Lessons

Lesson Info

Lighting on Location Showdown

what we're going to see in this video is a showdown between natural light speed lights and strobes and by the way if you go to my facebook page facebook dot com ford slash lind yeah ford slash lyndsey other photography um I have a competition right now where you tell me what you found most useful what you learned and it's actually for a bunch of gear for speed lights from expo image ng because I actually find it really interesting to see what was knew what kind of light bulb's turned on so if you want to do that for me I really find that useful actually so watching this video I'm not going to say which one wins but in the end we're going to put up a slide with a couple images and I want you to take what you learned to try to figure out which one's the natural light which one's a speed light in which one's the strobe and which one did you like best so let let's watch this lighting on location showdown ok guys so we have I'm going to guess a little more than five minutes before the sun s...

ets this is the golden hour actually the gold in five minutes and how I want to wrap up this discussion wrap up this class is to talk about well which one is better you've seen how natural light works you see how speed light work then you've also seen how studio strobes work so which one is better so I'm gonna have a shoot off with myself and we're going to give this to try and see what I could do in about five minutes all right so I'm starting off with my sigma fifty millimeter one point four shooting aperture priority gonna bring this in and I'm gonna have you stand over here and just kick a little bit of light and she's holding it up high to shape the face perfect and I perfect I've purposely placed her here for this nice highlight so she's gonna separation from her background good and I've got a little bit of warmth there just a little bit a little less you go there you go and now can you look up towards that light perfect that's nice and I'm gonna shoot way open one point four great let's go vertical here chin down a little bit and I'm gonna do one with uh without the reflector give it a try that some nice open shade there good we'll take a couple more shooting at one point four backing up good and one more just like this I'm gonna get myself a little lens flare this time you little insular and looked right at me okay big we have one more with the reflector really high from back there okay here we go a little more a little more sit right there don't move that's perfect little more kick good okay I'm gonna have my rapid box octo over here and I already know that it's bright so let's make sure that's turned on what have you haven't raised up I am going to shoot pretty wide open I'm going to make sure I have my high speed sync turned on perfect alright I'm shooting manual for the environment here let me get a couple shots and make sure that these two are talking perfect great okay so I'm in hyde speed sync I'm shooting at one point four I'm gonna close down a little bit give myself some leeway two point oh still quick test beautiful alright great here we go and aren't even good shut up so that light just a little good perfect beautiful great and chin up to that light again great and I'm gonna come around this way good perfect and I think what I'm going to dio as I'm gonna take that power down just a little bit I want a kiss of light instead of full power so let's click back here and I'm going to do minus stop in the third just a little bit for catch lights all right great same thing all right there and cross that arm over in front a little more good and looked up to the light good now what done it may perfect great and I'm gonna take off my lens hood and get myself some lens flare perfect and I'm gonna have you put your hands behind your good and then that hand soft perfect great look right here good beautiful all right I'm happy with that and let's try my studio strobe we're going to and that was a uh rapid box octa for the speed lights this last one we're gonna use the one and I will need my trigger I'll put my foot lens hood back on and I'm gonna make sure that I have a sinks my sink speed set one two hundred of the second right pretty good and can I have that be one trigger perfect that's fun turned that on make sure it's on the right channel great okay let's give us a test perfect case that decreased the power of that because I'm way open I want to shoot at one point eight so what do we add alright go all the way down to four all right so we're going away open with this one oh nice that's just a little case of light that looks great perfect great there's wonderful beautiful gonna go a little bit wider okay great that's perfect curve all right stephen and have you step back just a tiny bit good that's perfect and then I'm gonna shoot one right against the grasses here but that son right behind her head and make it a peek out from behind her shoulder that looks beautiful all right I have a peek out behind the other shoulder here great and do a few more like this beautiful good hands soft on your neck this time great so what I'm doing is I'm having the sun just peek out tiny bit out of the side of her hair so what it does is it gives me len slur but not too much and just look soft and look up at the light and I'll be like really demure perfect that's great okay it's beautiful way focus and recompose good hold on to a little more beautiful locking that focus and then just one more hand up just a little bit good and we're focusing beautiful and we walked in on your face great alright that's actually pretty good and the last five minutes we got our natural light way got our speed lights strokes so we shot everything that we covered here and it's pretty fast when it comes down to is it doesn't have to do with me being eight super smart person or a really good photographer but I've shot this stuff a lot right the more that you know your gear the more that you practice you know kind of what setting is this needs to be at a certain distance you know roughly howto work your camera when you're shooting late in the day so as with anything is practice makes perfect and then as you look through these pictures which one's air your absolute favorites does it actually have to do with the fact of whether it was speed lights or natural light or strobes or what does it actually have to come down to was composition and emotion and quality of light created by the modifiers and of course that is going to be up to you all right guys so which one do you like best these air all straight out of camera so um I kind of already some rise in that video how I feel about things I shoot more often on location using natural light and then I have my backup of a speed later a stroke if I need it unless I know that that strobe on location or that speed light is going to give me the drama I need or the mood that I need or maybe it's just intended for creativity so bit by bit I certainly did not learn this all at once so if you are super one o one like you were here for one on one class and you feel maybe a little overwhelmed they took me a long time piecing it together to feel comfortable but that's okay you piece it bit by bit and I think natural light is a good place to start because when you understand how natural light works then it's a natural progression to be ableto work with speed lights and strobes on location so take it bit by bit and it should work out for you so let's take a look at this well I'd love to get the boot so yeah bring up that image on screen so the people at home can see them and make a choice all right so ready now let's thought well let's ask how it happened here in the room first okay what do you think what's the order raise your hand I think you can guess its okay do I have to get all but what it's the choices again so one of each drove natural light and speed light one of each day okay so the first line is um I would say strobe okay the second one's natural light on the third one is speed okay so so uh somebody else I want to hear somebody else's guess that was same thing I was guessing okay okay cliff it's kind of what I feared that I like I'll go with natural light and then stroke okay so and we have almost every single possible combination coming in online yeah s oh I like it so what I want to say about that is that's my whole point the whole point of the conversation is yet just because you uh no natural light and you see this and think well since I can't tell us took with natural light okay that doesn't mean that's all you should know you should be more equipped but the key is if you know how to use your gear your equipment you know how everything works you could make it work for you and then you know which situations that you're going to have to reach to another tool so let's look at the final answer all right so in fact I'll say how each one was done the first image is natural light all right so the first image she's backlit by the sun here and we have a silver gold mixed reflector off to the right so that's why she has this warmth here and since it's high up that's what we have the sheep to her cheekbones and john line I had sydney move off to the right a little bit more so I could have some shadow she was a little bit flattered to my camera there wouldn't be as much shape so the direction of light because I pulled it off to the side gives me a little bit more drama the second one that we have here is thies drove the reason that I use a strobe in this instance is because I wanted to light her whole body and I also wanted to get a little bit wider shot oh I wanted to pull back and so if I had a maybe a smaller speed late I have to get really close and it might get in my frame so in this one I was using the uh the rapid box octa x l like the big one that goes on my strobe I was shooting with my lens in the grass literally in the grass shooting as wide open as I could possibly actually handhold and get in focus on dh then I had this lens for lens flare by having the sun just out of my frame kicking some light in and of course the final one is the speed light and because it was closer up I used the small rapid box and I had it just out of frame here on dso that's why since it's close it's a little bucket of water close you actually see some of the light fall off down her body if I got a full length shot her dress wouldn't be lit by the bottom so natural light strobe and speed light is the answer and I love I mean that is the point I want to I want to make sure that that is reinforced is that the fact that you guys got it right or wrong it's not the issue it's that you can create beautiful looking images that are very similar using the state using different tools no matter what you've got at hand and you just need to know how exactly and by the way if anybody out there has any questions on this final set up I'll eventually put up on my on my facebook page the actual metadata for each one of these in the tools used but like I said don't forget to check out the gear list if you do have a question but I guess my wrap up thought would be yeah check out the gear lis because we all love gear and I heard all the chatter in the chat rooms as we were looking at gear and modifiers but that's not what makes the picture at all you know it's the composition it's how you use the light how you shape the light on the face and understanding them so the gear is fun but that's not what makes the photo it's your techniques