Lessons
Chapter 1 Introduction
01:26 2Why Just One On-Camera Flash
04:22 35 Reasons to Use Flash
10:37 4Common Flash Myths
06:51 5What Makes Flash Challenging?
04:56 6Chapter 2 Introduction
01:36 7Flash-Strobe vs. Ambient-Constant Light
08:19 8Flash vs. Ambient Light Exposure
03:07Flash vs. Ambient Demo
06:42 10Flash and Ambient Balancing for Natural Effect
07:11 11Flash and Ambient Balancing for Dramatic Effect
04:19 12Flash and Ambient Balancing for Creative Effect
07:10 13Understanding Flash Duration
08:37 14Chapter 3 Introduction
01:34 155 Common Key Light Patterns
08:38 165 Common Key Light Patterns w/ Diffusion & Fill
07:42 175 Common Secondary Light Patterns
08:28 183 Primary Subject Patterns
05:27 19Light Qualities
09:56 20The Inverse Square Law
07:50 21Inverse Square Law in Practice
08:21 22Corrective White Balance
10:02 23Creative White Balance
05:47 24Chapter 4 Introduction
01:58 25On Board vs. Hot Shoe Flash
05:57 26Full Feature vs. Manual Flashes
08:59 27TTL vs. Manual Control
08:12 28TTL vs. Manual Recycle Times
04:43 29Flash Power & Zoom
09:18 30HHS vs. ND Filters
12:29 31FCS vs. RCS
07:11 32Chapter 5 Introduction
01:38 334 Tips When You Must Use Direct Flash
06:00 34Bare Bulbing Done Right
11:42 35Grid Snoot + Direct Flash
06:43 36Mini Beauty + Direct Flash
06:08 37Ring + Direct Flash
07:52 38Understanding Modifiers
09:24 39Direct Flash + Shutter Flash
09:07 40Chapter 6 Introduction
01:55 41Ambient vs. Direct Flash vs. Bounce Flash
14:27 42Silver Bounce
14:27 43More Light Silver
11:02 44Soft White Bounce
15:41 45Overhead Bounce
11:39 46Overhead Bounce + Fill
09:42 47Event Bounce
12:42 48Chapter 7 Introduction
01:38 49Natural vs. Dramatic Light
17:43 50Filling and Refining Existing Light
08:44 51Coloring Light for Corrective Effect
13:33 52Coloring Light for Creative Effect
10:27 53Chapter 8 Introduction
00:43 54Case Study 1 - Dramatic Sunset
09:45 55Case Study 2 - Desert Sunset
10:04 56Case Study 3 - Sinister Headshot
09:40 57Case Study 4 - Family Portrait
08:21 58Case Study 5 - Athlete Portraits
11:19 59Case Study 6 - Working Angles
07:22 60Case Study 7 - Drag + Composite
08:09 61Case Study 8 - Less is More
07:16 62The Good Karma Jar
01:41 63Favorite Feature Flashes
05:52 64Favorite Manual Flashes
21:35 65Favorite On Camera Flash Modifiers
21:21Lesson Info
5 Common Secondary Light Patterns
all right. Friends? Family, Actually, my family. Probably not watching this, but my friends at S R Lounge. It is time to get into our five common or five primary secondary light patterns. Okay, so we talked about the key light patterns. We've talked about Diffusion and Phil and so forth. Now let's get into secondary like pattern. Now, we've talked about our key light patterns, which is that primary light. This is when we're dealing with basically a second or 1/3 light. And I know many of you probably thinking pie. This is lighting one of one. We're only dealing with one light, and it's just gonna be on camera like, uh but oh, contraire won fair because we're going to deal with more than one. Like when you guys approach a scene more often than not, if you're shooting outdoors, you already have lights outdoors. We want to be able to see that light. Want to build a position, your subjects. So you have a backlight, a hair light, a kicker. We're gonna use that existing light and then add a ...
one single additional. And what's gonna happen is you're gonna find that with just one single light. You can set up a scene with maybe one light and a reflector that it looks like you have 45 lights in a scene. But really, you're just using your on camera flash. It's all about seeing what's actually there and simply adding to it. But let's first talk about before we get into. All that craziness are common secondary key light patterns. And for this I need Anita. Once again, I need a If Anita had a voice, well, I don't actually know what it was like. She looks young and be a young voice. Okay, so let's just say that right now this video light from that side, that's the key light, right? It's a key light on me right now, so this is the key light. So let's talk about the first type of light, which is simply your feel like now. In the last several videos we talked about filling, and I feel like is any light that's meant to fill into the shadows. So if I add a light simply from the shadow side, that is a film like now it's all in relation. Phil is always in relation to where the key light is or where the shadows on the face are. So if the shadows on this side, then the Phil would come from this side. Now let's go ahead and use by little light panel chroma turned this guy on and I'm actually gonna leave this on this blue daylight white balance just so you guys can see exactly where the light is, OK, in relation to this key light on her face. So you can see this example that if the shadows on this side which it isn't actually in our example to because the lights coming from that side then the film would be on this side. Now, depending on the brightness of that, Phil is gonna depend on how much of the shadows you're leaving versus how much of the shadow you're opening up. The more shadow you open up, the less dramatic the less shadow you open up, the more dramatic. Okay, now, going into the 2nd 1 we have a rim Ah, kicker or a what we call kicker rammer headlight. It's actually three different words for the exact same thing. Okay, so I like to call it a kicker because I think it's the coolest of those terms kind of sounds cool. So a kicker simply comes onto your subject from an angle and from the back, and credit creates that rim or that edge light. Hence rim kicker, whatever you wanna call it. But basically you can see in our little example of Olivia, it just comes and kind of gives the back of the face a little kiss. It kind of hits the neck. It'll hit the shoulders, and it creates that edge light. This is a great light for creating dimension to the face now granted, if you're shooting a beauty type shop, it's really not the best type of light to add, but force a dramatic athletic portrait's or for any type of dramatic shot that you wanna have a kicker is absolutely fantastic, adds a lot of dimension and depth to the face. So let's go ahead and show you where that light position would be in relation to that Anita body for bed. Okay, so it would be right about here now. Common errors with the kicker placing it too far to one side ends up splashing under her face, and you can see that right there placing and too far back and is no longer kickers just hitting the back of her head. So you got to kind of get in an angle and slide to the back, and you want to just adjust that position so you're not getting too much light here and you want to adjust the power to because typically you want it to be more on the subtle side again. Don't mind the power here. I'm leaving the power fairly high. Just that you guys can see where the light is hitting. OK, but that is the position in relation to subject. Now let's go on to our 3rd 1 This is the hair like a lot of people actually confuse the hair light with a backlight. They're actually not the same thing. Okay, the hair light is simply a light that's placed directly over the hair again. A common mistake with hair light is to place it too far forward and look what happened that splashes onto her face and it adds a really kind of nasty light. When we get these shadows, deep shadows underneath the eyes and so forth and anything browse. It's not good. So you want to make sure that that's placed slightly behind an angle forward just to add some light to the hair. This is a fantastic light for adding texture to hair and also helping to separate the subject from the background. If the background is dark and the subject has dark hair than a hair light can really help him brining up the hair to separate it from the background. Next we have the backlight. The back line would come directly behind the subject, okay? And this is where it gets confusing with a hair light because it kind of lights up the hair as well. So a backlight is placed directly behind the subject's head, and it just gonna brighten up and create kind of a back light on edge around the entire body. Sometimes people call it a rim light to it really doesn't matter guys, so long as you know what these things they're doing. That's the main thing. But it basically adds this little light rim around the edge of a subject, which is again fantastic for separating a subject from a dark background. If they're wearing a dark suit and you're shooting against a dark background than adding a very subtle rim will help to kind of our sorry. It really settled back. Light will help to separate them from the background. Lastly, and again, this is another one that get confused with a backlight quite a bit. This is the background light number five. It's not a back light. The back light is for your subject. It's a backlight on your subject. The background light is flipped upside down and it lights the background. Okay, so any light on right now is lighting on my screen. But any light that's basically placed in your seen toe light up the background is a background light now, Typically, as far as lighting wanna one goes. We're not gonna use background lights from our on camera flash that much because it's really difficult to set up a background light. You have to bounce it like five times to get it on in the background. But we will have background lights just existing in scenes. And so I want you guys to use those. So the one that kind of comes to my mind, actually there several kind of my mind anytime. We're like shooting a subject over like a sunset What I often like to do is actually place my subject just directly in front of that sunset. And when in the happening is the sunset kind of creates a sort of background light for the subject because it essentially has this halo or this kind of brighter area right on the subject and that light right behind whoever you're shooting will add a lot of attention and drawn attention to that person. So that's a way that you can kind of find natural, existing light and kind of use it similarly to a background in the studio. But background light in the studio will come into play when getting a lighting to one and 301 as we create kind of more advanced 234 lights, set ups and so forth. All right, that's it for our common secondary light patterns. Now, as we're going through, we're talking about each of these scenes and trying to recognize what we have. Any scenes. Well, weaken. Describe them with the proper terms. Now, one thing you guys might be thinking is, well, pie. This is lighting 101 We're talking about secondary light patterns, which means that we would need a second light, but we only have an on camera flash. This is the thing with all of these lights. We confined every type of light here, pre existing in a scene we simply have to look for. It went to position our subject in the scene accordingly, and then add flash at our on camera flash with a modifier to it, and we can create 23 light setups was simply one on camera flash. That's how we're gonna create all the different shots that look dynamic. It looks like they have hair lights, rim lights, edge lights, kickers and so forth. And in reality, all we're doing is positioned this subject in a scene that already has existing light being very kind of just aware of that existing light and then adding our own to complement it. So let's go ahead and move to the next video now.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Sid
The best class for understanding light and lighting there is bar none. Pye is an excellent teacher and the quality of the material provides for a rich and very informative experience. Pye breaks down the fundamentals in easy to digest packets and then elaborates as needed. If there is one class that you watch this is it! Worth purchasing and saving for future use. I would also HIGHLY recommend downloading the saving the PDF of slides that accompany the videos. Again, and can't say it enough, this is THE BEST video to lighting on Creative Live. A must watch for the novice and the expert.
Petra
Great course, I highly recommend it if you want to become a more confident flash user. Pye is a wonderful instructor and just such a nice guy, it's a pleasure to listen to him
Simon Metselaar
This is the best thing that happened to me since I've been into photography. What a lifesaver. Unfortunately I already payed for some courses that are not Pye, but Pye just nails it. Amazing, and kind of a life hack. Thanks again :)