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Beauty Dish Lighting Demo Part 1

You've transformed, my dear uh look at that beautiful okay, so we'll start off with her. Just come on over the edge. Just kind of sit right on that carefully down right on the end of the chair there. Oh, my goodness. You know, beauty is only skin deep. Sorry. Let's let's take that will be pushing out of there. She held her composure so well, it's like I can't even shake there's a girl that's crazy. All right, I lost my concentration. Okay, so beaut dish and let's get this on a pole. So I'm gonna put this on to something we can use to hold it and then caitlin, I'm gonna need you to help me hold this if you would in just a moment too. I want to put a little spigot on the end of here with anything. So what I'm using is just one of these, uh, speak it's that we keep in our bag, please, for a variety of things and then we can put it onto a bendy thing onto my model pod which were using yesterday. Reason like model pods for a single part of a light stand is that you can be easily moved and p...

ut this wherever you want works great with beauty dish because we want to experiment with a few different positions of it and then I put the flash onto ah just one of the foot is that comes with it it has a tripod screwing the bottom will attach that and hope nothing falls on anyone's cage again. Okay, very groovy. Ok, so let's start off with this when we come maybe kind of directly above kind of like that I'm being down and want to aim this right towards her nose and then lifting it up a little bit so ships that way so you, um about the houselights we'll see if we need to move them or not. All right, so you can lean this uh scott your bottom this a bit that way. Okay, it's just been kind of a head and shoulders right here and leaning on the elbows. Good. Yes, tether is not in that's a good thing to start with that video. All right checking out my camera sure we can see what's going on here. Yeah, we'll get rolling. So what the beauty dish? We're going to kind of build on this lighting seen here right now I'm going to start off with just the light, the mediation by itself and just will play with that and they will start to add maybe we need some background light maybe we need some things that the props here we might mess around with so we'll build on this but we just start here I want to set my camera to fiftieth of a second to minimize the existing life as much as possible my eyes so I'm gonna keep it about two hundred of my start there, see where how that looks. One of the first things because we're going to do is a little bit of this ambience, so actually, what I'll do to turn the flash off, take first shot, we talked a bit about mixing flash and ambien lets this just kind of expand on that a little bit to say we have decent room light there's a little bit over him, we're going to use that, but we're going to make that our main lights I want to get in a exposure based on my shutter speed that gives me kind of a darkish room all right, it's, a little darker than what I would use for lightings right now is just about setting the ambient light for the room, right? It's working it's good on all right there and let's, see where it's at some that to fifty two eight s o two hundred, and I wanted to see how much I'm getting. Okay, so very little of the room that's almost where I want and I want to see a little bit more, but actually it's start there, so I don't think it's the on screen, but I've on my laptop I could barely see the room light and that's good because we want to see just the beauty dish right now so that to fiftieth two hundred eyes so is perfect to minimize the room life now we can kick on the flash it will test fire and I haven't set the power of the flash yet but we'll just play and see so then yeah that's of you picking up a little bit towards that light there let's just see what the beauty ish at that distance and that power setting have no idea but we'll check pretty close poe's right there so exposure wise on her face is actually right about on it what I want you do danielle is too screeched up to the front of the couch a little bit you're not thinking back into the couch it good like it's sitting on the edge like that's good and then turn your chin more up to the light to lift that in just a bit a little bit down canonize lower just a little bit so you're not going to look at the light particularly just right there on a sultry yeah kind of one thing that she's got these nice big eyelashes going on with this styling here to create some sort of shadow of the eyelashes under cheat on this kind of cool you know bringing the light directly above like that basically that's what's doing it's a little bit little bit hot there's a little blood on her forehead. All of that will pray go away. Um, overall looking pretty cool. So let's, stay with this now you notice too that this this little prop in the foreground is intentional to have in the shot and this is just something that's kind of a personal styling cue, but when the things I've always loved that you're doing with my wedding photography and porter photography is trying to incorporate, um, shooting through things because it takes a posed picture, it makes it feel more candid. Frank. So if you have a totally post shot, we just shot it straight up that's fine, but soon as you look like you're kind of peeking in on a scene, you know, she's waiting in the lower and she sees this handsome dude across the place is like, and a big boy and he's looking, and so you're just kind of witness to this scene because you're peeking through the bushes, so to speak, right? So that's something that's kind of cool sometimes actually set up stuff to shoot through, put crap in front of your lens and makes a better shot, and this is funny because that weddings that I do this sometimes we'll have the bride and groom, you know, hanging out, making on the couch, and I'll wine glasses and stuff of here and go to shoot and inevitably the mother in law runs over wait a minute honey honey old that's right in front of your lens thank you there you go and I've had at least ten times over the course my wedding career were the mother sister somebody runs in and says it saves my shot right because I'm gonna move stuff out of the way like I didn't see that thank you for that um let's also bring in everyone here grab it sorry we went on stage is put in a little glass of vino on the table might have a drink myself maybe we'll fire through that let's put her in a wine glass that's cool huh so um caitlin you could go this way just to be a little bit and what have you lower the light just a little bit keep it pointing at her just kind of lower until I tell you until I can see it almost in the shop okay that's good and then you're gonna point it at her just a little more so angle the face so you're gonna put your body by that corner that couch over there scoot scoot scoot ship and then angle it back towards me headed towards me all right turning down one third of a stop and that's nice daniel chin up just ever slightly so shooting a two point anything it's up there on the screen and so now we threw a little more light onto the couch itself versus the previous image by angling that light that way ah it's a little bit more way want to know we want to get that thing right into her eyes so I'm gonna have her peeking up just a little bit more okay? And lawyer I just reaching up but your eyes a little lower yeah, a couple more like that so what we have is this having the lighting coming up directly from the front again here's our little butterfly shadow under her nose. Okay here's a good shadow shaping to her jaw line we have the catch light from the beauty dish right in her eyes they're just really nice um well of the styling and all that on the news I want to add a little bit of ah glow to that wine glass to make it come alive a little bit so we're going to keep that lighting the same and let's see what happens if we way have ah fucking enough power from a little flashlight to glow that behind the glass. So coming can I ask you some questions? Yes in the in the midst of this so people are wondering about the inside with this d I y beauty dish and the inside that a lot of beauty dishes have like a silver disk on the back of the fabric and what is the difference between what you've made and what that effect might be or have you made one where you're adding that element into it? Yeah, I have made one that has a silver disk in and it creates a a dark spot unless you have one it's perfectly engineered to carbolic lee reflect the light off to the sides back on top of it out even some of the commercial ones I played with if you actually test them on the wall there is a little dark spot from that thing, so in theory it's supposed to keep you from having a hot spot that it creates a dark spot, and when I tested this I actually found that because of the way it is shaped and having the head zoomed out wide, you don't have you have a little bit of a hot spot but it's not really a it's, not a big hot spot. In other words, it's like you have this area that slightly fades off, it was just kind of we want. So I like the quality of this better than having some little cone in the middle because I did try that tried different variations and inevitably, no matter what, you had even try to mirrored silver kind of a thing and it didn't give me the quality and that, well, this is simpler and I like it better anyway very cool and can you also thank you for that cause a lot of people were wondering and then again for people who might be new what is the different effect of a beauty dish again to a soft box say that was perhaps similar size yeah beauty dish is going to be a little crisper light uh well he had a soft box that was about this size um unit eighteen inches maybe called yeah if you had a soft boxes about this size it's probably very similar. The only thing is that that's nice about this is a circular creates a nice circular catch light which when you're doing close ups of the face that circular catch light is kind of cool you know, this matches and in reinforces the eyes so that's something that just taking considerations and as a personal choice whether you like the circular catch lights or the square catch light but I tend to you know you have to kind of experiment which is one of the reasons I do die why things experiment like I'm gonna buy a beauty dish don't have I'm gonna like it better than the soft box that already have, you know, what's the difference and so you play with it you experiment and you look at the light on all this actually works great for this kind of situation, this style and you know I'll go by beauty dish thank you so let's see if this we can do some of this so I took my flashlight here and we'll try to zoom it up and see if we can get something to aim on the back of this glass light it up and then I wrapped my little bungee thing around the light it's a little sparkle to that so had robbed that wire bungee may just were like well stand for the flashlight but you could put it on a grill a pod probably uh let's see help right that's gonna be once we have this room light turned down who may not show yet see ok one more time to get up there e all right get little twinkle like the light on your face that was good whatever you guys did was nice good job caitlin cool one of the things I did once it a shooter was allowing shoot in a bar and using something similar we had a wine glass is actually got my iphone and turn the flashlight because I wanted to light up the glass and just put it right behind the glass and a nice little glow uh behind the glass and it's kind of hidden meaning because he was dark so it was kind of cool so thinking about what we have on you sometimes just the light your flashlight on your iphone was enough dead a little sparkle or something here and there that works pretty good ok so let's let's see about now changing this up just a little bit I like that shot a lot I think that's the keeper there the lighting on her face is beautiful rise of beautiful those eyelashes are cool a little twinkle in the glass that's not dead um good right so let's move this move this up a little bit we'll take this flashlight away so this is what I just basically did if you guys didn't get a chance to see on the flashlight I took my little twisty tie thing wrapped it around made some legs on it and then propped it up on the floor behind the flash blasts and just zoomed ahead too tight tight it'll be ok righty then so let's uh let's move this up a little bit she hopped up on caitlin this crab this table on schedule away lovely it's good there and if you could grab that ladder ah pregnant be over there we'll use that in just a minute you can kind of put it right in front of a camera what they needed just yet so I'm gonna move it right over here, ok danielle want back in and caitlin were going for beauty dish come over here so this time we're gonna kick it this way on the couch head back thataway um stuff we screwed up just a little bit more secure here it kind of falls off the edge here here we go so lift your head up and down do like weir get my hand okay, yeah, you kind of buy with your hair is kind of cool it just like that like that turning out that way and I was this way and then this and I don't know if it's even possible to even kind of wrapping and the pearls a little bit it's gonna tangle they're just gonna strapped you're mistaking shop ok, okay we're gonna shoot like that when you just have to locate the come on over here. So what I want to do here just thinking of carol style portrait we're goingto do maybe a black and white out of this if she's already got the hollywood kind of vintage styling going on and this is where a smaller lights or small but slightly soft like this is really, really nice because you want something fairly chris been direct for dramatic hollywood style but adding that little diffusion there helps to take the edge off of it. We wanted to hard there's a balance between just hard and shadows and slightly soft edge was still directional deep shadows and this kind of is a nice balance so we're going to come pretty close I'm gonna bring the power down on that just a wee bit and when you come on over here honey there and we're going to look at a couple of different directions of light so if we stick with the traditional hollywood lighting moving you little bit so like oh that's what you want which would be creating it directly above her head coming down so she turns her face towards me would have to move our light here that she turns her face away we want to do that so basically just pointing it at her nose no matter what. So if you imagine that your your dish here hat does have somewhat of a little bit of ah hot spot that should always be pointing at her nose okay, so you wouldn't want it going like this? You wouldn't want it like that you wouldn't want it up too high too low think of the middle of this as a beam coming straight at her nose um and that's one styled lighting and we'll compare the two because it was your very different look between direct overhead coming over the nose and from the side casting sideways shadows all right, so let's play with this first so what, you gonna kick one could cure other needham and you kind of lean it in against the couch there there you go and chin up towards us you're doing so well, considering I know this is really uncomfortable uh, ok, if you need to relax or something to send another plane good like that chin up just a little bit more. All right, so I have no idea what we're are with the lighting again I'm not going to be there if you just take a shot and see very close. So right now that shadow is just about right? I think that ah, your hand looks a little like you're grasping something there, so I don't want to be more like this playing with the girls, joking your neck there a little more strap still showing don't line up beautiful and there's a lot of moves in the girl's okay, push up. Twist it now, there's. Just a little fuzzy thing on the pearl itself, but something good. Very nice. Okay, so keep an eye on the position here with that guys right here. Good. Okay, lift the changes of the more beautiful good blacks. So I'm shooting at two point eight, but I think like like, I want a little more out of focus, I want a little more depth to it so I could jump to one point four. But I'm thinking this might even the cool of the lens, a baby or something else on there to to kind of change up that plane of focus so let's shoot it at one point for some currently at two point eight, so if I go to two one eight one six one four I'm gonna I'm going to start to get mohr this ambient light and this is actually going to be quite a bit too bright spot is lois is gonna go so unless I change my eyes so weighed down maybe too bright even do it at one point four but we'll try. Nice, beautiful should have ever slightly there. Okay? We're actually having a flight to pop that up. Two thirds were shooting at one point for now, I'm just focusing on her eyes and now throws the lower half of her body. The pearls out of focus, you start to get that little glow, a little book around the pearls which I'm looking for we got their focus just on her eyes with which we were looking for in the shots will shoot a few here and they may be switched a lens baby and see what we look like get you out there good champion of more stretches. Richard, turn your chin towards me here we go with beautiful one more right there, separate your lips just a little bit that's it. We'll focus on the pearl there. Boo pretty mario. Okay, so that one point point four you've got me right on, but the focus and I think I've got one eye in and one out, just kind of him kind of what I'm going with and I'm thinking that in post processing I could take down the convenient at the edges and all that that I want to, but I'm gonna go up a little higher, do a couple more here and then we'll switch to a lens baby, any questions in the process from setting up my ladder? Any questions from the studio audience? What do you guys thinking? What you think of the effect to something that this's once great doing today? And what type of work do you do? Boudoir and glamour and pin up and stuff like that. So this is right up my alley. Yeah. It's great for glamour, google obviously, um, you kind of stylized portrait's and let's take a look here. Wait, you're fine. Uh, pull it back a bit, okay? So you're gonna keep them out of there you go. Can up beautiful boots off. All right, so see if looks like okay, all right, that's good. So your left shoulder and relax just a little bit there. Yeah, good. And chin up. Just a touch more before we'll be right there. Hopes the light got in the shot just a wee little bit we're gonna pull the late up just a little bit american, yeah, chin up there, daniel I love that everything's getting there, your right hand, I'm gonna have you kind of lay down instead of behind it here. They're just kind of put across your tummy it's gonna rested comfortably there. Yeah, a woman whose excuse you gets going well, because you're holding yourself up in your neck, but kind of relaxing your left shoulders, we don't push that too much. They go beautiful, okay, caitlin, just move the right the light of the way, just a little bit outside of my frame, okay, and then chin up and lift your neck. Beautiful. Okay, my focus is what's going on. It wasn't locked, and that's license, I'm focusing. Hey, we gotta stretching let's, get the lens of baby and see what the lens baby will look like a radio damn right on the eyes.