Lessons

Lesson Info

Strobes at Sunset

you're my plans for the rest of the day what I'm going to do is I have two videos to show you real quick on me shooting at sunset with the strobes one is just with a single stroke the other is adding a second stroke still that same conversation but not as dramatic when we finish up there I'm going to pop over to the hands on side over there and try to answer whatever questions you have cause and then I can go ahead and demo I can do it step by step if you want I can show you the inverse square law whatever remaining questions you have that you want something de mode we'll do that after we come back that won't be this section so right now we're going to do strobes at sunset you can watch two of those right now there's some really beautiful color in the sky and I want to be able to capture that using my studio strokes and I absolutely loved taking these on location because it's it's what I'm comfortable with it I use that a lot in this studio so I'm familiar with the modifiers I've also ...

used these lights is there the bi ones in my studio d ones uh very familiar with their power output so I just understand how they work and that's why I like to take these out on location so what I'm going to do first is I'm gonna get that ambient light looking how I wanted to but I know I have some restrictions I know for sure I have to be under one two hundred of the second that's my sink speed I also know that I want to make sure I can hand hold the shot I'm not gonna have a wiggle so I'm for this lens the fifty anyone at least need to be above one sixty seconds so let me give this a quick try medio ambiente right just light right okay and so right now I concede it's too dark so I'm gonna bump up to a thousand eso I'm fine with the grain of a thousand and my computer that looks beautiful that is the color I want in the sky perfect so I s so right but now my shutter speed is one forty eights of a second that's not gonna be enough I'm going to need to go faster so let's goto one one hundredth but of course that's gonna darken down the ambience so I'm gonna have to pump up and open up my aperture so let's say three five let's give this a test three five looks good all right so now what I need to do if I wanted to light meter I'd come over here and check the power output of the strobe until a power output read three point five three point five all right uh steven keep turning down pretty far let's give it a try around force let's try for a quick try great okay brings out too all right here we go let's give this a test okay so that light looks pretty nice on her it looks good I'm going to get down a little bit lower and because I want that background be a little bit darker I'm going to go toe goto one one sixteenth of a second ducking down my background a little bit getting a little over good bye beautiful look up to the light great and shin down just a little and if I want my lights be brighter I can either bring it in because right now it's inflow is power so I can either turn it up a swell if I wanted to be a writer I could bring it in I could do that make it a little bit softer um or you could open up my aperture either one I'm gonna have you turned up just a tiny bit for frank take a look okay so now the lights a little bit brighter on her perfect great alright so that looks good but you know there's so much color in this scene it's very very dramatic and she looks a little bit cool so what I could do in this instance is go ahead and add a slightly warming gel I could use a cto with color temperature orange and there's different amounts of warmth that could add some warmth to the scene if I want tio I could also change the white balance appropriately to warm up the scene just a little bit so I'm liking what it looks like but let's say that I want something super dramatic just a spotlight on her face what I could d'oh it's at a grid and I used grids in the studio all the time that's what I love about taking studios drugs out on location I'm familiar with the same tools so when I added grid what it does is it focuses the light in so instead of covering your body head to toe it's just going to cover from about putting on the distance mary about her midsection and her head so it's going to just give me a lot of drama a lot of focus but the problem is is when I add a grid I lose a lot of like it darkens down my exposure so if a exposure for the strobe so when I look at that shot definitely gonna have darker light on her face so I'd have to turn up the power of my stroke to compensate you go ahead and meet her same thing you could meet her to make sure that now that we've added a grate it would still read for over three five trying that's beautiful shape right there is great focus that's great mr fix it okay bring it around this side just a little right there is amazing it looks really beautiful beautiful okay so now what I've noticed the light on her is good it's a little bit bright so stephen can turn down just a tiny bit good I love the drama if I back up for full wings it's just gonna be a spotlight on her face and everything else kind of falls to darkness very dramatic really showcases the sky and her dress okay now the one thing that does that does father me or what I will notice is that that light in the background drops quickly so what you got to be careful of is as that light is getting darker I had to keep dragging my shutter so it could go from one one sixtieth to one one twenty fifth the one one hundred until all of a sudden it starts being a little bit too you slow to handhold so that's something you want to be aware of when to shoot a couple more frames of this because I love it looks beautiful very dramatic and the position of the light that I've chosen is so that it has shadow for a little drama but not too much you know I still wanted to be kind of beauty light for her all right now if I want this to feel kind of commercial like it's uh maybe a higher end shoot what I would want to do is continue to add strokes so this is the thing that you want to think about is when you are lighting from mood you could definitely use one stroke what I found is the more strobes you add it starts being a bigger production seems to be more of ah high end and commercial shoot so don't overwhelm yourself don't bring a whole bunch of strokes on location at once it's usually not necessary usually just the balance between the ambien and that single stroke can get you what you're looking for okay so don't feel that you need to buy a lot of different strokes to go on location I would say let's say for every ten shoots I do on location with strobes nine of them use one like like I seldom bring another like it might be because I'm trying to kick light in the background or do a hair light good I don't know if this question is weird but um I wanted to ask like because you said don't bring as many stroke so would it be weird to like ease a reflector or that's what the strobe is because it has the silver no no don't you mean totally eso what I would do if I'm just trying to fill in shadows I wouldn't have one show over here is the main light another show over here to fill in the shadows another like I wouldn't do that if I'm just trying to fill in shadows a little bit I would use my main light and then yeah grab a reflector to catch some of that light and kick in the shadows of most the time though I just try to vary the ambience to give it the look that I'm trying to go for I forgot there's one more section that I'm going to do it's actually like every you have done here was tichy photos I'm going to my real shoots so you can actually see I'm going to shoots with all the metadata exactly what I did walking you through it one is a high end family portrait themed session and then the other one is actually a couple shots from this fashion shoot that is definitely more advanced because it was my shoot so I was doing a little bit a little bit fancier than the basics but I guess they would say especially if you're like looking at this you're like man I really want to take extra about location but you know in my studio I have three lights do I need three lights now that can come out on location not at all you could do a ton with just one eye I can count on one hand the times I've gone over to strobes when I went out on location and that was because maybe I had main light hair light and something on the background usually I just try to work with the ambience that's there so I did want to show you one clip before and this is this is the end shot that I picked by the way the shot that I like I just wanted the drama I didn't want attention down here at your feet which is why I added the grid you know the interest is here in that beautiful curve which by the way I did a class here and creative live called posing wanna one which I talk about how I really do posing and this one there's I have a favorite pose okay for women in long dresses that give you beautiful curve here and here and that's what I was instructing her to dio most of the day so if you see the same like really curvy pose it supposed that I teach in that class on dh then also if you go to my blogger my store I have two new posing guides ones for women's fashion and the other ones for boudoir so if you feel a little weak on the posing I've got some stuff to help you out and definitely for me it's been practice lots of practice I kind of figured out what works I'm just going to show you in this instance if I added an extra strobe where it would pop it in what I would use it for and then when we come back you're going to take a look at my reel shoots so now that we have one strobe on her face right now we're using a beauty dish twenty and white beauty dish with a grid well maybe I want to go ahead and up that production value because I love this shot so much so maybe a hair light is going to take this to just another level and that's love shooting studio strobes that's one of the reasons why because they can use the same modifiers I'm comfortable with you could go ahead and use the strip bank or I could use barn doors I could use a grid or I could just use their balls what we're going to do is just gonna add a hair light add another light and it's the same way you would work in the studio nothing different nothing too exciting you just have to remember that that you talk about with your sink speed and we're not worried about that in this light at all so all right steven let me just get a shot here right perfect good it is booming booming out a little bit more good and I'm gonna have you turn just this way with your head just anybody great beautiful so that definitely adding a nice hair light nice room light perfect I'm gonna back up just a little bit get a little lower that shape beautiful and I'm gonna have that stroke maybe peking and just a little bit in the frame that'll be perfect great and look right up towards that light good so I've added a little bit of separation there good beautiful eyes up one more time and I'm going to go ahead and just make like a little bit more dramatic move it over just a tiny bit and then that hair light will show up even more how about right about here and these are our makeshift sand bags great all right so take a look at that light on her face and give it a quick test and look up towards that light for me great lots of drama perfect and see then I would have you turn that light down just a little bit turned down the power alright so back up just a little all right here we go looks great thank you for that steven and this whole time that backgrounds getting darker so I'm gonna have to dio longer shutter speed that's what I'm going for right now so right now I've gone to the maximum I think I can hand hold and guess what it's still perfect one fiftieth of a second and by the way just to show you what happens if I do wiggle why do we go get a little bit of blur in the background but since there isn't any ambient light on her you're not gonna see any wiggle you're not gonna see any blur on her if I shake my camera to do a little bit more perfect and last one very less shot it's like really dramatic against that sky perfect thank you thank you stephen the reason I like shooting studio strobes is because I'm comfortable with it I shoot them in the studio when I take them out on outside I just think that kind of remember the rules can't really pop out on my sink speed what do I need to do if I need them to appear brighter after understand exposure but then when I want to light a scene like this I know exactly the modifiers I want and I understand the power and so now I've added to strobes and it gives me that kind of polished commercial look beautiful color in the background beautiful light on the model's face for those of you who are haven't really played with different channels of strobes that's something I want to touch on real briefly but we dive into it more on our speed li speed light day when you are working with studio strobes let's say that you're using multiple all and you happen to have the one that I have boomed out over the water and every time you want to change the power pull it back and change it boom it back out it's kind of a pain right um thank you so what many different systems have is the ability to change groups and channels and I get into this maurin deaf tomorrow but for example right now this is on channel one group a a channel is so that if you and I are both shooting in the same space I can put all of my lights on channel one you can put all of your lights on channel two and we were not going to mess with each other it keeps them separated the group's went in that a bcd and how far does this go up it goes up a bunch um think was it f uh the groups within it the letters are so that I could make this strobe eh the other show b the other strobe see and I can control it from my trigger so I have the ability for group a b and c to increase or decrease the power output so this is something that you'll definitely want to know if you go ahead and take multiple strokes out on location so that especially if you're one person you're not constantly running around changing the power you can just change it from your trigger if you have pocket wizards you could do this from pocket wizards radio poppers thie proprietary triggers of most studios strobe companies that make their own you have the ability to do the channels and then the groups within I did want to address something for tomorrow just to touch on this um you can see if you don't know how far you consume in but right now on this trigger made for the b one in the very top right hand corner it currently says dtl and this isn't this belongs to this strobe so pro photo is the first company that were the first major company that came out with the ability to turn studio strobes to tt else that they behave like speed lights tomorrow so I can make this manual just like the studio stroke to all using our studio but I can also make this behave just like a speed like so I'm just giving you kind of that segway into tomorrow when we covered teo you can do that with this particular one and there's a couple cos I know that are coming out with that capability as well for different brands so just know that that is a cz possible and when I'm on tio this information is not stops its exposure flash compensation so do I want the flash one stop brighter two thirds of a stop down so that is something that exists but most of us it's just manual the same way use use strobes in the studio you can take this for me please perfect okay so and then this was a look at the shot just gave me a little bit more definition I could include the strobe in the corner if I wanted a little bit of lense lor so yeah when we come back from break you'll see my real shoots that weren't just intended to show you guys concepts and they're pretty fun fantastic maybe one or two questions about this way have a few people who want to know whether the same golden hour shooting techniques apply at sunrise as well a sunset get exact same exactly the same thing just a little bit opposite were your increasing the light in the background instead write exactly exactly so you're thinking instead of oh let me see if I can have a longer shutter speed like you do it sunset you're like longer shutter speed to bring up more light as the sun is rising you're trying to get faster shutter speed trying to close down your opportunity to trying to lower your eyes so to compensate for the light in the background increasing so yeah same thing just opposite