Lessons

Lesson Info

Sue and Felix: Shoot Studio Light - Backlight

I'm gonna take these katie you can relax I'm gonna take these about a meter three feet over actually why don't I just take these away so we can see what's going on we're going to close the curtains move this over a bit and I'm going to keep this quite low and I'm going to show we're gonna do this slightly differently than susan because I have flexibility I don't have I'm not limited to that window up there I can shoot this further down put that there for katie right so which one of these has set up this one okay great let's get that shoots through umbrella trump that we had because light passes through it just it's like a diffuser actually show it when we have when we get on set and that's different than the silver one that you're related so this one is kind of like a silk if you had a silver inside it would bounce back like back and you shoot through all right thank you so just mounts into here like we had it before on the first set up and then I'm going to let you just twist this awa...

y so that I can show the students what we're doing and now I'm blocking all the cameras yeah well I'll just just twist this I put it back I'll put it right here now I'm using this war the light's going to shoot through bounce off this war and come back this actually has a little bit of reflectiveness inside of here so we're going to get kind of two layers of light one's coming back from this and then maybe fifty percent of it is going to hit the back wall and come back as well so we get that soft light super simple equipment set up you don't need a lot of stuff and again I'm going to angle it kind of like it's the sun stick it about here no rhyme or reason for the distance to the wall if you have a smaller room you can put it closer to the wall it's okay jon let's put this back in good turn on may pocket wizard on dh where's the camera with the pocket was it a swell no that's fine way can play around with this and if I can get katie I'll just do a light test and see where we've ended up well she seems all right we can take questions yeah um well we can try it soon would you be honest deacon yeah because we've got quite low now so I'm going to start at that shutter speed off one hundred twenty fifth of a second like we explained yesterday and I'm gonna take my so reasonable right let's actually let's take some questions from the audience while we get katie back and you have a question about this setup we don't take a photo of me so the shadow never cast from me there the light sitting there bouncing light or when you said you were shooting under your backdrop you're never getting a shadow coming in and affecting your life it all right usually kind of rap just quite nicely yeah because we're putting so much like kind of bounces everywhere that's kind of the sun is doing well and it's defused against wolfe you didn't have this I think your proposition just kind of a more basic question vicky ellis so really what you're trying to do is slightly blow out your background to make it bright enough for the face that correct yeah sorry well to maine now with the strobe or just shooting in the back light shooting the backlight in general ok so the deal is this when felix took that shot on a normal exposure which is what the camera meted because it gets confused by all the white line it under exposed the girl that had a perfect exposure of the background because it's the biggest space in the shot so I pushed two stops higher on my meter because what I want to do is go against what it's telling me and exposed for the girl which pushes the background to stopped up so unfortunately if your background is say three or four stops brighter than the girl it's going to just blow it out like boon it and you're not gonna have any details and you'll get banding and cameras these days can handle it they couldn't at first we just get this mess of bands of magenta when we pushed the background light but now they can handle it but the trick wass to walk here away from the light in closer to the reflectors because it made her face lighter and then it read better the meter read better but I only took it up two clicks and to say two klicks over and it was a perfect exposure on whom we didn't burn the highlights too much although I will say you can see the separation in this image when I shoot in my studio I paid to have my big window frosted and it's so soft that the light behind here isn't competing so much so really what felix has to do is like the front in the back here are you not going to put a light in the fanta you just kind of put reflected that okay so I want to show how it is if we don't have the reflector so if you would kindly pose and I will take a shot of you just make sure my flask on my flash is firing good and remember guys I haven't paid attention to what power the lights on because I'm just gonna test in here right might not be too flattering su I'm sorry that's all right I can see that that's actually a good starting point get that up on the screen it's brighter on here but I like the light on the back and all I would diagnosed with this is we need to bring light and from the front ok yeah so that's I'm gonna do that so you've actually got a softer backlight than I had because I can see it already yeah but I like to hear you john let's drop this down so that's on the floor I think we can get this fortune so again I'm not doing exactly the same thing sue was doing coming up on your knees again I don't have that restriction off the window being up high we can we're much more flexible here yeah without set up if you unscrew this uh this is this is why you silks right soon hwe go the dark the dark backstory of good so I'm happy with that backlight john let's put in those three flats in the same fashion so the light is facing away from the scrim bouncing into the umbrella that way would like you did that yesterday and then you turned around and about and shot or the first one you shot the umbrella and then bounced back to the um would you be out of the way we could what I did yesterday is I move this like that can you see felix on camera I move this kind of over to the side so actually no light is bouncing in any direction back to where the subject is this is completely feathered it's just the sides kind of skimming across kind of is a few you're not getting any direct light you're getting the edges of it but for this the backlight is going to be a little bit harder to kind of flow out in the same way you didn't worry too much about the sun coming straight into here so I can't change the son you know but you didn't worry about being harsha it's actually nice if you have a big strong light coming in from the back so that's why for the first time the light is kind of angled in a way that it bounces almost straight back all right and I'm actually going to show one other little trick as well once we've got this set up so b flat e I feel like my greatest problem or block west lighting was that I was going to have to change how I should and I feel like all I'm doing is making the sun around how I already shoot that's probably something I learned the most about these last two days don't you think and how achievable that is because I already know how to do everything else so all I have to do is pull away from the window and make my own son right and that really makes a huge difference to how I shoot and we're winning where so the other thing is now actually we don't even need to use that nd filter because you this what I should have sued the reference there is that of two point eight it just kind of works that way because we're using that really bright light from behind so interesting again I'm in the same situation I within yesterday where she's in darkness right so we have to just need apart katie and just kick out this way this elbow goes around the body and see if I'm concerned up that model empty here you just turn up turn up half the money already the max it cycles through three times sometimes don't worry that shadow behind the booth that's john so I turned up the model and a little bit I think I s o needs to come up with a critical yeah let me turn to the back of the camera purists will tell you that's not okay I don't care it doesn't need to clients don't ask you if you meet it with the back of the camera little baby smile good girl beautiful what do you think that's beautiful good lets them I want to get a reference shot just for all the ball just for fun let's thank the temperature that when we shoot lights the temperature is clearly ridder yeah and when I opened it in front of shop I found that to be the most difference now image is interesting because we photographed the same people and the same poses and the poses were almost identical shadows were so close but the temperature was significantly different and you can alter it to a certain degree but when skin tone picks up a warm it's still very difficult to take it into a coal yeah I actually take out some of the red as when I import into ok come I automatically take out some of the red you do I don't know why it does that I think it's probably got something to do with physics of skin how it reflects sunlight on yeah that is a difference luckily we shoot in ross so we can adjust all of you so you take redoubt off most of your images except she called I like cold work I like cold science so yeah ok see take way just had a question over here relates to this picture on the other side but I know when we did the natural light you guys use the half white reflector there is it necessary with this or is the studio light kicking up enough I think one of the things that we have the backlight is lower down okay you didn't need to because of the way the angles you know it was coming from here and doing this onto katie now it's coming from here the light that's bouncing back is more killing it so that's why you didn't notice that right away without trying right that reference is actually quite different but I wasn't trying to make the reference work exactly for this well she's actually standing in the in my way so I can get it to stand up in yellow scrim up yeah that should work let's see how that looks okay it's working two step towards me kate because I need you towards a reflector and I think this was back a little bit because you were dancing that's it so can you see in my shop these life alone in the studio don't register at all so we have enough off that flashlight that it overpowers the complete yet doesn't even show up so I think that I'm happy with that's close enough for me okay you're right there is that readiness isn't it I'm coming in okay and let's try also with that reflected from below like how do you remove your reds in your old files do you do in the light room okay and you just remove your reds in when I'm water in the colors yes I just to take the saturation down the red slightly and add a bit of yellow but that's just a personal preference yeah but yeah it's great I'm great tip and I also in I don't know how it works on battery but an aperture you khun change the tent from green and yes you can tell your island from roar went down so that's usually I kind of play around in there a little bit you know what I would do here is you have some gray in the picture you can just drop on you can use that dropper to get to highlight the gray and then it figures that white balance for you okay and aperture is really good at water white balance now as well just hit it and it usually gets it right all right so what I want you to do now is the shimmy again and when I get the bishop me it's this side when you turn your left shoulder towards may and then just chin no not that I just keep doing the shimmy but it's this one that I click on yeah and to just elbows back a little bit hold the back of the skin a little bit more instead of the front that's it and then just give me that little flick and let's just do it not too far katie and then just smile and look down that's a girl beautiful don't stop doing that because it's amazing all right now push your chin for just a tickle and a little bit more of a smart girl okay pretty chin forward a little bit more into a big smile don't turn so far just flick more with the dress I had to go that was beautiful and let's do that with like a laffy luffy luffy could girl that's gorgeous the same she has these beautiful cheekbones and you're getting that same highlight just under the cheekbone yeah on both lives beautiful I can do one more because I just got you on the side I know that there's probably one more coming but let me just nail it because I want a good shot little bit more of a smile that to go out both back beautiful big open smile and more flick on that dress give me a real smile great I wanted to show you one of the little trick actually because that works right yeah you know perfect suit is happy I'm happy I want to show you one of the tricks a lot of you talked yesterday about kind of getting a flare into that image and I want to show you how you can do that just passed the face we go no they can't but we'll pull this down okay john well are we talking slide this one across that everyone can see what we're talking about this one so I can do two things here actually john let teo both versions of this but you mind plugging this in me okay felix here's a good question on the natural light image one of the things I do like about natural light is how much of the light comes into the body and face yeah I think you can just go up on us a little bit turned the light up a little bit all right that's that wrap around effect you mean yeah natural light does tend to have a little bit of a difference there because it's you know this is a very simple version of it yeah I'm going to show how I set it up with two lights and that might also make it wrap around a little bit okay so I'm gonna keep the umbrella where it wass and we're gonna compete for space here and I'm gonna put a lights do right behind katie's head okay so pull the scrim back so the students can see going katie then again I'm not too worried about these shadows everything kind of bounces around fine and this if I'm using two lights I mean I don't want to make this complicated not short with one light as well I'm just going to turn the second one to its lowest power so that I don't get confused in it's not overpowering this guy on what I'm trying to achieve let's get scream back in and this is probably the best for a close up maybe just a headshot and so if you get katie to sand you can see that second you just skirting on the edge of that what's behind that face and you should get a beautiful do you want to stand against this graham you're away from okay yeah she can come away a little bit as well wherever you were and then you can just move your camera to kind of get that in and you'll see the effect it has we'll put this the flats back in for you so if you can I don't know if the camera can get through this crack here but it's kind of neat to see that like feathering around here now okay so hold the dressed elbows back nice strong back to go one on one just bring your chin this way and stop that's a go we've added right now so it'll probably look a lot brighter and just move her so we can get your lenders really getting that so I can see the whole light said you want me to cover it o r it's not firing that's what I can we actually need to make it I didn't turn the pocket with it on rookie mistake right let's try that I don't don't do this at home don't look at the light way higher you're gonna get blinded tell us a little territory truth you see how it's like getting that really bright like flair e light almost it's almost too much but it's yeah yeah she looks like a elf then we turned this second light up a little bit that's a compliment by the way yeah it become because felix is a rabbit lord of the rings fan on surprise there haven't been more lord of the rings references that soon way speak out lish okay so I've turned that up to double the power that extra light we've added in and let's just see what happens when you do that you might have to change your s o to be less sensitive it's at one twenty five right now so I can't change it too much of a hundred see what happens well that's really bright isn't it she's turned from weighing the day pig jay on the back of the camera it is bright and it's lost a lot of decks but my camera sitting mutual remember not to contrast and I'll show you what happens if I turn that a soft umbrella light off on we should get a really strong flare okay because you've got twelve minutes and we want to do the black tunnel of light behind yes we dok well after this just takes a second we'll do a couple of shots and move on so now I've turned off the light the original light with the umbrella and you might have to change your settings good going on my yeah go off when you're so incredibly yeah and you see you're getting on the right you're getting a lot more like and it's kind of more directional ziff the sun was coming in and here is where a thinner diffusion cloth you would get more of that effect like a tune my eyes her up and I didn't need teo one sixty or actually one hundred privacy when I'll do one twenty five tell me something this is almost better than the face yeah but that's because we've got the strong the fusion class here it's fairly thick so you're not going to get that burn so that is one twenty five two point eight so is one twenty five and can you just show them the light there yeah just deconstruct it so that they can see what you actually just did then because they're actually closer I think to the natural light and then the original and that's because you had the sun in your natural life shot giving quite a focus like if you had shot your original with a cloudy sky don't move anything that you know I know but this one isn't what I know but you had it set up bouncing and they're so originally this one with the umbrella and it was on creating a really soft kind of light box from behind then I added this and both were firing but they were kind of still creating a really soft light so I turn this one off on the last shot there is just this one that's why you're getting a little bit of a one hotter life from this side giving it more of a radiant if you this so I'm going to be katie sorry I'm not as pretty the light in relation to her was kind of here you can move her so that the light is just coming into the edge of your camera frame and you would get that highlight just at the top of your frame you could move it so it was over here coming up above her head so you can try mess around with that move her if it's right behind her is going to come on both sides and if you use a thinner silk on this you'll get more that flare effect as well so that's a really fun thing to play around with just the bare bulb behind one of these backlit it's gonna look great okay they're set up for the next one is it possible to leave the backdrop there so that we don't block the student in for you to put the light there ok that's absolutely so katie you gonna can you um come understand here on dh what I want is to black reflex one on either side right so we're going to use exactly the same set up as we did with the backlit apart from this is going to be pointing because I don't have a war back here this is going to be pointing we're only going to rely on the light that reflects back from this two two onto that scream so I might have to turn this pack this light up a little bit so bring that scream right here and I think if we have it coming at this angle it's gonna look quite public that's really flat I'm goingto bring the scrim on the light up so we gotta light that's coming kind of from above john we're gonna go quite high yeah let's go there and then I'm gonna angle this forward that should just work there we go just to give it the impression that it's like a skylight that's kind of what you had in mind soon I don't know I can't wait to teo can I have the bastable and an apple box jump and again a matching that angle kind of andi what I'm looking for here is that the spread of this umbrella and I can see it in the model life it's kind of covering this whole area I see it's coming off the bottom of a little bit so I could move it back move it up whatever I'm just going to be lazy on dh do that and now it's giving a nice spread and I can just see that with the model light I'm gonna have a look yeah john would you just put that up about half a foot still yeah that's good that's going to give us a light that kind of comes from up here in this direction is going to feel like a window light from behind I'm gonna doing the shimmy game because it's fast enough I won't stand it so I'll let you know okay so the light source was behind me looked really really beautiful with tarragon um and it blew me away and I wondered if I could recreate this and you get the black like kind of a black room on both sides behind her yeah so much of black room it was just this beautiful day it's that I don't normally get from natural light okay how far was the window behind you right behind me actually like within a foot so you can do this in a small room so I was pushed out I was this far away from my client and I was hit my bum against the window basically yeah it was really close in a box you in okay push your chin towards me katie so as you know I'm not telling katie to put a chin forward and down because she's long and lane but I am telling her to put it in forward because it makes a significant difference in on lean body go teo also one hundred and I'm goingto because you already you don't change yeah pitches I'm going to turn this the power of this light down a little bit thief the first time I thought about the power of this life can I put find jonah but can I put on the neutral density filter you can actually let's do that so then no one has to worry about the power of the light that way why do we have this set because and because flares if you had a light source hitting the lens from this side you would get a flat like you keep it on when the shooting in the studio like flesh sometimes yeah I do depends on what you're after really you'll see it when you see it for the first time if there's lots of weird light coming through a lens just put one of these and it minimizes you need a woman's touch so what are we gonna do we're gonna just cut out some of that life I have changed I haven't changed this at all so I'm going to sit my utility into the field that how many people here going to buy a neutral density filter denton on wish I sell those appreciation for katie bam okay I feel like there's still a little bit too much light hitting the background there's pulling her away from the background come towards me can we go back yonder spin creamy skin yeah and the further this goes away from the background the less of that light is going to hit the background and measure chin's a little bit telling stock it should go slightly dark I mean it's very gradual can this yes would you hold that that's great I have a look at that so I want you to hold the dress and I want your opinion elbows the reason we do that is because if I don't get a dependent elbows and she turned she turns with flat against her body which looks horrible so when I'm getting here hold idris she's actually doing something so she's got a reason to hold it elbows back and then I get here to do the little shimmy and I get a push kitchen forward and look down because we love the lashes and the red let's slow down but frank isn't on your camera change nothing I just wanted a shot of her doing it should be okay he didn't change a bit more movement and more smile pushkin for katie good girl that was gorgeous I can't do any more moving that that like that okay can I just make one point if if this looks harsh when you do it double up your silks make it thicker that's going to make it softer you want to get as much you know if you want a harsh light it's a thin silk if you want it to be really soft to soften it up cristina what if there was a wall behind what you do because right now I would light leaking then you wouldn't even need the umbrella you can just bounce off the wall and come back an easy gone there was another question a little bit more of a small push ten forty let's together christian for good deal I was beautiful it doesn't look nice on the other screen it looks pretty beautiful and here though actually tend the density filter up another two stops that some four so you're cutting out four stops of light from the flash and I could get it further away from the background because I think enough background to do that yeah yeah that's really beautiful and I love that we just show what if we walked this any feedback how it effects the background just for the sake of fun so felix I actually with a stocking a susan and I was kind of shocked at how much light is bouncing back because that's what I usually think of as a shoot through umbrella so I wouldn't think it is bouncing that much back and especially then when you've also got the scream defusing it and you're working on so one hundred especially when it's not it was two feet from the wall or three feet from the wall and now I have a kind of can you talk a little bit about how much light actually bounces back from that and I think that specific umbrella it has a little bit of a sheen on the inside so it bounces some light back I'm sure the manufacturer could tell you percentages and everything for me I set it up if it wasn't working this way I would then turn it around sometimes you just have fabric and found that directly in whatever works this one happens to have a little bit of sheen that's bouncing right back but you know if it doesn't work change something just try that's that's a life in doing so and does the image cooper photography was wondering whether the height of the ceiling makes a difference at all if you're shooting in a home with eight foot ceilings does this still work yeah um if you use your christmas for to see how much like getting from the ceiling definitely if you had a feeling right here it would bounce a little bit sometimes that's really negligible sometimes it might be good too block the life of putting some like a black fabric pinning it to the ceiling just try to cut that out and you can just control it whichever way you know all put some black v flat on top of this set up to just bounce stuff from bouncing I'll take another question lola selina's would like to know if you're using an nd filter right now and if not what you are because we have we were already at one hundred twenty fifth of a second we were already at s o one hundred and sue wanted to stay at f two point eight so one of the ways you could stop the light from being so bright would be to go up in your aperture but we wanted it to be we could didn't necessarily have that option we wanted to stay at f two point eight so if you bring katie off the backdrop and shoot in the same yeah I just didn't then so you can see it on the back of my camera I met one stop of neutral density on the filter I met two hundred soaks I wanted it soft in lights so I went up on my also at one twenty five two point eight I have actually charlie just against the backdrop now it looks quite contrasting on there but you can see how soft it is on there and when we did it that on this afternoon you've got to see how beautiful and soft it is to come towards me even more and I'll try and take the same shot albums and just bring you to this thing and then shouldn't the backdrop should now be dark and she's right so let me in charge so if you turn it down yes I did turn when I moved back to the wall I tend I sew up because she knew no closer to that light so she's gonna it's gonna be bright on her so what have you got tio no one hundred yes no sorry I s o one twenty five so if you compare those last two images while the last the one before the last sorry yeah so that was against the wall no sorry the one before that was the overexpose one yes correct perfect so that was against the wall and that was away from her like you like against that backdrop look at that it's that shadow makes it kind of feel natural but as you move her away and you have to compensate in your camera because you're getting more light backdrop then becomes darker right so let's pull the scram back katie I'm going to get used to you conclude that way it's pulis from back so that students can see that screen because they can't see it there but I do have one final question I do wanna hit which is talking about the backlit set up via rela wants to know could you also do that with a giant soft box or a lockbox and putting the model exactly in front of the hot spot does that work yes it does and I would diffuse I have a giant last light umbrella that I use because I'm travelling kid I can't get over this stuff in it on dh I put a silk over the front of the umbrella so rusts it would end up being like I think this would be too small to do that with it would kind of look weird but if you had a giant umbrella watch out that you would life they get hot so just make sure you don't cover the vents do it like that and if the model's head is covering that hot spot you get that wrap around really nice but it's so easy to make this flare the best setup is this