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Lesson Info

Let's Talk About Lighting

Let's talk a little bit about lighting and about creating images really from nothing so one location ten minutes for the whole sequence to be shot uh different results and results that may be a little bit unexpected so in the old days when we were shooting film your rule of thumb wass the son needs to be behind you shining into the subject's face now why does that need to happen it's because you are going to get correct exposure that's pretty much about it it is going to be a horrible image you've got the bride or your subject this is not only about weddings is about anything you've got two subjects squinting into the light um you've got these big panda I kind of effect over herewith recognize like super dark it's you've got a strong highlights strong shadows and you've got midterms so in terms of your in terms of your history graham in your exposure spot on but it's just not great lighting so what you could do uh collapsible reflector is very, very cool this is this is uh I've only ju...

st received this probably six months ago I started using these about six months ago and the cool thing about them on you'll see that on the next slide I'm using a really great big scream but you don't have to use that you could use one of these because all I'm really doing is wanting to shade that diffuse the light so that the subject is on, you know, from here upwards so that I can create an image now, let's, just keep in mind that very first picture we saw dark shadows dark, so if we move on that there already I'm charging fifteen percent more twenty percent more as a photographer, because the difference between that first image and that image is oh, my gosh, it's amazing! But what is it, it's a it's, a it's, a scrim diffusing the light over her? Um, it is very flat lighting it's very much a great big giant soft box over her, so you don't have a huge amount ofthe contrast, but what you could do and I've got a slide a little later doesn't show this exactly, but because of the amazing the grip side of things I used teo, you'll see in the slides I've got the round one, a circular one as well, but you have to have two hands to hold that the cool thing about this one, you can hold it with one hand, so if you've got an assistant with two hands, which most assistants have, you can shave her with the one and bounce, you know, have the reflective surface on the other and bounce the light into her, so you got more shape and more texture to the to the side of the face and bringing in some contract because there's not too much contrast it's still a beautiful shot so if that's what you like cool girlfriend okay so what do we do now to combat that horrible lighting from the front these images were all short to ten o'clock in the morning the worst time off the day to go and shoot on the beach with all this you know a reflection coming off off the sand it's really not nice so what are we going to do now? We turn the bride around so she's backlit right bank take a shot she's a little dark in the front the there aren't many mid times she's dark in the front the back ground is light so it's a very high contrast image what we going to do here to compensate for that we there's a couple of ways that you can do that you can compensate for that on the top off your camera and on the cannons anybody here should cannon okay, you've got there dile that you can change your exposure value with on the nikon's the button is over here and what I just to talk about where the buttons are on your camera how many times do you have teo look at your buttons to know that your exposure value button is over there once so when you're shooting, you can look at the image and go, okay it's a little over exposed underexposed back up to their and change it on the fly changing day don't be like, because that just looks as if you don't have much confidence in your equipment, so I'm going to be like, okay, cool that's, beautiful, good. All right, good job. Okay. That's nice. If I look at that, I so kindly to change my eyes so bang, I just put my annoyed that my buttons over there it sounds a little it sounds a little extreme, but sit there watching tv and say, okay, I want to change from aptitude to manual let me see if I can do that without looking at the buttons it's kind of like an assess and putting his gun together so practice so you know where that is? Like, when you're driving a car, you know, the gear lever is over there, so, you know, get to know your camera so that it looks as if you're competent alone time and you're not like, okay, but that's just that's just brand awareness as well, but I noticed you used a captured pressure priority and most of time, when do you use menu I use manual when I'm shooting with flash when I'm shooting with the external flash, I'll shoot with it with manual you saw on the roof I shot with shutter priority as well so that my my shutter didn't exceed two fifty I even use programmer a cz well sometimes if you know if if I if I just quickly pick up the camera and I need to shoot something is happening over there bank taking on his priority mod party programme mode you can also change your appetite on price on program you can still go to two point eight and you've actually effectively changed it to appetite authority if you wanted to s o I shoot on all of the different modes I know that the people are so you only go to shoot on manual nikon cannon a ll the brand's they're not going to invest billions of dollars in creating these amazing light meeting systems if they don't work I wish you'd turn matrix like meeting system you saw how beautiful those those images where I didn't have to do anything I mean the camera equipment is so incredible these days you just pick it up and you fire away so I used epitope priority I used shutter priority and I used all of them the same as the white balance side of things you know use the different allocated programs of its cloudy shoot tony if it's sunny should sonny if you shooting with flash flash unless you want like, if you're a bit seedy, then going shoot on kelvin and just as you're doing so many people should order white balance it's like if you shooting one shot auto white balance is cool right now. Great background if you shooting from there, take a picture of me right now one shot or two white balance bang you look at anything, okay that's pretty cool, but I'm wearing a blue shirt. The camera is automatically going to see that blue shirt if you're on auto, white balance and it's going to give a little bit mohr yellow to compensate for the blue so my skin tone might be a little yellow you're going to come into the shot exactly the same lighting exactly the same place. No difference you wearing a red top auto white balance is going to see that red top and throw in some green to balance that rate on your skin tone is going to be green, my skin turns going to be yellow, so water white balance is fantastic for one shot. You know I'm not going to rely on auto white balance if I'm shooting all types of different image, I want a constant white balance for each scenario, so I'm going to monitor how my white balance changes, but if I'm shooting indoors with tungsten, I'll put it on tungsten and then I go outdoors and I'm shooting in the shade ill shouldn't shade because they won't speak camera cos weinstein billions off dollars creating all this technology and we don't use it or we shoot manual, you know? So yeah okay all right, so what you khun due to combat the fact that it's dark in the front and you don't have much detail it it's too much shadow you going teo use your exposure compensation button you press that button you're going up on your exposure compensation and with experience you will know how much to go up so I'll look at a scene and I go okay look atyou know on us okay? Well, the light's quite strong behind you maybe two thirds of a stopover well, maybe three stops over, you know, sometimes you know and if you've got a good glass you shooting with great glass seventy two, two hundred that two point eight the nick on version I can go on over exposed by three stops and I'm not going to get a ll this ghosting that that happens with inferior lenses, I'm going to get a crisp, beautiful shot with the backgrounds completely blown out, depending on lighting conditions mean people facebook me and email me all the time asking saying, you know, when you shot that shot, how many stops over are you it's about the ambient lighting conditions I can't tell you now to go and shoot but at a window and shoot two stops over depends on what's happening there at the time, so in this state, I look at that guy, I need to be about a stop over, so I'll go and shoot that a stopover, and now I've elevated the shadows to become midterms, and the and the mid times have become highlights, and the highlights are blown out now I don't care that the highlights have blown up because over there I've got a beautiful, ethereal shot with this amazing like wrapping around her and it's working it's in a great shot if she paid me thirty thousand dollars to go and take her pictures in barbados and I give her that she's like where's the beach, okay, it's not gonna work so you can if you're shooting in a dodgy area, which shouldn't happen because now we're targeting high inclines. If you're sitting in a dodgy aaron it's backlit you, khun, use that effect to blow whatever's out in the background. You know, you could end up with some some pretty cool images, but it's not a technique that you're going to use every single time, especially if you're in a great, beautiful location, okay, so what else can you do to compensate for that intense contrast? What you could do there is you bring in the collapsible reflector there you see we've got the uh the circular one and I'm just loving this uh try grip one so you bring this in yeah I have this and then I'm going to manipulate the light I'm gonna manipulate the light and then bounce in the mid times so depending on over there it's coming in from quite a low you can bounce them back in from quite high you can bounce him in from the side it really depends on the look that you want but over here basically now well if you look at that that image that was before the one with a blown out background dark in the front quite like in the background now I've bounced in the mid times there wasn't that sparkle in her eye I'm bouncing that back in but the problems sometimes with this kind of thing especially when it's bright sunny light you like oh that's a bit you know with the reflected that can be it can be a bit bright articulate to your clients say to them ok close your eyes pleasure and then you say right three two one open eyes as open eyes bang you've got your shot doesn't matter that two seconds later she's like whoa what was that about because you've got your shot so what a lot of people do is they will get a speed light to compensate for the hectic contrast on camera flesh speed lights on the camera great exposure I mean you exposure you're hitting it bang on isn't these mean it's tt all these things are super intelligent but compare that image to what we had earlier girls we don't like sign here it could it could I take that out in photo shop but I'm going to spend a lot of time taking it out and it's not it's not ideal what you could do is have your camera your flash off camera so either have them sink they speaking to each other or you could use a a t t l extension cord in an extension it's called iss it's c twenty nine extent you can get them for canada's well it allows you teo take your camera or flash and it's still tio I've got one and I use it for dancing so if I'm shooting the dancing I'm putting the flash up here and I'm bringing it in underneath here and I never have the flash on the camera when I'm shooting dancing it's always and I'm just creating some cool effects here and then this flash is talking to that flash my assistant's got it up on a pole and he's bringing in the backlighting and adding that third dimension but with that uh off camera flash you still have the issue a little bit with the highlight that the blowing out of the highlights but if you look at the shape it's a lot nicer you still have that sharper shadow and you can get like modifiers to get a little soft boxes for it it's fantastic they and they work I mean you guys all know joy mcnally he can produce some amazing work with speed lights for me it just doesn't look like I'm high end commercial photographer that's the kind of impression that I want to give I want to give the impression and I know exactly what I'm doing on this is this is a big deal and I'm bringing in the the flash equipment so upstairs we were using the ellen from ranger rx like I said one thousand two hundred watts off flash output they do make another one which is the quadra it's a lot lighter it's four hundred watt seconds in terms ofthe output for that which which works out to about eight times uh your your power of your speed light and you know when when we were shooting upstairs you can create images similar to that with speed lights but you really asking a lot off these little guys? You know if you're going be pushing out full power, you know, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty shots going to reduce the life span off your obvious be lights like they are going to overheat they not they were not intentionally built for that when they first made them you know, we've we've grown accustomed to manipulating them into being great tools for off camera flash and strobe ism and things like that, but they weren't they weren't made for that that's what these type of flashes were made for so we're on the beach now we've pretty much got the studio lighting going on on the beach and I have got perfect lights landing on her I'm in total control of the direction off the light the intensity of the latin what I've done here is I've balanced the flash with the ambient light, so the amount of like landing on her I've got beautiful shapes on her you can see that the sun is coming through at the back and just kissing her shoulder it's really, really nice light and I've got detail in the background she's not squinting because I'm pushing in the the reflector and you'll notice that they use the umbrella if I'm shooting on the fly it's a lot easier to use the umbrella than that big soft box we used upstairs but because upstairs we shooting in one place we're not going we don't have to unpack and pack I can use that soft box and is going to be great light I don't have to you know, at a wedding I probably wouldn't take that big soft box with me I'm going to use an umbrella because it's quick it's easy put it up, put it down, take it down and off we go so beautiful like that's balanced with the ambient light. What you can do then is perhaps bring it a little closer, and, like we did upstairs, crank up the power, which is going to mean that your background is going to appear to be darker because you're exposing for the light that is landing on her, you're not exposing for the background like exactly like we made the sky a little darker upstairs. We've made the sky darker over here, too. If you remember the very first image, how horrible the lighting was, now we're creating an image like that, and if we wanted to go a little bit mohr a g can put it into black and white up with a contrast, and you would never think that that was shot at ten o'clock, you know, on the beach where it's potentially supposed to be the worst time of the day to shoot those power packs will last a lot longer than what you will. Uh, yeah, they they meant to last a very long time. You could shoot three hundred, four hundred shots with us with those perfect, it really depends on your flash output if you've got it on maximum is going to obviously be less, but but I've never had a battery go dead on me for because if you think about in terms of the wedding like I said a little earlier high fashion I'm not shooting every single shot high fashion I'm shooting the stuff that is staged as high fashion with I'm not I'm not shooting as high fashion I'm shooting for the high fashion influence so you know what we did upstairs that the battery when we first thought it was on one hundred percent it's all one hundred percent do you still bring a backup for the concept of a backup though no for the flash okay the motor part we've spoken about that um I don't have to speak too much about that um are there any questions out there on the internet with regards to the equipment and where we're going with that? You know, we did have a question from huff photo earlier which was what is your take on tamarin sigma versus nikon not the kit lenses but the higher end types such as the fifty militar millimetre one point four on the twenty four seventy ok do you stick now you know that I'm a brand ambassador absolutely so so your initial thought process would be off course he's going to say nick on however, when I run workshops I specifically tell the people coming on the workshops don't buy anything before you come just keep your kit as it is when you come on to the workshop, you can use my ce mai lin's is my camera to see what is what, what the possibilities are. And I had an incident way, a photographer boat, a non branded lanes. And on nick on lens. Hey bought it the day before the workshop, twenty four to seventy two point eight. He came on the workshop and I say, well, this is a fantastic opportunity to put them side by side and have a look and they waas a difference. It is not a massive difference, but there is a difference so I would personally, I just think in terms of your brand image, I think that it's, uh, I think to have everything uniform is better for your brand image. But I do acknowledge that there are companies out there that make great equipment and that that work, you know, it does work. But I have found that side by side it's not exactly the same, you know, but maybe you like the other one. You can say it's not the same, but you might like the other the other lens on I do understand the financial implications if you're doing it purely for the financial implications. Wait until you can afford the real deal. If you're doing it because you like what? The other lens is doing it well, what the other lens is doing that then stick with that because it's about your brand and it's about what you like. Because if you shoot for yourself, clients are gonna book you for what they have seen. So they coming to you because they like what you like. So that that's what makes it a lot more that's? What makes it so easy in terms of being able to fulfill your client's expectations? Because you know that they like what do you like? So if you like the effect that one specific lens is giving you, you know, go for it. Um, it's just there is a difference. It's, whether you like the difference or not, that that matters. All right. Next question is from curious who is curious if you carry lenses on you for quick access. And if you d'oh, what bag do you suggest for that? For a wedding, huh? I don't worry about lenses for quick access. My assistant would be carrying a backpack with him on dh. If I need deadlines, I just say, you know, twenty four to seven in fact, it's, quite if you are working with your assistant I mean you obviously are working with your assistant but it's quite a cool system to have where you name your lenses or you number your lens is like for me the the seventy two two hundred is number one because you asked me about my desert island lands my seventy two two hundred is number one twenty four to seventeen to thirteen to twenty three fourteen to twenty four three and you just make it up like that so I could be I could be say for example I could be in the church where taking a shot and I see something that maybe I need the wider lens so I'll be standing at the front of my assistant and I are watching each other and I'll be standing at the front there and I'll be like and he knows to go and get len's number two and you'll bring the twenty four to seventy everybody stands up for for him and he will walk around like that and I'll go oh ok cool thank you so I think communication with your assistant is very cool because you can't be in the front of the church going like I need that lens on either it's if you just discreetly guard like you just to speak me go like that I mean they're gonna they're gonna you know and that's communication as well great all right thank you uh brett next question from brian white do you have a secret weapon piece of equipment that we would be surprised that you carry in your bag? Well, a cz you can see, I'm not really full of secrets, and I think I think that things like this, things like the prism and trying teo emulate other techniques and coming up with new things that, uh, make your work different. I think that's, that's important, but I firmly believe that we're here on creative life, and you guys are slow sacrificing your time to to watch us aunt, to watch these presentations. Some of you might be buying the downloads, and I think it would be unethical for me to have secrets, so I don't have anything secret in my bag that makes me any different to anybody else. Oh, so what? What? I mean, what you see is what you get so, yeah, no, no secret weapons.