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Live Shoot: Signature Set Up with Speed Lights for Women

So we are gonna go. We're gonna go, yeah we're doin' speed lights, people. (laughter) And I'm gonna go into capture one, and what we're essentially doing, is I'm gonna work with Cameron and Yulin to get this look going, that's similar to my setup but with speed lights. I wanna give you guys options. You got gear to play with. How many people own a speed light? Oh my gosh! Really! I don't own one. I mean I use them. I use them from Cannon and I test 'em and I use them for teaching, but I'm about to buy four of them to use them more often. But over the years, I never, 'cause I'm not, I don't go out of the studio or shoot events, and I don't use them on location. I use my B1, so I never had one. But now that I'm shooting Cannons and stuff, and I'm using 'em and I'm lovin' 'em. So I've been usin' to, my thing is that I wanna give you guys all the options. And I need to be able to use whatever piece of equipment that is available to be able to teach it. So I started shooting speed lights be...

cause I really think they still look great, and it's an entry, it's a way to get in for photographers. You can start with one speed light, and a rapid box, and get started with the one-light setup. You can mix natural light with a speed light and get amazing stuff. So we're gonna start and we're just gonna show ya. I'm just gonna show you my setup, similar light, little different feel 'cause it's comin' out of a speed light, but let's give it a shot. So Yulin, can you come up here? Okay, so here we go. We're not worried about the backdrop. We're just gonna let it go to gray, because of why? (faint speaking by audience) No, yeah, come on you know. Scoot up here a little bit. Go this way. Let's move this center. I just want a center it a little bit on the background. So I have a lot to work with. Come forward a smidge. There you go. Go back a little bit. Bring that in, we need it. I'm already layin' in the john today. Here we go. (laughter) Alright here we go. So I'm just gonna keep 'em similar in that they're a little smaller. So I got a little smaller light on the length, which is fine, but I can get 'em pretty much in the same configuration. So I'm gonna go right about here. I think Yulin looks great. This is what I want you to do. Put your fingers like this. Go up over your head, separate your hand in the back and go like that. (laughter) I don't like hair on the shoulders guys. That's my move. Okay. So we gotta take a guess shot. Right, totally different ballgame. But we're speed lighting it and they're right in her face so do I need 200 ISO? Why not go, we just go, let's just bring it down. Okay let's go a hundred. Alright, you guys know about this flash sink thingamajig. We'll go over that later for the people that don't. I did not know when I started. I have a story about that. So, give me a... See in that case we gotta go shutter speed. What do you do? One over 160. That's what I do. We're gonna one over 160th. I just like to go a little bit under where it sinks. Does anybody know the sink speed of a-- (faint speaking) 200. What is it 200? 1/200th on the 5D Mark IV. (chattering together) 250. Do you guys know? I think Cannon's 1/200th. I know my 5DS R is. I don't know about the Mark IV 'cause it's brand new. I just got this sucker. Alright, so we've got the Cannon. What is it 600EX-RT? And they just came out wait the 600EX-RT II. These are the 600EX-RT Is. I'm goin' to take a guess shot. I'm gonna try and get it within two stops. Alright, I'm 100 ISO. We have some power settings here. Let's go, should we try it at five six, just to see where we're at? I'm usually a four. Let's try five six. What do you think? Five six. Let's give it a shot. Alright, you wanna just stand, that's perfect. (camera click) And lets just try it and see where we're at? Oh my goodness! Holy smokes, now, Yulin. Beautiful. Guys look at that light. (chattering) So tell me. Am I missing anything here? Speed lights, rapid boxes. Am I missing anything? Look gorgeous, right. Can you build your business with that setup? 'Cause people are gonna tell me. I know the flex kit's 5500. A speed light rapid box setup is not gonna cost you 5500 bucks, and you're gonna get that kind of light! Shabang! (laughter) Alright, Yulin, I want you to do something. Do you know what squinching is? Yeah, exactly. Don't overdue it. Very subtle. I'll take it all that beautiful, good. Alright guys, so I really don't have to, oh my gosh, double shabang! (laughter) Can we get a double shabang? Yeah! Okay we don't need to yell it, let's whisper shabang. You ready, three, two, one! Shabang. Good, alright, whisper at home. I want whispered shabangs today. Let's do it. I love it, Yulin, look at this. Do you love this light? Is it beautiful, can you see it? Cool! Not bad, right! Yeah (laughs). Not bad. Guys, I'm tellin' you so, I think it's fantastic. I could work like this with clients and this could be my gofer, head shot setup light, right. You know, why not? I mean, I know it's a smaller, tighter... Let's look at the catchlights in it. Woops. It's a different. It's different and I can see that the bottom light, I did set, so just so you guys know, you're gonna ask me, I'm sure. The two at the top are even, right. They're set on channel A and I've got the bottom on channel B. I think we could give, now Yulin's gorgeous. Her skin's amazing. She's making this easy on me. But I think we could give her some fill. We could amp up fill. Should we try amping up fill a little bit? 'Cause I kept fill low. You could see it in the catchlight too. Alright. So let's try amping up fill. Alright let me just see. I got this transmitter on here, which I need my glasses for. Alright, here we go. Let's see if we can get fill going. Let's see if we can get fill going. Here we go. Let's go, what should we do? People are gonna ask my settings. I'm at an eighth power on A, okay. I'm at 1/32nd on B. (faint speaking by woman) What? B's fill. Okay, let's go. Let's go 1/16th. Let's not go crazy. (laughter) I don't want it to look up-lit. Have you seen up-lit stuff? (chattering) Maybe we'll up-light her just to show you, but let's keep it here for now. Let's try 1/16th and just see how that is. Yulin, you ready? Alright. That's it, hold it right there. Give me my little squinch, close your mouth, jam your forehead out, keep the chin up. Yeah, and there you go, good work. You can't look like this. Give me this, yeah. A little less, don't go crazy. There you go, good, beautiful, chin down a little bit. Close your mouth, tiny smile. Jam the forehead out. Good, that's it. Hold that. I can work with that. Okay, good and let's see. Okay lets go back and forth. Now it also filled, but it gave, it added some light to the key lights too. So it overexposed it a touch, right, compared to the other ones. If you're adding more light, it's gonna add more light everywhere guys. You gotta be careful. This is the attention to detail that's very important. Okay, so let's go back and look at Yulin here, which I loved, and then that. It just amped it up a little bit. Now she has a turtleneck on, so it's hard to see where the light really is goin'. But it does not look up-lit yet, does it? So normally, we'd be looking in this area. We're gonna dissect the face later. I'm gonna be dissecting the face. I'm gonna show you where the area is that we're watching very closely. So, it's fine that you have a turtleneck on. I love turtlenecks, it's fine. It's just in this case, I'm looking at the neck, to see they way the light's behaving. Let's go even and see if we like it. Let's see if fill even with, who is it? I don't have names for these other guys (laughs). Alright, let's see. I need my glasses again. Alright, here we go. Let's go. Let's go even. This is even lighting. I wanna see how your sensitivity to light is. Let's see who notices the difference. You ready. Oh, you know what's goin' on. There you go, tiny smile, I'll take it. There you go, beautiful. Fantastic. Wow! I like it still. Does it look up-lit? Doesn't look up-lit, it doesn't. Just looks like I'm blasting her with light from the front. Guys, this was all built around that windowsill lighting. That was my theory. Like I'm shooting through a window. You guys, now look at the catchlights. Now that might bother some people. Let's look at 'em and see if it bothers us. You tell me. If it bothers you, raise your hand. It bothers you. We got double hands. (laughter) We got hands galore. Is that bothersome? Yeah, it bugs me a little bit too. But you know, you gotta, and this is what you gotta decide. Am I gonna change? Am I gonna change the beauty of that light, to change that catchlight. That's up to you. Because if the catchlight bothers you that much, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to give something up. You can't have your cake and eat it too, sometimes. Sometimes you can. In this case, you know. If that really bugs you, you know, what are we gonna do? You know what we'll do. You know would happen and a mistake that a lot of you guys are making is? You'll do this. You'll start doin' this. (clanging) You'll do this. And you'll do this. And you'll do this. And then you'll get a different catchlight, but how's the light gonna be? We just flattened the light out completely. You lost all your juice. Have you guys ever seen, did you have any clue that you were gonna come here and see me jam lights in the face like this? (laughter) You didn't thing the lights were ever gonna be that close to the person. And you see what it does. You got it now. We're building your base. Do you know how important that is? Watch the difference. (faint speaking) she steps back. Well let's just see. Well I just stepped her back. I moved the lights back from her. Let's do the same setup. So now, I'm at five six, but I moved 'em way back. Remember what, because of the inverse square law, I'm gonna lose about 75% of the light. So I'm gonna go 200 ISO. And I'm gonna go at four. And I'm gonna take a guess shot. That's how much I think, it's gonna be within two stops probably, right. Let's try it. Alright Yulin, right here. Perfect, and I'm gonna go to my settings, and I'm gonna get right in where I was. Perfect, good. And I want you to watch the difference. Okay, so here's what it's doing. I want you to notice the difference. Now it's still a little hot. Let's take another one, but it's barely hot. I could've stayed at five six. I could have just gone 200 ISO, right. Let's just do it again. Perfect, good, just to get it. So I want you to notice the difference. I'm not getting, my thing is that I want the light to hit the face here, and to fall off here and have that bright, that pop out of it. See the difference in the pop. Not to mention we just changed the background color. How did the background color change? (chattering) How does that happen? I'm gonna say it again, inverse square law, right. So I moved the light back, and I lost 75% of the power. I changed my settings, and the background didn't move but the lights moved, and we got somethin' different. You see the difference in the contrast of the images. You go it. So you guys are shootin' flat images the whole time 'cause you're puttin' your lights like that. I'm shootin' with the lights in the frame. Everybody online is complainin' about it, and I'm like I gotta a guy. (laughter) What are you worried about? Because I want this! I want that! What do you want? Do you want that or do you want that? Am I right? You want this, right, okay. So that's what we're gonna do. That's what we're gonna do. Could you go over the settings for the lights? Okay, so we've got-- There's a lot of questions. About that. We've got these on channel A. And guys, obviously, you guys that are speed light shooters know this stuff, right. You got your remote up top, or however, you're gonna trigger it. And you could have slaves on 'em, whatever you need to do, but this Cannon setup is really great. This is the speed light transmitter. It's the ST-E3-RT, and I've got channel A and B. Alright, so I've got these on channel A. This one's on channel B. Okay, and we are goin' with, they're all at an eighth power now, 'cause we set it up like that. Right, so they're all at an eighth power. Alright, does that cover it. Yeah. You know what, Yulin thank you very much. Can you just confirm the rapid boxes. Those are the same exact size, correct? These are, I believe, they're not one by three. They're one by two strip boxes, Westcott rapid boxes. Yeah they're one by twos. They're really great. I mean these suckers, they fold right down real quick, and they're real portable. I love 'em. They're really fast, they're great.