lighting

All posts tagged lighting

(NSFW) Using Negative Fill Flash

Posted by Richard Harrington on May 16, 2013
Posted in: Technique & Tutorials. Tagged: , . 1 comment

Guest Post & Photos by Abba Shapiro — Follow Abba on Twitter

Final Image Canon EOS 5D Mark III Shutter speed 1/125 Exposure: 6.3 ISO 100 Canon 240105@97MM Post-processed with Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop

Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Shutter speed 1/125 | Exposure: 6.3 | ISO 100
Canon 240105@97MM
Post-processed with Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop

I find when photographing people – controlling light is the key.

I often see photographers diligently re-positioning their strobes to control the light – but rarely controlling the dark.  Negative fill can make or break an image.  Light is a pesky fellow – it can bounce around a room, reflect of odd surfaces, and light your talent from angles you never expected.  That is where negative fill come in.  Large pieces of black foam core or black reflectors, which block stray reflections and absorb ambient light from your strobes.

I usually try to place this negative fill as close to my subject as possible – sometimes so close that I require Photoshop to hide or remove it.  Usually the closer it is  – the better it works – however sometimes placing your negative-fill too close can actually throw light on your subject.. Black is black – but bear in mind different surfaces have different levels of reflectivity – so you may get different results from a piece of foam core vs. a black pop-out reflector.  And when it comes to fabrics satin, muslin, felt and velvet will all give different results.

Test shot — Model: Brynn Canon EOS 5D Mark III Shutter speed 1/125 Exposure: F4 ISO 100 Canon 240105@47MM

Test shot — Model: Brynn
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 
Shutter speed 1/125 | Exposure: ƒ4 | ISO 100
Canon 240105@47MM

In this shot I wanted quite a dramatic contrast between the light and dark areas…so in addition to using negative fill, I lit using a single strobe modified with a 1 X 3 strip box and fabric grid. I did a test shot without the model first to ensure that there was no stray light.  I then positioned her and the light and took meter readings at her cheek, shoulder, and hip. During the shoot I had her selectively rotate parts of body to vary the amount to light falling on her face and torso.

Everything was shot Camera Raw and a “bit to the right” – Which basically meant I over-exposed the image about one stop.  I know that way I could still bring back the details in the highlights and maintain very clean shadows.

In post I converted the image to Black and white with Silver Effects Pro and placed a vignette over the image to further control the shadows

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Relighting a Car in Post

Posted by Richard Harrington on May 13, 2013
Posted in: Screencast, Technique & Tutorials. Tagged: , , , . 3 comments

Guest Post & Photos by Levi Sim - Circle Levi on Google+

© Levi Sim

I wanted to make a photograph of a car that looked like it had been shot in one of those fancy studios with the enormous soft boxes, but I had to do it on the grass at the fair grounds. This video shows how I made it happen using layer masks in Photoshop.

Relighting a Car in Post from Photofocus Video Channel on Vimeo.

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The Topaz Labs Image Enhancement bundle. Open up a world of creative possibilities with a seamless, integrated workflow. You don’t need to be a Photoshop wizard to look like one. Click here and use the code photofocus to get a 15% discount.

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Photofocus Podcast February 5 with Syl Arena

Posted by Richard Harrington on February 5, 2013
Posted in: Audio Podcast. Tagged: , , , , , .

NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE: The Photofocus Podcast Feed HAS CHANGED!

Here is the new feed: feed://feeds.feedburner.com/photofocuspodcast
Download episode here…   or get it on iTunes

PLEASE BE PATIENT – OUR SERVERS SEE LARGE LOADS ON PUBLISHING DAYS. THE DOWNLOADS MAY GO SLOWLY BUT THEY WILL FINISH.

Rich is joined by special guest Syl Arena to discuss a range of topics to help photographers of all levels.
Syl Arena is known around the world more for his “colorful” hair or the colorful words and photos he shared in his best-selling Speedliter’s Handbook. Either way, he has a memorable persona.
Discussed on the show:
  • Portrait posing techniques
  •  Working with your subject
  • Lighting on location
  •  Studio work
  • The latest offerings from Canon
  •  Why self-publish and use a blog
  • Syl’s upcoming workshops
  • Favorite shooting places

Hosted by Rich Harrington and Syl Arena.

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The Most Incredible & Expensive Lighting System I’ve Ever Used In Photography – NSFW

Posted by scottbourne on September 6, 2012
Posted in: Technique & Tutorials. Tagged: , , , , , .

Copyright Scott Bourne 2012 All Rights Reserved!

(Imagine Jeremy Clarkson’s voice reading these first few paragraphs.) It’s not from Chimera, Alien Bees or Broncolor. It doesn’t come with any soft boxes or stands. In fact, it’s not sold in any camera store – not even at B&H or Adorama. That’s because…

It’s a truck.

To be more precise, it’s a 2012 Ford F-150 FX4 pick-up truck which now sports a 50″ SR-Series Hybrid LED Light Bar W/Custom Mounts. The brackets were custom designed and Line-X was applied. The entire bar is permanently mounted to the truck and provides a mostly daylight balanced LED flood light controlled from a custom switch mounted in the truck cab.

(Okay imagine it’s me now – The Stig.)

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time but the design has always been a challenge. I wanted a nice, broad, relatively diffuse light, with daylight balance that would be high enough that it would be able to project with being blocked by any part of the truck. It took me two years to find this particular product and with the help of Four-The-Truck, my customizer, I found a way to mount the bar that was legal, functional and didn’t induce too much additional wind noise in the cab at speed. (Light bars tend to whistle on the highway. My customizer solved this by using an adhesive at three points on the bar covered by a valance.)

Copyright Tom Shue – All Rights Reserved!

I should probably back up and say – those who know me or have followed me for a long time here know I always have what I jokingly refer to as a “work truck.” Translated, I spend WAAAAY too much money customizing a new truck for fun and then use it in my job and end up being able to justify it for work and writing it off as a legitimate expense. Despite my love for exotic and fast cars, I almost always have at least one truck in my stable.

This particular truck is my latest project and has had tens of thousands of dollars worth of upgrades from the suspension to the motor, wheels, nerf bars, military grade security system, tool box, extended flares, tires, compressor, train horns, sound system, etc. But the most exciting mod (photographically speaking) was the light bar.

I’ve been working on customizing this truck for four months now and the final stage was the addition of the SR-Series Hybrid LED Light Bar.

Copyright Tom Shue – All Rights Reserved!

Unfortunately, this model doesn’t come with a dimmer switch, but the manufacturer is working on a backwards compatible dimmer that will eventually work with this light. For now, you control intensity and fall off by properly positioning the truck. Since it’s a constant light source it’s easy to see where the light falls on the subject and it’s perfect for taking on location to provide a big light for almost any job. In this case, big enough to light a car.

The system runs on a combination of specialty batteries. I replaced the standard Motorcraft truck battery under the hood with an Odyssesy battery. I installed a second Odyssey battery in the tool box. This second battery is powerful enough to run the light bar for an hour. After that, the regular truck battery kicks in and is good for another hour – both without turning on the truck’s engine. Both batteries are charged when the truck is running so as long as you have gasoline in the truck the light will run beyond the time offered by the two batteries. So in short, you could use this light overnight and all day in extreme conditions if needed.

Photo Copyright Rich Harrington

The color and quality of light are infallible and the wide beam covers a very large area. In this case, I waited until sunset and used the light as a front main which allowed me to retain the ambient light behind the car from the sunset.

As backup, I had color-matched HID headlights installed that I could use in extreme cases to fill in the light provided by the LED bar. The combination of both can light up about a third of a football field.

I admit this is a bit overkill, but it is one of those fun things I get to do once in a while that I wanted to share. The total price to buy the lights, batteries, create the custom mounts with labor came to $4300. The truck itself? More than $100k. I know – too much. But what can I say other than you can’t take it with you!

Copyright Scott Bourne – All Rights Reserved

Many of you may have access to off-road vehicles with special lighting. If so, think of these vehicles as specialty lighting and go experiment. You may just be surprised at the results.

NOTE: Lately the images I have been posting are Creative Commons. The images above are under license and therefore not available under Creative Commons – All Copyrights as indicated in the photo caption. Thanks to my hard-working and talented assistant Tom Shue who came to this shoot even though he was injured. Thanks also to my teaching partner Rich Harrington and our production coordinator Pam Berry. Thanks also to our brave, talented and lovely model Nancy.

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Photographers: Back Light For Atmosphere

Posted by scottbourne on August 28, 2012
Posted in: Tips. Tagged: , , , .

Guest Post & Photo by Stephan Bollinger – Circle Stephan on Google+

We all have seen those magical photographs with “god rays”, the late afternoon image with clouds and streaks of sunlight painting the sky, or images of churches and large buildings with light beaming through the glass windows. The combination that allows to capture such images is always the same: Back-light and some type of reflective atmosphere, be it haze, smoke, dust or water.

Since we don’t have any control over the many factors required to produce the spectacle, capturing such a sky is a question of luck. There are signs however we can look for during the day, which might lead to the perfect conditions: Overcast or rainy days that open up to blue skies in the late afternoon, and light fog, smog, smoke, even bush-fires, are good indications for possible light-rays. As with most landscape photographs of such nature, the rest then lies with mother nature, and there are no guarantees. I know many photographers who travel to the same location several times, until they find the “perfect conditions”. Some are less lucky, and will never capture it.

Capturing light-rays in buildings is easier to predict, since we don’t wait for the perfect cloud etc. It is usually dust in the air, which produces the reflective particles that we see as “light-rays”. Assuming, the sun hits the windows unobstructed in the right angle, the perfect time to capture such images is when churches etc are partly in renovation, since these building sites produce a higher amount of dust in the air.

In the studio, creating great atmospheric images is relatively easy to achieve. You can buy a little smoke machine for near to nothing these days, and already the smallest amount of smoke will produce great results. As a matter of fact, the less smoke you produce, the better the final image will be, as it want to avoid any smoke in front of your subject. Smoke (or water) lit from the front produces just a dense wall with little depth, when lit from behind however, it will create the desired depth and structure.

The images below illustrate the different steps of such a setup. The smoke machine is placed about 2 meters behind the subjects, to create a clear separation between forground and background. In the first image, we only fired the main light from the front, it illuminates our subjects, but doesn’t show much depth or structure of our smoke. The second image was shot with only the backlight (with a blue gel), rendering as a dark blue structure. In the final shot, we combine both lights, and achieve well lit subjects, and a interesting structure and depth in our background.

In the images above: Australian National Amateur Boxing Champion Skye Nicolson (17) with her brother Tony.

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Light Guides The Eye – Shadows Touch The Soul

Posted by scottbourne on July 8, 2012
Posted in: Tips. Tagged: , , .

Guest Post & Photo by Stephan Bollinger – Circle Stephan on Google+

Lately, I see more and more “flat” images, and I constantly hear the terms “fill in the shadows”, and “maintaining shadow detail”. Many new photographers try their hardest to light everything evenly, and eliminate the very essence which creates emotions: Shadows.
Late at night, the silhouette of a man with a knife… it’s a scary image, but only until you turn on the lights, and you see Jamie Oliver cutting celery. It’s the shadows which make all the difference.
The direction of light and the shadows produced define and change our perception. We guide the viewers eyes to the brightest areas of a photograph, while the shadows create character and provoke an emotional reaction. Shadows help us understand a scene gives us hints about the direction of light, it’s quality (harsh or soft), create the feeling of early morning, mid-day, late afternoon or evening. Shadows give us depth and dimension.
Nearly all great landscape images have been shot early in the morning or in the later afternoon, capturing not “just” the warmer colours, but also the lower angle, and with it stronger shadows. And the same principal applies to all photography, of course.
So why do we see so many “flat” and over-lit images in studios?
When we get into photography, we are fascinated by going “out there” and capturing moments. As we progress, we get to know our gear better, we start to see the world differently, and we change our mindset from “capturing moments” to “creating scenes”. We start to see and play with light. We watch tutorials on youtube and read articles about lighting setups and ratios, and too quickly, we fall into the trap of believing that “more is better”, we invest in several strobes, reflectors, the full monty. We get absorbed by all the technical aspects, and as a result, we over-light everything, and produce images which might be technically perfect, but have lost the emotional impact.
Over the years, I have accumulated a huge array of lights, modifiers, gels and gobos, but the more I learn, the less I use, and I come back to my favourite lighting setup again and again: One simple light, one direction, one shadow.
So how do we learn where to place the light, how to control it, how to create the scene?
I encourage you to forget about the youTube tutorials for a moment, and start with observing what natures does for us. Spend an afternoon walking through the city and just look for shadows. Try to figure out, why they fall where they fall. Walk through your house and do the same. Watch your favourite movies on DVD, and when you get to an emotional scene, press pause, and look for the direction of light, and the shadows. Do the same with paintings of old masters, and the photographs you love.
As silly as it may sound, a good way to learn about light and shadows is to use a decent size torch and an egg. Observe how the light wraps around it. Get the light close, and the shadow will be soft. Move the light away, and the shadows will get more defined. Light it from the side, and you’ll get dimension, light it straight on, and the egg will turn into a two dimensional oval. This simple experiment shows, what influence the relative size of the light has to our subject, the closer the bigger, and the bigger the softer. It’s really that simple.
The more we experiment, and the more we understand lights and shadows, the more we are in control of creating the mood we want. We use the light to guide the eyes of the viewer, and purposely create shadows to hide what we don’t want to be seen.
Don’t be afraid of the dark, use it to your advantage! For me, shadows are one of the most powerful weapon in my arsenal of tricks  ;)

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How to Use Windows like Softboxes and Softboxes like Windows

Posted by scottbourne on September 24, 2010
Posted in: Technique & Tutorials. Tagged: .

Above: This cropped section of a larger photo was lit almost entirely by large windows located to the right of the cat. After cropping, catchlights from the windows can clearly be seen in the cat’s eyes.

Post by Andrew Darlow – Follow Andrew on Twitter

For centuries, window light has been used by artists as an important source of light for visualizing portraits, still-life arrangements, and a wide range of other subjects. The advent of photography brought with it many opportunities for capturing scenes lit by window light, and for more than 100 years, photographers have used window light in countless ways.

In this article, I will describe how you can achieve the look of studio lighting from windows, and vice-versa. Like windows, softboxes come in an incredible array of sizes and styles, and one of the primary reasons for this article is to help you create the look and feel of window lighting anywhere you go, and at any time of the day.

Tips For Using Windows Like Softboxes

1. Have the window light come from about 3, 6 or 9 o’clock. In most cases, to replicate the look of typical studio lighting using a softbox, you will want the light from the main window to shine on your subject at 3, 6 or 9 o’clock, with you and your camera being the center of the clock facing 12 o’clock. In “map terms,” light should come from due East, due West, or due South.

2. Use “gobos.” When shooting with window light, it’s often more difficult to control compared with softboxes, so gobos can be very helpful. Gobos or “cards” can be just about anything that you place between your lights and your subject. Examples include: tracing paper, cardboard, aluminum foil, a chair, poster board or even a person’s hands or entire body (with their approval of course!).

3. Consider using fill light. Fill light can be as important as your main light because it can help soften shadows and create nice overall effects. Fill light can come from another window, a flash unit or continuous light (for example, a lamp). You can also use reflectors to bounce light back into your subject. Like gobos, reflectors can be made just about anything that does the job, from commercially available white, silver or gold reflectors, to the back of a printed poster.

Tips For Using Softboxes Like Windows

1. Use tape and other materials creatively. Black heat-resistant (and removable) tape can be added to a softbox to simulate the look of a window. Just two pieces (about one-inch-wide) attached in a cross-like pattern over the face of a softbox can create the look of a window, and just one piece stretched horizontally across the center of a softbox can also create the look of a window. If you don’t want to adhere anything to your softboxes, you can create the same effect by clamping materials such as black illustration board or thin pieces of fabric to the edges of your softbox using traditional clothes pins or “A-Clamps,” which are available in most hardware stores. Always use caution around lights that get very hot since many materials are flammable.

2. Put shades, blinds or extra diffusion in front of your softbox. If you think about the design of most windows, most contain at least two panes of glass, and many are covered (at least partially) with blinds, shades, curtains, etc. You can experiment with placing diffusion materials like frosted acrylic or tracing paper on or in front of part or all of the softbox. And just about any product made for windows can be hung from a lightstand with an extension arm in front of a softbox to create interesting effects.

3. Move softboxes in closer for larger catchlights and softer lighting. One of the most visually interesting things about portraits are the range of catch lights that you can capture in your subjects’ eyes. Whether your softbox contains a strobe (electronic flash) or continuous lighting, experiment and look closely at the size and shape of the catchlights that are being created in your subjects’ eyes. Catchlights will have even more impact as you zoom (or crop) into a photo. You should also notice larger catchlights, and a softer quality of light as you move the softbox closer to your subject-similar to the light you’ll find when photographing a subject in front of a large window.
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