Lesson Info
10. Flash and Ambient Balancing for Natural Effect
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
Flash and Ambient Balancing for Natural Effect
Now, really, this entire chapter is about understanding the balance and exposure between ambient versus flash and how they combined together to create whatever look that you want to go for in this particular slide. This particular video I want to discuss, basically flash and ami unbalancing, for a more natural look with your flashed images we've talked about before how some people think that you can't get natural images at a flash. What it comes down to is simply the type of light modifiers that you're using, and, more importantly, the balance between ambient light flash. Now, we have a nice little diagram appear, if you want an image to look more natural than what you need to do is you need to take the ambient light exposure, and you want to expose towards the brighter side, and then for flash power, you're going to dial that actually down to be a little bit darker. So basically, what ends up happening is that you're flash is being used more subtly in these situations, it's used to ju...
st slightly modified direction of light, slightly modified quality of light, and those type of thing is not used as really just kind of overpowering type thing, we're going with a darker flash power, we're going with brighter ambien line, that's what we've seen, all of these images here, we have a nice very natural kiss of light that gives us a beautiful natural image. Overall, it looks similar to if we used a reflector except we have more power control. We have more light control with flash. Why not use reflecting the situation's? Well, there's a lot of reasons. I mean, a lot of times you can't get enough light from the sun. A lot of time, the sun is over cast a lot of times. The sun is in the wrong position to bounce light into the subject where you need it and you can't get enough of it. These are all situations where one using flash we can completely overcome them. It simply comes down to using the right amount of flash. You get the right effects, let's, talk through each one of them. Just briefly again, we're gonna go through all these images and detailed talk through the sets and the scenes as we get to them. But for right here and what I want you guys to get in the habit of doing is when you approach a scene you always, always, always start first with just your ambient light exposure. So you gonna dial in your exposure setting for what you want, the background for what you want that scene toe look like at that point. That's when you decide well do I need a little bit of flash? If so, what kind of flash my gonna use where am I gonna put it what I want to modify with and so forth okay, so over here number one this is ambient light no flash this is our first shot that we took and I said I love this exposure I'm going for this really nice brighton area look with this image we have yoko here standing in this little kind of like in between this tree trunk has this great blown out look, we have a beautiful flare coming in from the sun and I don't want to go any bright in that because any brighter than that well, it's great for skin tones and everything but then I lose saturation. I lose color in that kind of background, okay, stick so what I want to do is just get to that point and add a little bit of light. So here we're at one one hundred of a second where f one point two at is a one hundred. We have a five stop neutral density filter. I'm going to show you guys a little bit more of these in detail in a bit, but this is a neutral density filter and what it does that simply cuts down the amount of light that goes in the lens okay, why would we need something like this? Well, because flashes, which were going again discuss in more detail, is they haven't issue with synchronization speak basically the speed of which your shutter is firing. Generally, the cut off is one, two hundred second others ways around this that will cover. But if you want to get the most power out of the flash, the thing is, you gotta go below that shutter speed if we're shooting an f one point two at is a one hundred in the middle of the day, we can't get the shutter speed slow enough to basically allow the flash fire. That means that the shutter speeds on me like one eight thousand of a second because it's so bright outside, so we use a neutral density filter to cut down the lights so we can bring the shutter speed down again. We'll talk about this more later on, so with our flash, I have a flash bouncing off. I think there was a silver in this scene. We'll talk about it more but it's bouncing off the left and coming back and it's giving her face and a nice kiss alike the exact same image you can see how big of a difference it makes having that little kiss of light and how it still has a beautiful natural effect of the image right here. This is during sunset how to do two things I had to clean up the color of the light because well, the sun was setting in that point, so if I use basic flash would be to blue so I put a gel on and I'm bounced into reflector here we have one in one hundred seconds at two point eight and so a hundred so it's pretty dark outside okay it's getting pretty dark and I add just a little kiss of life just to add a little bit of phil again it bounced off the left side over a think it's a white over silla reflector again we'll talk more later you can see that nice color of light on her kind of matches the color of the background light looks beautiful has a soft phil very natural looking effect right here again we're letting the background blow out we're leaving that window is blind I don't want to change that I wanted to look natural wanted to leave it bright. All I want to do is add a little bit of flash to give me seven flash direction and to clean up some of that existing light in the scene so we get this beautiful look and for this little this was a lifestyle session that we did their house which was really fun, that kind of kind of pretending just a saturday morning kind of shot them as they made breakfast and talk and have fun, and it was really cool seeing all I want to do it just had a little bit of light. Just clean up some of the existing light in the scene. Okay, so what is the key here with all these shots? Well, the mixture of ambient to flash is mohr, ambient and less flash, so we're going very subtle on the flash, power added, and we're we're kind of just adding whatever we need just to give the ambient light a little kiss. Now, one thing to remember, we talked about basically dialing in everything and how you know, on the flash power side, what matters is flash power afternoon. So what matters on the inside is shutter speed, aperture and s o one thing remember, is that whatever the flash is pointed up is going to affect the overall image exposure meaning, like, for example, in this shot we exposed for this background, right at one, one hundred second f one point two and one hundred. If the flash happens to be firing against the background tree, it will effect that exposure, that area adding flash to that area. So just keep in mind that, yes, the overall exposure in certain areas can be affected if flash spills into those areas. So what we need to do is basically modify and control the lights. So the flash goes exactly where we wanted each of these scenes and that's. What you can see here is in every one of the scenes that we're shooting were refining and controlling the light. So the flashes going exactly where we put it that way, we don't get any kind of nasty background spill or anything that wouldn't look natural in these shots. So that's it for this video. Let's. Go ahead and move to the next one. We're talking about flash and ambien, balancing for a more dramatic effect.
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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 :)