want to demonstrate or two give you an example of why that's not easy right now if I have our subjects it and actually if I could wrap this up with this damn all I'll show why this is not easy to do and what you have to consider based on everything we talked about today so if you want to come sit here all right, so if I shoot really wide open if I'm shooting at two pointing john, can you change my lens too the other seventy, two hundred second go to pointing so I'm I'm not going to be able to do this, I'm just warning you like it's not going to work and I want it, but I want to explain why it wouldn't work. Ok, so here's the deal if I want to shoot really wide open like to pointing what happens at two point eight? I'm going to start with my camera one two hundredth of a second, the highest, fastest shutter speed possible so I can cut out all ambient light because at two point eight it's probably going to start picking up some light in this room even though it's not supposed to it's just you're letting in so much light, it probably is going to pick up something the next thing is at two point eight that hole is so large, I need to turn this down as far as it goes and then he turned it down to its lowest power still probably going to be pretty strong for two point eight, but I probably can do it here, so so I go through my head and say, all right, so went to one, two hundred the second to try to cut out all ambient light, all right, not to point I need to be a I s o one hundred as low as possible all right, got that power of my light down as far as possible, if I need this to go even more, even dimmer than it already is a couple things I could do back it up as I back it up, it changes the quality of the light, so you start to run into that problem, but I can back it up a bit. The next thing I could go in my head is like, all right, so I backed it up a little bit to turn down the power. If you were shooting with a silver dish and trying to get to pointing, you cannot get that's work because it focuses all the light and it's super contrast e it won't be able, no matter how hard down you turn that light and you're trying to pull it back. It's not going to work. A lot of fire like this helps me because it spreads out the light and it diffuses in it softens it. So all of this is working to cut down on light for me. I would also go ahead and put an inter baffle in it, the diffusion cause that cuts down on line, so I'm trying to think I want this light to be his weak it's possible I don't want to see any of these lights, so so far have done everything in my head. That I can all right we got to three point two so far it's still probably will be fined under stand considering what I shoot but I'll show you the problem we're gonna have two point one ok so let's so yeah he got it all way down once I pulled this further back I would like to be a little closer but it's fine I pulled this further back it's a diffused light source I'm shooting at one, two hundred of the second I s o one hundred all of that however I'm guessing we'll see a little be up a little bit not too much. Well, it's still pretty good um sorry for the my friend's ok, so I'm shooting at two point eight there it actually isn't too bad but what I told you to do with the beginning of the day let's test it take off your trigger before you ever start and based on the settings you have do you see ambient light and so if you look it's going to show me what is recording in my frame that is not the strobe right now I'm seeing a little bit of highlight from those lights and a little bit from the modeling like so we're actually able to do pretty well that was pretty close so as soon as I pop this on it actually does get me really close there but what will happen a lot of times I kind of did it look like I felt like it didn't, but I agree it felt like it didn't, um, but notice some of the pictures a little warm because it's picking up that modeling like so then you got to go, okay? So, it's, getting that model in like I got to turn the modeling light off. So these you like the things because it's picking up that light because it's such a wide aperture, so now should be a better white balance here. Yes, I watched the color difference between the two, so it got rid of some of that warmth that was showing up for the modeling. If you're in a brightly lit studio with big windows, you can't you won't be able to get true blacks. And if you notice on that side of her face, that shadow is in a true black it is a little bit till then, so you grab. So then you can grab something black like a black piece of board and try to block that out. So now if I do something like this, okay, so now no more color from the modeling light showing up and the black would be blacker, and I'm still able to shoot it to pointing. So, unfortunately, it's, harder than it seems to shoot really wide open, because you got to think of all those things. And so if you like to shoot really wide open, if you like to shoot one point four, two point eight that'll make a difference what strobes you buy. I'll talk about that. Tomorrow, we have to choose your wattage accordingly, and then also what space you shooting. So if you want to shoot wide open, you better be in a space that has no ambient light, and you've gotta have strobes. It could be turned down far enough.