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Lesson Info

Making a Shop Light Ring Light

All right so let me share another little discovery mine the um our led shop lights and they probably that's not so unique in itself other than this particular one is about half the price of unease I've ever found the thirty five dollars for one of these they're very bright and the light is very, very even all the way across so look oh my god look at these amazing power cord duty um I got these at lowe's and the link so the actual model number and everything is in the pdf if you guys want to check him out but I did shop around but beautiful so even light all across and it's daylight ballot where it's a little warmer than daylights about four thousand k so like a a white ish household color um so I saw this and I'm thinking all right that's kind of cool it a little strip light you know, do some side lighting or some like that and say, well it but two of them together then I get like a double strip light it was like well why not put for make a ring light make a giant bring light out of th...

e whole thing which would be really, really cool the nice thing about the aids is that they're not his fragile is the fluorescent so I ship these over in a box to get him here um no problem ladies you I really have to just step on him to actually break them and it's fairly lightweight and pretty simple so one reasons these air cheap thirty five bucks instead of the closest thing I could find to this when I started looking around after I found these, mike and I start looking around and the closest thing I could find was seventy bucks for a similar, but they weren't as compact is these so there may be others out there but a ce faras what I've limited research I've done this is about half the price of anything else out there with a rope from a lowe's hardware store, so they're thirty five bucks because they're designed to be ceiling mounted and there's no plugs on him she left to put these plugs and that's really easy to do you just buy the separate plug cost a couple three bucks um the wires are already stripped you just need to pop him through this whole screwed on little screwdriver and you gotta plug. All right, if you wanted to, you could go in and touch the whole longer um, cord to it but I just attached my extension cords boom right into it right like that. So to make this into a ring like I wanted to have a way to mount it to a light stand, so what I did do is actually to screw in ah regular spigot we've been using these for a lot of different things and screw that right into one of the existing holes and then on the inside pop off your actual bulb section here inside even if you can see it or not but I've got a locknut and it's called on like a spider washer spiders like the little jaggi washers so doesn't move yes I have a spider washer on this side underneath the spigot can then a locknut on this side and that ensures that once I yard this down and get it nice and tight if I want to put on the light stand it's not gonna give it one way another and swinging with one of the other okay so then the cords you just pop him through to attach their um I drilled holes are so I'm gonna put the l brackets on him we drilled holes one little note of caution when you're drilling your holes make sure the wires there out of the way he started drilling because you could drill right through one of your wires so just kind of move them out of the way when you start to drill and then go so no but the brackets so ladies out to with these tickets will go on the sides and I've already marked these because I've attached my brackets they have to kind of match up so the holes of the line was going there it's going to go there thiss one d it's going there so the key thing for the brackets is the's air just again hardware store was went look personnel brackets and some sheet metal screws and some washers these air not washers these air just all I could find instead of washers so just using them as washers and basically what you want to do is to just find a place to attach these brackets on your light like so on drill the holes and put it all together caylee could have commute your hands here we're just gonna hold this sort of fall down here so I put the washers on here so that the screws don't sink too far down um lovely mitts gave me the chills is one of your practical jokes on me no very funny who's behind this one I like it it's a lot over here we're getting the bracket number two you know you could do you could start getting the bracket lined up the devil in jail and we'll just jump on over that wants to come down here kevin when you were looking at light if you want did you by chance see if they had any shorter ones if you wanted to make a smaller one smaller ones yes, they do have smaller ones and that would be an interesting light as well to have a smaller like that size box so for sure I don't member of this particular exact brand, I know they had one, I think there was a twenty for these air thirty six forty eight inch, four foot pretty sure there was a twenty four forage model of this one as well you're using so upsetting screws, right? Yeah, I did, um, these are not the self tapping sheet metal screws, but you could use those, but I actually just drilled a starter hole before to make sure it was an exact spot and everything that you did not want it. I didn't want to strip the middle or anything like that. Heaven shannon mckenna photography says I'd love to find a version of these lights that are battery powered instead of plug in doing that. Yes, good question, you know, what's kind of cool is that this work? Because a lady is there such a low power draw? I actually have a battery pack from alien bees. They have this little portable battery pack with regular plugs, household plugs and plugged. I plug this thing right into that and actually powers it for a long time, and that may be something you could take anywhere in the middle of a field and shoot with a kind interesting you don't really see that very often, so yes, you could definitely put a battery pack if you get the kind of battery pack that has household plugs for it the main reason it does work is that the kids are very low power draw all right I just need one more barack it to hold this thing up and if he were a super elektronik savvy perhaps from phil flash could you wire the plugs together so you just have one plug totally yeah, you could wear them all together and the reason I didn't wire them together is that I um I envision using it sometimes separately I've also put them like four of them lined up together and then like I had him packed up with a strap and for together and that makes it really nice big bright strip box by itself rule nice soft for one kind of one light typical light so one of the option to be able to separate them maybe just use one two or three or two here and two here so that's why I left them separate but if you knew you were just going to stick with the ring light go ahead and wire mall into wine makes a lot easier it does not get on there I think this track it's configured okay, so I'm just putting an angle bracket on here I need to find the right one still that one that's up there I don't even know if I like that one either missing one bracket and we see an angle bracket lane room let's try a mystery with this no justice brackett doesn't like this particular like stands big isn't gonna work fine we'll make it work we're d I y did it okay caitlin if you could come on back out here and we're gonna lift and separate ready turn this that's big it's going to go into your thingamajig on that side so let go of your bottom way we're going to turn this whole thing around once we get it we'll face it to the cameras legacy we're doing here so far and just plop that in there and tighten it up okay, so there is your there's your dealio hi uh that the cases were so good to grab this side caitlin we're gonna do a one eighty on this sucker you go that way I'll go this way and we'll start plugging in these air super heavy you know that crazy is extension cords ever going to find a place to plunge into a big old fat ese but they weren't that's right? All right, so how much of this of the lights can be dropped on this to do here you drop a little bit trapped little of the overheads all right? So you have a you have a ring light now I mean there's no hard and fast rule ondas faras like where to use how to set up but generally what we're looking for is that kind of cool catch light around the eyes it's going create it just too soft wrapping lighter on the face you could even do some full length kind of things we're going experiment moving it traditionally a ring light when it's a small bring light you could move the person against the background you get that sort of soft shadow all around the body which is kind of the distinguishing mark of the ring light you know, whereas this one is more about the actual light that it does on the on her face so come on out again lovely daniella and pop you in there okay, so let's see if we want to go up or down on this thing caitlin, if you could help me with six turned this one ensuring that one we're gonna raise this up just a wee bit so that she's kind of right in the middle of the whole thing way go up, we get a rate good night, okay? So now since we're going pretty much existing light don't need the flash and my I so shutter speed could be whatever I want so that I get nice exposure so right now I'm a little bit under it that speed you want to go to their trunk, my shutter speed myself a little bit that you're ready for the zombie hand the killer catch light in her eyes and that's soft gorgeous light around her. Um that's really cool. Just open this back up again here, my son. So it zen interesting light and the because it's bigger light, she could be further away and have that so that mohr the further away I get, the smaller that circle is going to be in her eye. If I get even closer, it gets further away. Um, what the background was we want to add something to the background. Not maybe a flashlight in the background kind of lead. Yeah. There you go. You get cleaning and that's. Perfect. Beautiful chin up justice much. Yeah. Beautiful. Well, she's the one I brought thing on me, I love it. So let's throw in a little background light behind her with a flashlight to complement our bring light. So you want to be the back ground light maker one of you it was at this thing like that right now. Kind of tell you where we're gonna position that. So we want to just get a little bit of glow right behind her head. Actually, no, I do let's do this. If you shoot it from down kind of make a little beam across, we're gonna come down fired up and kind of like that, okay? I could replace her with a twisty tie, but might make her feel valuable and let her let her do it. You're replaceable by a twist tie, just so you know. Okay, little lower lower on it and lower and that's. Okay, cool little glow behind her separates her from the background. Um, bashar, beautiful. Like now again, if you if you have somebody who has a really wide face to be in with er may not be the best life forms, that kind of tends to flatten them out a little bit. But she's got nice cheekbones, structure. We've been makeup to kind of give her a little more, um, cheek definition. So it's kind of one thing when you're using a ring light he's got fashion, beauty light, you have to pay attention to the makeup to make sure that, you know you've got to find cheekbone newsom shadowing around the sides otherwise it content to really make a facebook flat, you know, just wide. Okay, so that looks cool. We need let's do one more flashlights, so don't don't forget what you digs. That was good either one of you come on down, we're gonna flashlight her some more, this was going to go on the hair, ok? But when a zoom it such just on her hair and coming from there trying to let it spill onto her face we just went on the air so you'd have to move back to so we get there no more okay uh don't quite say turn your chin this way the hunt this week jin that way way good aim it up back of her head I'm not quite seeing it so towards me the light about here light there we go that's it okay background like girl gold a bit lower yeah right there good set up just like that you have the low in the background light ok cool so now we've got a little edge light coming across little hair light little background light all pulling together in one so my camera is white balancing for her right so we got her pre will white balance and that's why those are trained to go little blue they are a little bluer so if you are a measure these this light is rated at four thousand k she has understand out there four thousand k daylight fifty five hundred k thereabouts tungsten like household lamps is about thirty four hundred k so these air four thousand k so somewhere in the middle towards daylight but still little warm which is really nice I love the color temperature in this on those lights would be brighter there's probably fifty five six thousand k so if you were to use them, you'd have to either white balance for that or put a little jill on it I don't know exactly that's kind of why I'm guessing just by looking so they're little they're about bright is like bright sun outside in the shade a little bit so that's why they come out bluer compared to this because the cameras white balancing for the majority of the shot here and there's those because of their it's a warmer white balance or turning out little blue okay so pretty like the love the lights coming close to the eyes it's just right there yeah kind of lean forward turn up keep that black behind her a little bit more that's little bit hitting her face that kind of move backed was hitting her hair you know what let's come on this site because she got more here on the side of her head and maybe better okay towards me there you go perfectly written relax, everybody all right, get those fancy eyelashes. Okay? Awesome. All right, so there's your your ring light in a nutshell um this we can do a full length and weaken let's actually pull this up against the grey seamless and just kind of see what we get we're gonna have her actual stand right up next to those seamless and somebody can grab this side of the light here caitlin won with me we're gonna lift well, we're not gonna lift that easily. They're your safety good, good thinking thinking of safety it was from joe roberts photography when you move her back does it eliminate the ring in her eyes completely? So if you had kept the square ring uh okay, let's try this show you won't eliminate it completely better get small enough for that. You probably wouldn't I know it, but you're also going to lose that soft quality of the light but look at the shadow it's kind of interesting robot shadow that's kind of cool. Okay, so here's typically if you see the shadow around here I mean, you guys conceded on women shouting it but you've got a shadow all the around her which is kind of interesting and that's kind of the style of ring lights when it's up closer get softer um so the light is not quite as soft as it was, but it's still fairly flat even around here so we can actually shoot like that we can see there's a little tiny but many square in the center of her eyes now because of that so let's go ahead and try shot just like that and I say it's cute okay, so now my exposure is going to change that move the light quite a bit away I'm going to open that up just a little okay, so we lose a little bit of money open a little bit more I think lose a little bit of softness but you're like a robot shadow around her nice there you so you see this funky kind of shadows so this I don't know it could be interesting to be different but really to me the best use of this is the the head and shoulders up close because that's when it does that really crew groovy catch light to something different that you look and you go wow, your eyes just pop out you know? So this distance the you're going to lose some of even if I went for a close up actually the eyes looked pretty cool like that to their smaller dots do you raise your one eyebrow? I know you had to go in there though just for comparison just to see what the size of the dot compared to in her eyes compared to what it was before still is a nice cool little catch late just three different can you zoom in on the ice again kind of cool like that to a little times square does the square of the light was creating this the robot kind of shadow on the top? Yeah, because it's the shape of that fact we have, you know so far away wanted inside the square like that so it's it's really not a square shape it's it's mimicking her body but because these air long strips that screen those long lines around the edges like that I think you could do a whole series of robot stuff right here mr about ok, so let's just do a couple more I like the spring you closer for a head shot and maybe we could bring ah, a little apple crate for her to sit on their that great pop that up a little closer like where she was before twenty closer here on this that maybe sit off to the side and then turn in just a little bit. Okay, then flash lighters. Yeah that's good and kind of put one hand out underneath moving forward on twitter live that's great one thing's is doing its own dealio. Okay, so that you, uh, lane come on in this side we're gonna be more on her hair there background was good iss I'm not seeing too much under here, so move it. There we go right there sort of let your mouth kind of separated realize beautiful. So if we wanted to white balance this and I'll just pop this one into guys get you guys can relax thank you want to kind of take that real quick in here so we can kind of go into our develop module in light room and the white balance slider now we don't really have anything perfectly white toe white balance if I was to click on her dress we wouldn't have exact white white balance but it would get us pretty close okay still going to be slightly slightly off but actually is pretty pretty decent on the skin tones to keeps the background thing kind of blew um let's try some let's see, we can play with us for the preset where they want to run something on here best car ish into the creme vikram a marble okay, so I did a criminal the criminal takes some of the blue out and bring the face back down to creamy tones makes the blue go even bluer on that we take my exposure down just to we little bit highlights down just to a little bit okay, and then I'll go in with my digital fill flash I'm just going to go just do a little bit digital fill flash bang her hair because that had its much contrast there and it's bringing up with more than highlights in the hair and then I'll run my softy filter the selective adjustment brush ok, maybe that yesterday okay kevin sagebrush hit new top right boom choose skin powder and those of you are asking like how do you make your own skin powder brush here's here's how you do it settings air right there, ok, so basically what I did was I took down my contrast minus forty nine took down my clarity all the way and the sharpness all the way and that becomes the settings for skin powder and then when you're applying it, you could save that as a preset by going to right click save current settings as a new preset but skin powder and then make sure that your flow is down about twenty or so down low density of two hundred zoom back out and then we can start painting here there's another trick to on the zoom thing love times if you just click plus or minus sorry command, plus or minus you can zoom in or out, but it always assumes between the two preset settings in the top left so fit and phil. But if you want to change that, so you always zoom between, say, one to two and fit and all you do is click those and now it'll doom between those two when you do your command plus or minus so zoom in just a little bit less so we could do some skin powder on her face did it? Tio dio ke brush skin powder to get on the face? Soften things up just tweeted a bit, all right, so base we're taking down a little bit of the shiny if there's someone who had a little bit of pores and stuff like that, we that would soften them out he's not a poor e kind of person, so we're good there I'm just generally buffing everything out, adding a little extra powder onto that then we have a nice, nice smooth face ok, so there's the final tweak on that one we basically we didn't we changed the color balance a little bit after applying a preset that boosted the boot blues and illuminated the orange yellow tones and that preset and gave it more contrast and punch and then that changed that made this bluer made her face or ngo white yellow er so just backed off the color balance made her face more normal, but I still have that nice washed out kind of contrast he feels in the cooler catch light in her eyes and she looks a lovelier okay questions good cabin you guys like room questions or things like that we get in there nixon's would say. Well, just for one person who question that came in was about they already purchased the class and they're wondering where they could find that book that we keep talking about that has all the materials listen everything that's right on the course page eso when you do own that class of songs you're logged in but you couldn't find that scroll down the page download that pdf I love that you have all the links in there yeah, just as many links to all the gadgets and tools and things so there's spent a lot of time just creating links to where you can find those either being h photo amazon more friends at the hardware store just kind of part numbers and things so if you want to do exactly what I'm doing, you can pretty much do it with the information that's in there or is it as a jumping off point to your own projects? Absolutely s o we have a lot of great ideas that keep coming into could you make crazy shaped bring like lights like maybe a star or an octagon by the's ella led strips so not limited to a square, right? Not at all yeah, your imaginations the limit but the kind of their thing I want you to start thinking about is that you'll see these led lamps everywhere and some of them are powerful enough and bright enough like this to be totally used for photographic tools. Onda also thinking about this different sizes it was a good question about can use a smaller one if we had one that was about this size about half this size into a square we have more of a traditional bring light little tighter and that would be awesome to create a little different type of shadows of different softness to it so experiment, play. You're going to find some fun things. The light with what you especially. The ladies have come such a long way that they really are bright and clean now, and the low power meaning you can. I could plug this whole set up into a little power battery pack like that, and probably run it for several hours out in the field. That's. Such a low power draw.