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Soft Light vs Hard Light

Let's go get into my mind. How am I going to solve this puzzle? How am I going to take this picture? What am I thinking? And let's go through the exact steps. So here we are, in Hawaii. There was a huge mountain and there was light coming in over this mountain. And of course, what? Creating shade or shadow. So therefore, where my subjects were, they were darker. Ah, Then the clouds right in the background. So the first step you do is you need to determine your background exposure. And by that, what I mean is just see these clouds up here. Ah, you. I need to set that in my camera. Why? Because I don't think my flash can fire five miles away and light up those clouds. I don't think any flash in the world can do that. So if I want those clouds scene, I have to have them seen in my cameras. That not correct. So I have to expose for those clouds the way I want it. Right. So I determined that I liked this at F four eso 100 at 1/60 of a second. Okay. You might want it darker. You might be at ...

f 56 I don't know. It's up to you, or you might want a brighter I don't know. You're in control. It's your vision. But this is how I there's no right or wrong to this, okay? And so I saw these clouds here at F four s, a 100 at 1/60. Okay, so that's my background. So once I set my camera for that, those clouds look perfectly exposed. But what did my subjects look like being in the shade? They were what? They were dark, right? They were under exposed. Okay, Does that make sense to you? Because this area is darker than the clouds. If I'm earing for the clouds, that means that this is gonna be darker. Is that not correct? So to make this exposure match, I have to give f four I s o worth of light on my subjects. Does that make sense? I have to match the exposure. Okay, So what will I do? Well, how'd Oh, I know what f four? I s 0 100 with the light is well, you go to the handy dandy chart and it tells you you just line it up, okay? I'm s 0 100 f. For what? Flash power Does it tell me to set it at 1/16 power. So I go over to my flash. I set that on 1/16 power, which is Ah, three lights on my flash. All right. I have my subjects say they're here. I go about six feet away here, right? And I fire my shot and damn there, it iss okay. And let's say you fire the shot and it's a little bit too dark. Okay? Like who? I almost got it right. Ah, it looks like, um, this person maybe is a little bit further away and I didn't come. I need to compensate for that a little bit. I need toe. I need to get a little bit more light in there. What is the best way to exposed these properly and add more light? I talked about four ways to control the flash. Right. But what are the best ways to do it in this scenario? Aperture wrong. Why do I say it's wrong? What happens when you change? Your aperture changed. I changed the background. So therefore, if I change this then I got to reconfigure all that and it's a big, hot mess. It's like Oh, gosh, right. So what are other ways that I can control my flash without changing my aperture or my I s O Cause once I change, those two is going to change my background that correct? Yes, distance. I just find, too, that light in by distance. Also, I can change the quality of life of how much shadow I want on the subject. So let's say the cameras here and I'm firing the flash here. It's not going to give me as much shadow as if the flash was over off to the side. Get it? So the mawr, the light is off to the side. The mawr shadow I can create on my subjects. Okay. And when I review, um, portfolios and people are using flash, the number one mistake that I see is that they don't get that light off to the side more. And I don't see enough shadow on the subject because, you know, in the end, in the real world, this world is lit by what the sun. One huge off camera light source. So a lot of times We're used to seeing shadow and brightness and highlights and things like that. And so when we see shadows in the background and then we don't see shadows on the person, then the highlights don't match and it doesn't look believable. Okay, so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to match the the contrast between shadow and brightness just like those clouds back there. So if there's no shadow on my subject But then I look at the clouds over there and I see highlight and I see highlights and darkness doesn't look believable because there's a mixed lighting situation there. So I'm always trying to match, delighting to my environment to make it look believable. This is also going to help with your post processing to when you know about lighting, because you'll know how to highlight things and how to shade things with a better understanding of life. Okay, lets say you okay, this is this is what we're going to regress like I need you work really hard, and now we're gonna take a little break. Okay? Now let's pretend you're a natural like shooter, okay? And I'm gonna teach you how to use flash right away by just being a natural light shooter. Okay, so for example, let's do this. Let's pretend we're taking this shot. So what I did was I placed my subject in an area where there's good natural light, which was a stairway. Okay. And so that light was funneling in, and that's there was a way was acting like a huge soft box and I got some nice light on my subject. How do I know? I got nice light. I could see some beautiful catch lights in her eyes. I go where? Bingo. This is a great place. So I said are there and I metered my camera as normal. The only reek Arment Waas is I can't my shutter speed below 1 2/100 of a second. Why is that right? Because that way my camera will be in sync with my flash if I happen if I use it. Okay. So what I do is I'm just meet Oring as normal, okay? And then I'm adding a flash in the back. Would you put that flash power in the back? Scott, whatever your vision is seriously, it won't even matter whether you put it on 1 64th power or full. Why? Because you've already made meter the main light, the main Like you already metered in your camera that back, like coming in. It's just extra sauce band. It's just whatever it could be Bright sun or a little bit of sun. You're in control of that. In this particular case, I put a blue gel on the flash behind because I wanted to make it look blue. So let's go to that diagram. Right? So what I did was this. Look at my camera settings here. I'm gonna show my camera settings. Whatever gave that that the exposure for this subject? I said 63 1/40 of a second. And I s a 100. That was perfectly metered for her natural light. Okay, I just added a flash in the back with a blue jail, and I can't even remember what I put that sucker out. I could I would probably say started at 16 power. Just knowing me. You can change. You could be half power If you want more that light in or you could be less that it's up to you. You're in control here. This is the fun part about it. You just meet her is normal, and then you just add that we're going to do that later today and just go crazy. Whatever you want to do, right, and you'll see that it really won't matter. It's just your own personal taste, okay? And this is kind of opposite of what we were taught. Traditionally, you know, with ratios And how much flash and whatever I'm saying, throw those rules away. Um, and as long as you get your main light right, whatever you want behind is your own thing. Make it your own. Okay, so let's look at some other examples here. Let's look at this example here, which is actually that guy over there in that post or two. So this is great. Okay, So what did I do? I metered him as normal. I put him in this doorway and you could see the sunlight coming through this door. Lightweight, creating a nice, huge soft box given me. What? Why is it good luck? Do you see catch lights in the guy's eyes? Very pointing to his catch lights here in his eyes. Right. And then I meet her for it and I told me that F at 1/50 of a second and I s 0 200 would give me the perfect light to expose him. Okay. And there was light coming from behind. And what I notice is what I always love is that EJ life. Now I'm gonna be pointing to the outline of my subject here. See that edge light? They're in here. I love that little separation in there. Okay, I wasn't getting that. That light behind him wasn't strong enough to give me that edge light. But that was my vision. My vision was I want ej light. So let me create that edge. Like so what I did was have my assistant stand behind this door with a on a mono pod holding the flash. And what I did was I put a orange gel on it to kind of give it an orange feel, and I just fired it behind my subject to give me that edge light. Okay. And it didn't matter what power it was at. Its just according to your taste, whatever that edge is that you want. But because the main light was already metered in your camera correctly makes sense. Any questions? Okay, good. Let's look at this situation here. Okay. Ah, Do you see Catch lights in their eyes? Beauty. Okay, right. So what was happening here was there was an overhang, and that soft light was coming in. Uh, if you could see the diagram over here was coming in and giving them beautiful catch lights in their eyes, OK? And what I did was I wanted to make it seem like sun was setting behind them. It wasn't There was no sun there. It was flat. But as you can see, I had a flash right here. And you can tell that I don't photo shop that well because I should have put I've should have took that stick out. But I leave it in there because it is great. Demonstration Ah, diagram. And there's the mono pod with my flash on it with the C t o gel orange gel coloring, my light pretending it was the sun. You thought it was the sun. Right? But it wasn't. But that was my vision for this photo. I was able to create it very easily. So you can all do that right with So if you want to start using flash right away, you condone this is a fun way to do it without even thinking and just having fun with it. You know, forget the darn guide numbers like, Oh, that's confusing me. Right now. I just want to go out and use flash and have fun right now. Okay, so this is way to do it. Start using your flash getting used to it and seeing the effects of it. Experiment and have fun. Let's talk about photographing rain. How do you photograph rain, or how do you photograph smoke? It's kind of the same thing. And the key to doing that is to get the light from behind. Okay, that's the only way that you're going to see those raindrops is when you have a back lit or side lit. Okay, so if you want to show water, don't light it from the front, you won't see it. That's kind of like going out in the rain, and you want to take a picture of the rain. That's why you've never seen the rain in your shots because you think I looked through my flash on you can see it the only way you're going to see it is if you get the light from BEHI. So let's say you had a beautiful venue, okay? And there's a beautiful water fountain there. And you want to see that water? Position yourself so that the sun is shining behind that waterfall and then you can see it. What happens if you don't have the sun? Use a flash, light it from behind. Do whatever. Right? So you have in this the same thing with smoke. If you want to see smoke or you want to see say, get that light behind. This is what we did. This is a workshop I did in Japan and we were in Kyoto and they had we were in this place. They had beautiful bamboo trees. I don't know if you've seen one of my photos where I have this, Uh oh. I was Hey, I was there with Matthew Jordan Smith. You've had Matthew here, right? So we did a workshop together in Japan. Right? And we had so much fun. I mean, we were there for hours. It's started toe pour rain, but we were having so much fun we didn't want to leave, right? So for an hour we were like going at it and was like, Hey, let's photograph in the rain. And so we had this idea, Ah, photographing in the rain. And so what we did was we used the video light as her main light. Okay, lighting her up with the video light. And then we took a flash from behind and just fired that. Now, if you look at a lot of people's different photos from that workshop, it's gonna look different because everybody have different tastes on how much back life a person wanted back there. That's just my interpretation, but it's whatever you want. But because of that backlight, if I go back to this photo, so what? You see those droplets of rain there? So that wasn't a texture. Anything that was like the real thing in camera. Okay, so that's how you photograph frame. Okay, let's go on to difficulties with Flash. Let's explain the reasons why Sometimes we just hate flash. Okay, One, it is a very harsh life. Harsh light comes from a source that is very small. When the light source is very small, is going to create very harsh like. Now. Look, look at these studio lights in here. Look how huge they are. That's why we're lit so well is because it's a big light source. Will this flash? It is very small. The area that it comes out is very small, so it's going to create very sharp shadows. Okay? And so the reason why we don't like it necessarily endures is because indoors were a lot of times we are in a soft shadow, soft light situation. How do you know it's soft light? Use any harsh shadows on the ground anywhere. Hard to see any. Right? So we're in a soft light situation and then I use hard light. It doesn't look believable. So you want to match the environment? We're in soft light. I want to create self life. But my flash is hard. What do you do? There's what you call diffusers out there to diffuse the light to make it softer and so small source. You can use a simple shoot through umbrella and this particular umbrella that I love using. So all the photos that you see me do if if if I diffuse the light, it was just with this simple $20 shoot through umbrella. Okay, So what happens? Is this What happens when you shine this flash through that umbrella that entire umbrella lights up in? It acts now as your light source, making it 100 times larger. For example, I'm gonna fire this flash and tell me if you see the entire umbrella lighting up. You see that, right? So now instead of this small source, this this becomes the source size now, which is larger, the larger the source, the softer the light. Okay, The higher quality of light large sources create softer light. Okay, but there's a cost. We make the light quality better. But what do we lose? Does anybody know way lose power? The big question is how much power do we lives? Anybody know if you don't take my class? He didn't take my class before we lose about two stops. Okay, So that's why it's important for us to understand stops and know that because when we diffuse the light, we now know that my flash is four times less powerful. I made higher quality light, but I also decreased the light power by two stops. Okay, there's a reason why I use a shoot through umbrella and they ah, people ask. Well, Scott, there's tons of diffusers out there. Um, what's uses? Soft box. Anybody? If you have any of you have a soft box. Okay, great. How long does it take you to set up that soft box? Five minutes, Right. How long does it take me to set up my umbrella? I'm done. Ready. Second. Okay. This is very important speed to me. Why? Because I'm photographing a bride at the Eiffel Tower. Okay? And I've got one minute to photograph for, because why? The security guard is running after me gonna shut me down. I do not have five minutes to set up this. It's very portable, and it's quick, and it's easy. And I'm not saying a soft box is not good. They're great. They're amazing. But for how I shoot on location to me, I can use this umbrella and pretty much get away with everything. So all the photos that you've seen were all done with just this umbrella. All right. So, reason why like this, it's inexpensive. Okay, Forget it. Lose it somewhere. Okay. Who cares? 20 bucks, right? It's no, not a big deal. It packs down very small. Um, and if it does happen to rain, right, just set up. OK, so that's why I like this. Okay, um, extremely fast set up. Right? And as you can see, the big question is Oh, I get this all the time. Ah, Which way did you do shoot through it this way or to reflect the light back out that way? They don't really matter. It's about the same. There's a different qualities. Um, I would say when you reflect the light back, it acts more like a soft box, I guess. And when you shoot through it, it disperses the light, Maura at all angles. So you tend toe, get harsher shadows. Actually, when you shoot through it because the light is being too fracked it out this way. Whereas if you were to shoot as reflective, right, So if I'm shooting through here, See, this is curved. That not correct. So the lightest firing Here, here, here, here, here, Off to the site. Now let's say I'm firing reflective. Okay, So the flashes hitting here and then bouncing back as one mass at you and it acts more like a wall of light coming at you