Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Boudoir Lighting Part 1

all right so when I'm going to do some clearasil set are you ready lovely it's kind of cold in here and then shoots and large races I feel bad thank you and I'm gonna have you go stand over behind the fabric okay all right so what I want to do yeah on the back side of it perfect so why don't show you guys is when I was trying to figure out how to light this I had these constant lights I first for you to know that one of you or both of them enough uh yeah okay I first was tryingto light completely from the front even if I drag this all the way over there there is significantly less shape and it is flat so I knew that I had to backlight her in order to have emphasized her shape and originally I'm like okay backlight I pointed those two constant lights at the white wall so I figured I'd like the white wall that would silhouette her the problem is at that point the light is bouncing straight off the background st tow us and nothing's raking across the fabric so the fabric disappears it's j...

ust what so it's just like a hazy white effect eso we start off with the foot goes on we'll put that on and perfect so now it's coming from an angle across so that's why I'm seeing some of the shape there if you wanted something a little more dramatic that's actually really pretty it's very soft if you wantto flatten it out a little bit make even more high key I conflict all these lights on and I can adjust the power but both the distance and floating on the lake so I'm going to start off here um primarily got two things in mind the flowers they're real flowers I know that the longer we go they might get kind of wilted so I want to get like mikey shots first I want to get my close ups second and then I'll move on so I want to start here that looks beautiful and I and start off with my tripod I'm going to keep it very very simple the lenses that I'm going to use today somewhere to use an eighty five one four I'm going to use my one fifty macro and I'll probably use my twenty four to seventy because then I have a little bit of range and that's pretty much what I'll stick to if you don't have a twenty four seventy um the one fifty would be awesome so I'm going to get this hooked up on the tripod there and we'll talk a little bit about my camera settings and if jeff and I were shooting this usually I just take I would take the lead on one or he would take lead so it's not that like it's just my chute he's still shooting but somebody's got a kind of set the direction of the shoot let's go it's relevant what do you call body blemishes but it has like a pimp water but honestly if I was shooting I would just avoid it yeah I am depending the shot again going toe it's how you shoot but about that because you don't wantto shoot in a certain way where it goes back to the pg thirteen plus yeah so depending on your audience and where you're posting it that's really on you now you wouldn't do that makeup is well that's another option like right now I know we both look fabulous wearing makeup so you can't tell our little imperfections or we try not to let us share a little imperfections but that's another option um one other thing teo is a little bit in the coloring uh if somebody is hasn't look you're going for you do have some of the controls that you have in photo shop I mean you can still apply the video the biggest thing is like if you try to do a spot adjustment the person's going to move but let's say that somebody has like um kind of red rashes and their skin you can select a rough area of their body and plot a little bit of the red if they're not moving all over the place but let's say overall listen she has like a red rash on her hip but in that particular shot she's just doing this in photo shop you can select that de saturate the red and you're fine it's more like spot that becomes a little bit of a pain by the way if you cared that much if it was a really short clip you can actually import your frames as frames and you could spot uh rita jal every single frame so the only thing that maybe is let's say and there's one really tight beautiful shot she's got a big pimple right there if it's running we've talked with us each section each other so each second is twenty four frames if it is a two second clip you would just know that your retouching about fifty frames so maybe if it's just a spot healing of one thing maybe it's worth it to you and then you could do that and then you just want to be cautious on where your spot here because if it's not exactly the same every frame you may see a little couple blips in our hearts that having there so so others it's possible using not worth the hassle it's one of those things where videography almost is keep everything in camera as much as possible I would go back to make sure that if for whatever reason she's she has a giant's it and it's not covered make sure you cover it or if she has a giants that try to avoid it or she has a joins it try to stay out of focus on that specific area maybe that's going to be artistic approach to things oh yeah the out of focus thing for that is great or or the same thing for the two seconds that it just comes and focused like or like five frames and then you're good uh right so let me get this set up same thing with like scarring and stuff like that if you notice the model it yesterday and one of videos that we did she had a scar on her forehead I can't really take that unless it's hours and hours and hours of editing time so remember that unfortunately videos of different than photography I would because most clients that I work with scars and things like that are part of their personalities you don't have many people are like I'm going like we both have scars on my face like I have one here lindsay has won here we don't those our personalities we don't try to get rid of them so I let clients no do you want to get rid of this if so use the makeup use other things if that's what you want to do it's just easier that way if not you know I wouldn't I wouldn't touch those things okay perfect so the very first thing that I would d'oh we'll start again as I'm going to go into my menus we'll see how this live he's gonna work I think but the first thing you want to start off with before you start is to go ahead and make sure your movie record signs is all set all right so when I click on this I can see the details of all the different options I have I can shoot at thirty frames per second twenty four frames per second on don't change the resolution there so I'm set it where I want to be that's perfect and if you are shooting in different countries that I if you wanna go back yeah aside from the u s and that you guys have a different standard and the uk and things like that I p b would be where you want to be at all right so I'm gonna click on that uh the next thing some cameras by default your live you is not enabled you actually have to go into your camera so if it's like driving you crazy you can't figure out why you can't see the back of the screen you need to make sure live you said I think was actually out of a box the cane if ivy mark to does not have live your neighbor remember how I said it was actually an afterthought they admit they're like oh hey we have video capabilities and added it in makes you turn that on uh the next thing that you need to do is set your picture style and this is where I said you're making a choice are you going to be doing a lot of changes in post where you want to keep it simple and just have it look is closing camera as possible will show us two different sets where it makes a big difference that putting on her ship will show you how to do it on this specific set and then an afternoon will show you the difference it makes on that specific sound so you can see all the different things whether it's color contrast that it's it's a changing you don't want to be an auto because it means going to show shit so it's a no go for video I usually shoot standard especially something like this for high key jeff will do portrait a lot more because it warmed up skin tones so it tends to be a little more forgiving the setting that gives you the most flexibility right here is neutral neutral flattens everything out which means you don't blow your highlights as much your shadows so let's discuss my style for sec real quick in my style I don't usually care about blonde highlights like I don't care it looks pretty it's a bloody highlight s o I don't focus on it as much but if I were going for something where I wanted every detail in the highlight every detail in the shadow then I would maybe shoot neutral my highlights are gonna be blown out here I'm just telling you don't worry about it it's supposed to be hiking and dreamy it's not a problem you had a question doing a scene like that aliens are straight across the same is there here we go try to go back to the main screen uh natural and safe all so basically it's the same thing that they have a few additional modifications you can make him trying to bring it up here you troll so uh so basically the differences in neutral it's just getting rid of all the sharpness on that on that room so where is faithful the sharpness isn't completely reduced that's it what difference is there so well I am going to choose is standard because I'm looking at this was the white when I had it set to portrait what is what which is what jeff likes all my weights or now yellow warm so I don't want to do that so let's go in here said it's a standard perfect okay so talked about that so far alright next settings your cameras need to be on manual and actually a lot of photographers oyu you only a professional photography soon and maybe I shouldn't africa priority all the time I still make fun for you he doesn't even know he's the people that I'm like well my pictures are just as good as you're so whatever but it's an aperture priority with exposure compensations what I use for stills a lot this manual a little more often now uh I can't do that with video well it's nice when I shoot to manual I see what I'm going for in the back of my camera it's giving me a preview there and it's not one of those things where you'd be like shooting shooting shooting changing situation you looking it's all messed up like you're you're shooting on purpose you will see it's actually you also notice that when she was sitting here setting she left a grid off if you like the grit on by all means you continue right back on all right so I'm going into the top of my camera now and I'm going back to those settings that I said we needed so I need I was on twenty four frames per second so I need to keep my aperture I'm sorry my shutter speed at a fiftieth of a second consistent if I want the movie feel well I picked twenty four frames per second which is the movie feel so I want to keep it there so I'm at uh uh shutter speed of one fiftieth all right well I did mess with this to get it roughly where I wanted but what I need to know is when selecting my eyes so we talked about how you kind of want increments of one sixty so I have one sixty and three twenty six forty those the ones that used to shoot at of course if you shoot like an event or reception you have to go up to twelve fifty or twenty five hundred or something if you got to do what you've got to do it better than no footage at all but if I'm shooting where I can control the situation six forty uncomfortable with you know that's about it I think that's your least worries and shooting video is the s o feel frida I mean by all means there's rules that's what cinematographers will say stay consistent too but um if you have to shoot in a really low light situations just keep to increments of one sixty so if your camera shoots upto seventy five thousand so by all means find the increment to the math first of all wear that one sixty lines up if you say for the reception had to go up to one of the really high brainy shots what would you do if your morning shots were perfect and really low and you know it goes back to using a neutral density filter so you remember that sports thing that we did where you can see the whole background completely blown out I'd want to use a new tree density filter to get some of the color back into the sky so at least there's some contrast similarities I just mean the grain like would you notice the switch so you absolutely would what my solution is an editing don't have him up against one another that's it on dh a very high s so you don't want to do like you don't want to shoot a twenty five hundred if you don't have a choice for video than do it so it's the same thing I wouldn't make sure like from when it's bright and sunny there's like some detail shots some detail shots that are now in the dark where I used the video light detail shots where movie took away the video light and then just this is dark this is what it looks like and then for may I add thirty five millimeter grain all my footage that's just my thing so I'd like to just lay it over my footage anyway so it's always grainy no matter what I don't care how crisp and clean it is it looks grand it just the same way I throw like an anamorphic style just what I like going back to creativity so and I'm gonna lie I think this is really pretty this's my style so even looking at that it looks like a photo but it's a moving photo she looks beautiful all right now let's talk about focus so the easy way to do it if you do not have any viewfinders is you click your magnification once and I I can move my little toggle on the back to go over I and I have terrible eyesight so this is why this is more of a problem for me oh god okay I'm like actually squinting and then I consume into ten x and we would still look at me real quick okay and if you're in low light one of the things that you want to dio is um if you have a video like just point it at the persons that you can grab the focus or in really low contrast situations quickly sort of this hour for you to make it a little easier like right there okay so let me tell you the other thing is you know you can't see the back of the screen right now for the way that I am it's actually easier and I'd have to go ahead and turn off if I go into menu I'm going to turn the mirroring off so you're not going to see my settings anymore just you know okay just in order for me to actually be able to do things the way that I would normally dio pop up there we go something go back to turning off okay so now now I'm doing what I would actually do so now I can look at my camera which is gonna be so much easier yes but critics wonderful okay because it was freaking me out uh something like that is fine with him didn't really really far so if I back up okay and I saw focus looks beautiful could you look your head to the side again great so the reason I have for doing that face means totally straight on one more time is the latest very flat when she turns her head to her left she's picking up some of the light raking across that gives a little bit of shape all right so perfect I always start with a lock down non moving shot let's get something and what you want to keep mine and recording right now um is you always want to start action after you've been recording for one or two seconds if you say okay and touch the curtains if you hit play at the same time um and you're doing fades in your video you won't actually catch the action you were going for because you don't have enough time to fade it in so what you want to do is usually run for one or two seconds and then start the movement so will you do that and just reach up really soft to the curtain in front of you good for fix and can you keep her head looked looking totally toe left and do the same thing and kind of pull the curtains open there's like right I think it's a little bit yeah right there perfect beautiful great and if I'm gonna have to go over there for a second and I'm going to have have you actually just pull the curtain open let it fall close so I haven't even moved her it all but I'm at least trying to get a little bit emotions so look against your left and drop the curtain from didn't perfect and I'm going to open up a little bit more yeah we want that with your hand just right there perfect and same thing jeff perfect that's okay you can start a little bit isa very boy throw that's pretty okay just one more time and it's real soft perfect and let go perfect like that's kind of what I wanted something that would just adds movement without her moving all right so the next thing uh batteries thing if you'll get me a battery really bad at that checking my battery's okay so the next thing that I want you to do is I want you to put your hands up and just do a little bit of stretch okay so I'm gonna back up and use my feet instead of zooming thank you ok battery switch thank you just have to take it out that's another thing about uh one other expensive video I just wanna warn you about batteries you need to buy a lot more batteries because it itjust strains about a very very very quickly uh so if you have two batteries and you plan on doing a full go to our video you will not have enough energy I would say that you and this is me personally I think you need about six batteries to feel comfortable shooting of two our boudoir piece now what we're there for two hours what about who more honestly think six is fine I mean if you're the one person one person once raising us we have about three batteries per camera we have four cameras we generally bring on set with us so that's twelve bettors so that's the thing on what you're shooting and that's because there's only two of us so we can consistently keep one charging if we need to and it's just that charging time so just keep your charger keeping extra charger with you at all to have a duel charger they have the ones I'll do two at a time so you can have things going but I would say yeah if you do a lot of video six and you know they're like forty bucks a piece it's kind of a pain okay so what have you put your hands down and then raise them back up and do the exact same thing okay and go ahead great and now trace your hands down the fabric for me good and so I know that I only ever need like just little clips at a time perfect since when have you do one more same saying hands off and then dragged them back down the fabric and look right here great perfect by the way I'm just commenting on her muscles holy cow how many children do you have she's one child and she is ripped and I asked her how often she works out she's like I don't do yoga and like you ever done yoga it's the toughest thing in the world I have to give it so I'm sure yoga is lovely but I'm such an impatient person like I think I'd be like god need put something like I feel like that was my personality you can punch people in yoga okay yeah well well I proposed that he would do kickboxing and just be my subjects I could okay just like that is a door but wait do that again just like that's adorable so that's the other thing this is actually it wasn't doesn't seem like it was on purpose but it it's like I absolutely if you can have a conversation like that and just let it roll that's when you catch them looking over and laughing and more natural versus posing so same thing we pulled that and look over and give me a little smile and great and I looked back up with the light great perfect okay so everything so far block down move my feet all right so the next movement that I could do would be with my fluid head the fluid the head that I have here on the left hand side this is where it has the tension so I can go ahead and loosen it up for a nice fluid movement and you can actually get very loose you know just kind of and just what were you know what I would I'll do is I'll come over here and see if I was lindsay and I'm just gonna mark off whatever already done so that specific shot will just literally cross off so which anyone going krystle let's dio have it someplace where it says face and fabric right there perfect crossed off I no longer have to worry about that shot whatsoever I can focus on the rest of my day so I'm gonna move in just a little bit and I'm going to dio my moving shot where I loosened up the tension I'm gonna make sure like somewhat level here greens lindsay uh mentioned what apple tree or shooting up absolutely right now I'm shooting at four point five uh was what is having trouble with I would usually shoot for video two point five I can get away with no that it's like that's kind of got a really narrow and you can't save it but here I was having a problem with focusing on her eye because of the fabric so I gave myself four point five himself more flexibility but I could go down I would recommend starting off if you're trying to do really narrow depth of field for for o two point eight and then if you get a little bit more brave and goto lower apertures all right so I'm going to do this moving shot when a zoom in focus on her and see how often do you do critical focus you think during a shoot um all the time constantly pretty constantly I would say every time I move my camera or she moves it's about two point eight every shot every every time I press record I just wanted it making sure my focus is and check unless of course you're at half eight and they're in the same distance things that'll change your focus would be your camera movement or them changing their distance to you if there in the exact same place your camera hasn't moved then you're okay but at two point eight that'll change your focus like their neck sticking out a little bit you're quite time consuming you ever find that your clients get like super answer because I always find when I'm shootings and doesn't like sorry I'm just adjusting this still photographer for may I check my focus every shot anyway I mean regardless I have back quite focused I could click click click and it's fine they're just like why is he waving his camera around all these different times with the photography thing I try to talk to my client I was getting videographer I try to speak to my client while I'm trying to focus at the same time so even though I'm listening to them and I'm just discussing the same way I'm discussing with you more concentrating on the so I may not even be answering their question or like it may be some like communication issues because I'm checking focus but it's for them not to get mad because I'm sitting there trying minutely manipulate things my trick is if I'm struggling with something for gear I always figure out for example I just mentioned that she had a child I knew that she did if this was a real client although you lovely um I would have a longer conversation to figure out what their life if they have kids so whatever so if I'm struggling with something I'd be like oh so you know what you're doing with the kids this weekend like something like that just so that it's a little less awkward because people if you get them talking about their passions they don't care if you're screwing up whatever you're doing you're like oh yeah the kids that get excited so going back to the point that I made if I'm going to do a moving shot that is ugly obviously that's not what you would want in your frame but I'm actually going to start my movement there because if I start my movement right there in the beginning it wobbles it's the rest of this that is nice and smooth your first movement it's what's not so I would start here let me just moved us all something check my critical focus one more time and that's why you know I like a viewfinder that's good perfect so I'm going to go from here I must start my record I'm going to get that movement going and does good nyse and slow and the cool thing is if that's not slow enough for you for whatever reason and post processing you can actually reduce the speed so you can slow it down completely toe what you needed it or you can speed it up or you can reverse the whole motion I'm not touching this I'm letting gravity do it so it's nice and smooth and of course you'll speed up down the end it's not I'm going to use for the footage all right and then I would do one more zoom in closer so you're my basic movement shots were here and I'm going to line this up hey linds what lens are you shooting I am shooting with the eighty five millimeter one point for on this I feel like it gives me a lot of cinematic effect so because it's a prime it's easier to also focus and get a nice crisp clear focus on there so the second she opens the blinds a little you'll notice how much easier it is to focus on the I and looks that way great so I'm basically going to frame it compositionally rule of thirds okay you can see that she's in the rule of thirds I'm going to focus on her eye and I'm going to have that movement from top to bottom so that I'm tracking down the opening so let me get my critical focus perfect just so you know it might be a little bit time consuming I'm going to get all the shots that I would need to actually put together a video because I'm willing to show you that tomorrow and look how much easier it is without the tool okay so sam and soft fingers for me a little bit longer and put them underneath your hair perfect and put your pinkie back on your neck good right there perfect okay here we go this actually might be a perfect time to show up the neutral picture profile okay if you want to shoot this way we get the shot there eyes on me and so I'm just timing it so now I'll have that shot and that would be too fast let me just do one going up real slow and also make sure that you guys were tying in or tightening your ah let's call that the little quick release that's the bonhomie a camera if there's if it's not completely tight it tends to shift so if you know it's at the bottom it's not completely uh tight so you just gonna make sure perfectly screwed in all right one more time I'm going to switch for him to see khun see for you guys as well you're not gonna see this bitch if you're sure that before actually but it's a nice camera if you look at life and just lock it in so unlock it please okay so if you look at life you you can tell I'm gonna just go to the screen here you wanna focus good focus yes pro look at all the contract that you have in the face to conceal the details everything is nice and sharp black is black black is perfectly black all the highlights of perfectly white there's no okay we're gonna go back to the neutral and show you guys the difference of it being right out of camera shooting what your picture profile is standard if you switch the missus in neutral and neutrals what we discussed yesterday about it's what videography is used to color grade their specific piece of work so the premise is to use contrast actually create sharpness and compensates a little that makes sense that train could still isn't as contrasting but if you guys could get it just like if you wanna just scoot over just a bit if you guys wanna get a sip of the back of the camera and stick a quick looking a little easier there's ah ee okay it's basically here's before years after a neutral it gets flat it's very gray there's no contrast your whole color band just completely moved center so we don't have toe and does this one have sent a style on it no I think I switched you switch is a portrait or technicolor but everything you want yourself it says I shouldn't switch is neutral so if you have sent us a which is the one that I said you can you can download I literally can't even focus because there's no contrast it takes it to the complete extreme and then I'll show you guys the last one is portrait style okay if you were my portrait and I wouldn't judge off of that screen necessarily but my focus it's much warmer do you guys see the details in her face noticed that not as contrast e it's very very significant correct it's very forgiving under face if you want to go back to things on people's you know imperfections that may be a little easier for you guys to say but in the same token you might get a little yellow in the whites she's compensating for those things yeah and so if you look at these pictures on the back of my camera that last one so here's standard neutral portrait so that's just switching your picture profiles or your picture control on nightgown but those air the difference is that you can make now if you're going to shoot one specific style make sure you're shitting your whole style that your whole piece that way so if you had a wedding don't switch over to different things because then you're gonna have to color great those different variations so but you would switch with balance which one point I want to make sure you all know I'm on daylight because he's our daylight balanced uh constant lights if it wasn't looking right in the back the camera I could do that custom white balance I said I would point thie expo disc on my camera right at that light I take a picture it gives me eight out of focus white ish picture and I can set it as a custom wife balance and then I know that I'm spot on because honestly sometimes I mean these lights are fine but some con you have they say their daylight they're not really they're more blue and so you if you go by daylight you're hoping you know always a flu and it's not a raw file just keep that in mind