Lessons
Class Introduction
09:19 2Language and Properties Of Light
07:59 3Position Of Light
04:43 4Terminology
03:10 5Science Of Light
16:47 6Dynamic Range
05:49 7Golden Hour
00:47 8Reflectors
01:22TTL Metering
10:47 10Studio Equipment
07:46 11Softbox vs. Umbrellas
02:17 12Intro To Flash Photography
12:41 13Color Balance
02:29 14Dragging the Shutter and High Speed Sync
05:22 15Light Metering
07:53 16Studio Strobe Science
05:30 17Three Light Setup
05:40 18Low of Reflection
03:18 19Understanding Histograms Part 1
04:42Lesson Info
Class Introduction
we are going to be talking first about the principles of light. So things like the properties of light, hard, light, soft light, the direction of light, that kind of stuff we're going to talk a little bit about the color of lights on how that's different in the color of prints and reflected light and, uh, projected light and all that kind of stuff. And then also, we're gonna be talking about the science of light. So there is some science involved in all this stuff. So if you're like, I'm really bad at math, but that's OK, we'll walk you through. We're gonna be talking about photons and photo sites and chromatic aberration and wavelengths, and I kind of crazy stuff you're thinking. Why do I need to know that I'm shooting babies? Trust me, it'll be a good We're also gonna be working with natural light. We're gonna be working with speed. Who is the speed lights person once in the speed of light speed. Okay, Speed lights, by the way, are there not complicated, But they're really sort of co...
mplicated, and we're going to start, we're going to natural light first. Then we're gonna go and we're gonna be working with speed lights, and then we're gonna be working with studio strobes, and we're gonna mix speed lights and ambient light and studio strobes and ambient light speed lights and studio strips s We're gonna be doing all that kind of stuff and then we're gonna apply these things. So what we're trying to do here, we're going to try to understand light. We're gonna try to modify the light, we're gonna try to control it, and we're gonna capture it. So that's that's all about this workshop in what we're doing carefully See light. You can't. Is this sort of floating around there? What we can see, though, is, um, we can see the shadows. And so I need to start us off by talking about the shadow, because that's what we can see. When we look at the floor, we look at the wall, we can see how light falls in the shadows are going to tell us all about the qualities of light. So when you have a shadow, Okay, let's say this is a shadow, and it's totally jet black, right? That's the shadow are what we really are concerned about. When we're talking about. The quality of light is this edge right here. This edge is gonna tell us everything about our light. And so if we have a shadow and it just stops and then we have no shadow, Um, that is what's called hard light, very hard light. And this has no transition area. If we have light, that is a little bit softer. What happens is this shadow doesn't just stop. There's a new area where this shadow fades out and so you can have, ah, shadow that stops that has a little bit of transition area. You could have a shadow that just has no hard line. It just sort of fades out over time. But the length and how this fades out is how we can describe light is being hard or soft or diffused or not. In fact, if you look sort of at my hand, don't know if we can get this. If you look at my hand, look how the shadow changes on the white board as I move it closer and farther away. So I'm really close. You can see a clear line when I go far away. It starts to get fuzzy. And why does that shadow change based on the distance, we're gonna learn about that. The other thing that we want to know about are the highlights speculator highlights specifically on. And it's really difficult for me to describe this or to draw on a white board. In fact, even this is really inadequate for me to explain what happens. But what we're gonna be talking about is the size and the shape of light and how that affects this thing called a speculum highlight. A speculum highlight. By the way, it's just a reflection. Having seen on my shoes or my eyes, it's a reflection of the source of light. And so we can change those reflections to make something more pleasing or less pleasing based on what we want to do. But to show this and for me to dry, it really isn't going to work. And so we're gonna do is we're gonna do a little exercise here. And John Cornyn. John, we haven't introduced you yet. Come out here. Everybody knows who John is. This is John Cornyn. Hello. Nice to see you again. Um So John's gonna help me out. What we're gonna do here is we're gonna set up this sort of creepy, um, statue will have this creepy statue thinking, um, it's a perfect 10. We're going to set this up, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna start working with different types of light so we can show this. So this guy is here, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna sort of walk through this and Awesome. So this light right here, By the way, this is called a friend l Light, and later we'll be describing why it's called for now and what that all is. But if you try to rent it, it's spelled Fresno F r E s E l. But it's pronounced for Anel because it's French. So it's the same kind of lens that lighthouses use. It's all chopped up. Okay, so what we're gonna be doing here is we're gonna be talking about the properties of light, and we're gonna be also talking about speculate highlights the direction of light and all kinds of different things. All on this creepy, um, number 10 body here. This is really cool. So one of the things that we have to understand is the qualities of light in the direction of light. And so we're gonna be doing here, is we're gonna start, and we're gonna emulate this with this camera here. We ready to go? Yeah. OK, so now we can see this when we're on access with our when our cameras on access with our light. What happens is notice that there are no really shadows from side to side on this mannequin thing. Here, it's what we call flat light. The light is evenly distributed from side to side. If we go from our camera being in position with where the light is and this could be the sun, it could be a studio strobe or whatever. And we come to the side what happens, and we're gonna have this camera here to decide what happens instead of having flat light all the sudden. Now we start to see that shadows are showing up and we can see on here because the light is hitting this side. We've got a lot of light on this side, and we can see this light sort of falling off to the back. But notice something here. This shadow right here is clean and crisp. It's a very, very crisp shadow. And so what that means is this light because there's no transition area in this shadow. We're gonna talk little bit more about the shadows in a second. But as we come around and we change our position of light, we'll come over here. What happens is if we look down like this and we look up toward this light here, what we're seeing is a silhouette of of this mannequin thing here, and it's really, really difficult to see it cause that lights coming straight into my eyes. If I just put my, uh, my hand over my eyes like this like I'm driving into the sun all the sudden it becomes crystal clear. We're going to see if we can do this with the camera here. So you work awesome. So this is low contrast light with silhouette. And by putting something to block that light on our camera's lens, we all of a sudden get ignites Clear picture. So this perfect, we got it. All right, so a couple more things and we actually have you guys come in and look at this because I want you to see it for yourselves. Another thing that I want to show you is on the back of this mannequin here. Notice that we can still see this mannequin. We can still see something. And the question is, how is that possible? Because all of the light is coming from this side. So how is like getting to the back of this mannequin and answer to that is it's this floor right here. So tons of lightest is falling off this floor and it's bouncing up. And that's how we can see the back of this. If this was, Ah, pitch black floor or there's nothing here, What we would see is ah much more distinct transition between the light and the shadow because we wouldn't have anything that's reflecting. The important thing to understand is that your environment is really going to affect your light. Okay, so we have that the other thing I want to show you, and we're gonna we're gonna look at the floor here, but notice how the shadows on the floor change. So these channels that air close notice how they have a really crisp clear line right here. This is a really crisp clear line, but as we go forward out here. Noticed. This shadow here has this big transition area. Why is that? How come that has a big transitionary and notice. Also, my finger has a crisp, clear line with this shadow. Dozens. So how come these two shadows in the same place have two different shapes? They shouldn't. But they do. Why is that? Well, the reason is this light over here when it shines on this object right here, the shadows right behind this object there is No, it's This object is so close to this. There's no, um you guys can hop up right now and actually come see this so you can see it to come in and stand may be on this side over here. Well, have you walk around and see this? We'll see how this this shadow here very, very crisp. Right? The shadow over here not so crisp has a big transition area. The reason for that is this shadow here. Uh, this light is hitting this object, and there's really no way for any light to get around in here. So this this shadow is surviving all by itself because there's no way for light to get into this space. But down here, what's happening is this light is actually wrapping around this. And so the farther it gets from the object, the more light that's spilling around that and the more that light is starting to affect these shadows.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase