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
Language and Properties Of Light
this light is very, very small. See how small that is? Very, very small light source because it's very small, but we talked about before. It can't really wrap around the subject because it can't wrap around the subject. What's happening is we get these hard lines. So that's why that's how hard life is created. It's a very small light that can't surround it. Subject and kill the shadows. Now what we're gonna do here, we're gonna take this light, and we're gonna need to show this really close on cameras. Well, so now this light, what we have on here, this is called a soft box. Don't worry too much about what a soft box is yet we're going Teoh. We're gonna spend quite a bit of time talking about light modifiers. This would be the equivalent of a cloudy day. So what's happening with the light that we showed you? Originally, we have very directional light. In other words, that light is coming out of the lamp. It's going straight forward. It's hitting the subject because it's going straight ...
for when it hits the subject. There's no light that can spill in unless it bounces off something So we get those really, really hard shadows with this light. What's happening is I noticed the difference in size, and John can remove this right next to this. Like there's a difference in size between this light and this guy here. So this guy here is what, maybe five inches wide, four inches wide. Very, very small. Yeah, very, very small light source. The, uh this guy right here is about a foot and 1/2 2 feet, and so this is much larger than that. This light is just this really small thing. So what this means on also because this has this material in front. The light isn't just coming straight out. It's coming out and scattering everywhere. So when it scatters, that's called diffused Light is being diffused. So it happens is when we put this toward her subject. This light is sort of hugging, are subject. So we have light coming on each side of this subject. So we've got light coming over here. We have light coming over here because this is sort of large. That light is wrapping around. And what we can do is we can make this light even larger in relationship to our subject by just moving it. And so what I want to show you if we can get this right here, this shadow, what's what happens to the shadow when we move this light back and forth? We haven't really close. Noticed. The light is wrapping around and it's killing all these shadows. So John, move that back. Keep going back a little bit. Keep going. That's good right there. Notice now when we move that back, the shadow is much more pronounced. And then, John, let's move that back. About three or four more feet. Keep going. Yeah. There you go. Now look at this. This looks very similar now to the light we started with. It's crazy. So what's happening is this light. The closer it becomes, the larger it becomes in relationship to the subject. And the more that light can wrap around the farther away it goes, the less that light can wrap around and the harder the light gets. So this we need to understand. Something called speculator highlights. What are speculate. Highlights. Spectator highlights are the opposite of shadows. Speculator highlights are the reflections of the sources of our light and so on this. This is a very, uh, shiny object we call shining object speculator objects. And the reason we call them speculative is because you can see the reflections much more easily than you can if you had something like this Stool. That stool is not speculator, cause that you can't really see the sources of light in this to see the difference in this and this very shiny, not very shiny. This is speculator. This is not speculate. So in this, what will show you when I bring this guy a little bit closer? And the nice thing about speculate highlights is they change based on location. So what you guys are seeing is different from what I'm seeing. And it's different from this camera seeing and what that camera seeing. So we're all getting a different look at this and so all sort of stand over here. This is what we can see. A little reflections in this from our sources of light. And as we change that source of light, I'll move it around to the front here we can see the shape of that thing. So now can you see the shape of this from your camera position right here. You can see this big shape of light, and if you can't, you might need to move a little bit. But those speculate highlights are important because they define the shape of the object. And they also define the kind of light that we're seeing usually importer photography. The speculate highlights of the catch lights also called are either square or round. And ah, lot of people, uh, I would say are opposed to round two square. Speculate highlights in the eyes catch lights. And the reason for that is in nature. Everything that we see is around the sun is round, etcetera, etcetera. But start looking at reflections in people's eyes and you're going to see two things. You're going to see the shape you're going to see the size so really, really small catch lights in eyes would indicate that you have a really small light source that would indicate that you have harder light. When you have a larger light source, you're going to see larger catch lights, and the closer that light is to the subject of bigger. Those catch lights are gonna be so when you start to see those things those air giveaways when you start looking through photos that inspire you to figure out how they let them. In this diagram, the camera is directly in front of our model. If we add a light behind the camera, it's called front light because the light is hitting the front of our model just like our camera. Both the camera and the light are in front of the model. We can change the direction of our light by moving it in relationship to our camera. This is called side light, because the light has moved to the side of our model in relationship to our camera. In this scenario, the light is now 90 degrees away from our camera. When we move our light behind our model, we create what is known as back light. Because the light is behind our model in relationship to our camera. We can also change the direction of our light by moving the position of our camera. In this set up, we can move our camera closer to our light, and the light that was backlight becomes sidelight because the position of our light in relationship to our camera has changed from 180 degrees to 90 degrees. If we continue moving our camera closer to the light, the sidelight becomes front light because the position of the light in relationship to the camera changes from 90 degrees to zero. Contrast is an important term to understand. Contrast is the difference between the darkest and lightest areas in a photograph. The greater the difference, the higher the contrast. We can change the contrast in our images by changing the direction of light. Let's take a look at the position of our lights again. In this set up, we have front light. Front light creates very low contrast photos because the light is the same on both sides of our model's face. There is no significant change from the brightest and darkest areas. Sidelight creates higher contrast photos. Because one side of our model is illuminated and the other side falls into darkness, there is a significant difference in the brightest and darkest areas of our subject. Backlight creates maximum contrast, the subject becomes a silhouette, and the difference between the brightest and darkest areas are at their greatest. In addition to changing contrast by moving our lights horizontally around our subject, we can move lights vertically as well. Here are examples of lights place low, medium and high in relationship to our camera.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase