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Zack Arias: Modifiers: Reflector, Grids, White Beauty Dish, Etc

all right we're going to the eighty six inch now then this thing is huge it is heavy so we have a little boa bag sandbag that we're going to either dance going to kind of hold it daily be is all plastic construction this thing's really heavy and all that plastic housing with all that much weight coming out over it could very well snap the housing of this stroke now you get a eighteen hundred dollar all metal housing you know something or another you don't have to worry about it so much right let's actually pull it push it back I wanted further away from the light source so is much of it is lit and we've already given one of these away right craig craig around I think we've given the eighty six away all right fun huh let's see what happens if we take this boat bag way go on watch this thing bust the part all right move that's slightly big uh can we get a tight shot we'll look at the how much this thing bows okay right there yeah nine nine f I really hate eh a all right you start spendin...

g ten thousand dollars on lighting systems you don't have that problem you go up you take a shot it's like f ate it is f ate period done end of story you show up in your mom's toyota for problem on dh you get this all right great so we shot that I'm going to just keep with that um let's take that off and let so straight flash and grids and then we'll go beauty dish you like grids if you'd never seen grids and action before grids are awesome so we're just going to do a straight flash no modifier tighten that down all right there's gonna be a little bright don't look right at it thirteen thirteen have thirteen alright no modifier just a seven inch reflector and we'll do one without the reflector right there perfect I sacked and changes exposure way here we go excellent so that is straight dan go ahead and pop that reflector off let's do bare bulb four point five are like just drop because now instead of being kind of directed right to our subject with the reflector it's it's bearable that's going out through the whole room way go down to four point five right there good all right next let's go forty thirty ten forty thirty twenty ten let me see one of them grid spot o one of my favorite modifiers thisa grid spot like seriously is like grids way on this one right here all right here we go grid cut you have seen through it and then not dan inside joke okay sorry so you can see through it and not it takes the light and tricks it the lights coming out in this direction out of the reflector and then you put a grid on it and it constricts it to a smaller area they usually come in a set of four the forty degree the thirty degree the twenty and ten that's typically the grids that you'll use most there some specialty grids that air like three degree grids the pretty expensive bless you so what do we have here we have the forty and we have appointed now pointing grid takes a little time especially you start to get into ten degree grids um it's a very small little circle of light I didn't take a meter reading eleven f thirteen eleven thirteen thirteen thirteen all right I got more thirteen's than eleven it's a third stop difference between those you know that's not you it was changing a stop between pops then I wouldn't even bother with these lights all right so there is the forty let's go with the thirty yes I'm sure they'll probably be some questions out there about your dark sphere and how this compares with the dark sphere of light uh it's the same kind of it's about the same uh we can pull the dark sphere out um coming up f ten ten ten make sure it's pointing in the right direction it is way are now thirty degree grid at f ten thirty degree that ten all right next twenty you having fun you need a water you need anything okay good so long as you're taking care of what you do today huh oh god well I sat hardest on the hardest chair ever on the fire of caps are you comfortable and yes uncomfortable I can't walk way appreciate it so much you man all right that's it it sound half eleven half eleven have ten what the hail what's going on suit stupid face dangle get me beer honey bear honey have cigarette you go kick a dog that's what I need the right I just need a dog kick even got dog kick just y'all go fishing your mom and go fishing I'll go fix america fish markets and face man I love me some fish all right next that was eleven teen after ten ten I'm just being but I had a question about speed rings what speed rings they're using for your non policy buff stuff um well I use the speed during what speed rings am I using for non policy buff stuff like the west comic cost westcott makes an alien be speed ring so I just buy theirs for and this it works for all of their soft boxes there strips and their octa bakes one speed ring can handle I think one speed ring handles all their modifiers all right okay so you start getting into the ten degree grid on you're talking about a very tiny circle of light so getting it positioned is crucial and what I will do is I'll typically come back behind my subject and look up at my light to make sure it's pointing at them nine I'm taking my meter and this is one of those situations not directly at camera just a little off to an angle f ate I got to f ate readings wait here we go excellent so let's look real quick and light room doo doo doo doo doo yes people on twitter are saying that they would like to see my room yep here it comes what I want to show you right here image on the left is with is just the reflector no grid image on the right is with the grid ten degree grid image on the left just a straight reflector no modifier just straight at our subject next one is with the ten degree grit all right pretty big difference now we still have the ten degree in here I love like I had when I'm placing my modifiers more likely than not it is placing them as close as possible without being inside of my frame and if I need to make uh bright environment like we're sitting here go dark I'm using grid spots at thirteen so this is ten degree grid getting closer after eleven eleven perfect lou you're kind of just like that looking over to that side looking down just a little bit just lean forward just a little bit and down perfect right there that's great hold right there f eleven all right so this ten degree let's pull up tio light room I'm lighting her forehead more than her face so I'm just going bring that right there perfect right there when I can actually see it feathering off of her forehead and back onto her face half eleven looking at my exposure I think I want to shoot it left thirteen right there good let's uh look at the two differences between these grid right dan you can change him out compare come on all right picture on the left my grid was a little too high and the forehead was getting a little too hot so I just brought it down a little bit to make sure that the forehead was not so hot and that her face was being lit more evenly all right working with a ten degree grid on let's look at this again let's look at it uh ten degree grid versus uh where we walk the bank we started whips way started with a knocked a bank we've got a ten degree grid way have one background and we can do that with it yes question question chat room kind of going back a little bit but with your umbrellas do you always use them with the reflector or to use him bare bulb as well I typically use them with the reflector I've done tests with the reflector and without um I get a little more light like about another stop of light if I have the reflector blowing into it um the only umbrella I've ever used that I really have to be careful with how I place it and how so far on the shaft it is is with the alien be uh parabolic their silver parabolic we would have it here had it not gone down in the wind on a location shoot that alien be eighty six inch silver parabolic umbrella can be focused and it's amazing it has this like hot center and it just fades it's just it's gorgeous and there's a reason that it's like on a fourteen billion month back order we would have won here and we call them like they were going and they're like we don't even have one they are on such back order there eighty six ninety ninety bucks or something for eighty six inch parabolic and by parabolic it umbrella kind of focuses the light that way but a parabolic if it's designed correctly will really focus the light and and it's really cool it's like an ocd a bank but with a hot center to it way used it on one big location job and I just I cannot say enough good things about it I really wish I had one here but man in the wind way found out pretty quickly how fast that falls apart all right question yeah they're number people in chat that air asking about snoops and the differences between grids and suits right the difference okay question is the difference between a snoot and a grid typically what I find with the grid is as this feathered edge where it falls highlight to shadow and that feathered edge is uh it's a beautiful little feathered edge it's a very fast feathered edge when I snoot a flash bringing you know a piece of metal or cardboard or whatever we can actually get the scent off oil out can we grab that sent a foil will make a homemade snoop it's usually a harder edge between highlight and shadow sometimes with a snoot I could make a smaller little circle of light if I get it in really close to my subject but I just find the grids that feathered edge that the grids have is different than the edge of a snoot and I prefer the grid over a snoop and then I have several different degrees of gritting aiken go to where snoot is a snoot and it's not going to have six different snoot ce kind of thing so do you want to take the time now to go through some questions or do you wantto keep let's let's get this finished up we've just got a couple more to do we've got the beauty dish all right twenty two aunts alien be beauty dish white one I prefer the white one because that's the one I own and the silver one came out after I purchased this and I don't have any desire to uh by another one it's a little more speculator the silver one is and that's f ten beauty dish f ten good and lou looking right over here perfect good smile great excellent all right uh dan just hold the thirty degree grid up in front of it way have a big grid a thirty degree grid let's take a look at this twenty two inch grid pops in the lip you want to just kind of hold that in place or well there we go all right so uh beauty dish thirty degree grid f ate excellent fifteen degree grid four point five all right four point five uh what's that uh you want a um what do you want you want just the panel uh scream oh yeah all right here's the sock I doubt we're going to really see any difference especially at this distance we're not going to see a big difference between sock versus without all right f ate this's beauty dish with the sock f ate boom takes a lot of time to do all this stuff doesn't it now a beauty dish like I said yesterday we worked with it I love it on a boom or on an arm a little more than having it I wouldn't work with it five feet away beauty dishes coming in close we'll have it with the sock f ate teen alright we don't need no f eighteen uh come down after nine f nine bump about wade just changed it to eighth power all right little smile there we go very nice and now let's pull that sock off nine still two tenths of a stop brighter without the sock on at that distance still at half nine or was the other one half eight okay I think I shot it alright let's put the sock back on again we're gonna see a difference in the background a little bit right there good way to go one thing that happened here with the sock watch the background where the sock did make a difference in this shot going the light room picture on the left is without a sock on we're getting this little pattern of light being thrown onto the background and that's taken care of by putting the sock on the beauty dish so on the picture on the left we have this little bit of a pattern hitting the wall and picture on the right that's taken care of that's that's defused that stray light and cleaned it up there on the background and we got the beauty of it is not uncommon whatsoever for my modifier to be up in this kind of corner again I used my lights so close in on my subject that they typically that it'll end up a little corner of it I'm not paying attention uh ends up in my shot that I have to go retouch out just a little edge of ah of ah soft box or that the umbrella shaft little silver well something what's that oh sheets mind because I bring them in really close I like my modifiers in close as close as I can get them sometimes I need to pull them back but if I'm shooting portrait situations they're coming this's my frame right here and then they're just outside of frame wherever they need to be in nice and close question there's people in the ass from chapping god talking about your using your white meaner and popping your strokes but how would you do it if it didn't have a pot of everything that's a great question how would I be taking a flash meter reading if my meter did not fire pocket wizards many of them have a pc port in them so you can plug a pocket wizard or cyber sink or whatever you want into it and it will fire eyes that one on what channel are we on three three so it will fire a pocket wizard through your pc port or you have a sink cord hooked up to your light and you plug it right into your meter and you can go in and take a reading another feature that the's will have is a flash meter usually says like it has a lightning bolt with a c for the sick connick as a lightning bolt with just a lightning bolt a lightning bolt with a c and a lightning bolt with a tea all right can we get a shot of that up top here and there's a uh some way you can turn the light on I don't remember how way have a shot all right right up top here we have a lightning bolt lightning bolt with a c that means courted that means it's going to fire the pc port on in a lightning bolt with a t that means it's a transmitter and that's firing the pocket wizard so you can come in here and put it in the lightning bolt mode and press the reading button and it is waiting to see ah flash so you hand hold your transmitter and it says okay four so you you pushed this this is waiting to see a flash he pushed your transmitter and it gives it sport it gives you two you uh four point five or whatever so you would have your transmitter of whatever the kind that maybe you have a cyber sync and you push this it's waiting on then it will see the flash and give you that reading alright the beauty of this iconic on dh is is just that it's got the pocket wizard built in um it comes here it's this little guy right here right here just plugs in and that's all the pocket was yours um stuff very dust all right let's do some questions we're going to be working on these pictures today and getting them on the block so you could look at them we'll have we'll have the whole list in order and you can see them say okay I want to look at the soft box versus the umbrella and we'll have those pictures up on the block toe look at question yeah from the chat room somebody asked if you have a pre shoot routine doing meditation or any kind of because you get yourself into the zone okay my appreciate routine um yeah I'm usually walking around going oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap um that's not a lie I like to be in my studio or near my location early I hate walking in the door and having to shoot I like to walk in the door and I want an hour I usually turn some music on whatever mood for me when I need to get my my brain kind of on one tracking thinking in one way for me it's hip hop I don't know why I'm not like that I love hip hop it's not my favorite genre but something about hip hop for me gets me gets all my like thoughts kind of solidified and going down one track um I listened a lot of mars ill um and deep space five it's some of my favorite stuff right now and I've been listening to brother ali and sometimes I go to like sage francis and sometimes it's like it's gotta all be snoop dog dre and eminem and it's all of that and jay z as loud as I can possibly make it so it's loud music I have a cup of coffee a cz muchas I joke around I like to have a beer and all of that I don't drink until the job's ending it's just a beer or two at the end of it but I'm not going to sit around haven't drinks before my shoot I've gotta be I've gotta be on maybe my pictures would be better I don't know but um and I want half of my gear ready to go I want my equipment ready cleaned I want some of my lights on because sometimes I need that time of putting the subject on the set and not everything set perfect yet because I need that time of walking around them talking to them them getting used to being on set so they're not going to get on a set and everything's ready it's going to be half ready and so I'm moving my lights I'm talking about stuff I'm talking with them I am nervous before every single photo shoot everyone I get nervous I get worked up I paced the floor I take this I move it over there and move it back over there I rearranged I rearranged the whole studio and I rearrange it backto work exactly it was when I started my old studio manager eric dixon hey would just sit there and go all right it's time for you to start but once you put the couch over here and then I'll move it back and then you could move back kinks that's what you're about to do isn't it yeah that's what I'm about to do the chat rooms had a lot of questions about the brawley boxes and your thoughts on those okay brawley boxes typically isa shoot through ah it's a shoot through umbrella with a black cover on the back on dh one main thing that that really helps with is the flair that he shoot through umbrella can give you so it's kind of flagging that like going back to the camera sometimes they're a little more efficient and how much power that they can come use but but you really start half thing to like pixel peep between brawley boxes she threw umbrella the soft lighter is like really popular right now and I look at the light that comes out of a soft lighter gun that's gorgeous thing is is there's four hundred million modifiers in the world there's the forty five inch umbrella the sixty inch umbrella the thirty inch umbrella the this side soft boxes side saltbox this side saltbox there's soft boxes with the lip and soft boxes that air flat on the front there's thie forfeit doctor the eight foot doctor that four hundred million foot doctor there's twelve by twelve silks there's twenty four by twenty four silks there's flags or screams there's cutters there's the the brolly boxes the soft lighters the sixty inch umbrella twenty eight and the fifty westcott that seven foot octa strip and grids that's six that's a lot to keep up with that I'll get you covered right there's others that are great and there's others that aren't yes let's yeah there've been quite a few people in chat who have asked if you remove the baffles in your soft boxes or if you leave them in I leave the baffles in my soft bucks inside let me grab this four foot rope quick everyone doing okay back here good I know we're running crazy there all right I have done test after test like this what you've seen this morning I've done this in my studio testing testing testing we have tested these with you take the front cover off and there's this thing called the baffle inside all right so what's happening is your light comes in here and is heading out to the front on and it needs to be as evenly diffused across the front of this box soft box octa bank whatever from this edge to this edge it needs to be a z even it's possible that's the plan so in order to get your light to spread in this amount of distance from where the head is to the front of it it needs to go through a first uh diffusion panel that's the baffle right here now this baffle has two kinds of diffusion material a little thicker in the center a little thinner on the side so this center circle cuts light a little more than the edges do and that again is trying to avoid ah hot spot in it now the parabolic umbrella has a hot spot and you pick it because it has a hot spot you khun take the baffle out and get a bit of a hot spot in the front but I have done exactly what we've done this morning we should be octo here and then we take the front face off and then we take the baffle out and we take pictures and take pictures and take meter readings and then we take it all out and we just shoot it straight with nothing and then we put the front back on but without the middle baffle and then I pull all these pictures up and I start zooming in and I'm pixel peeping pixel peeping there's a big difference in shooting it without the baffle there is a hot spot I don't like it as much as that parabolic hot spot this's where I run out of words like it's that parabolic eighty six inch parabolic silver from alien bees there's something to it what what is it what is it it's just it's beautiful it's different than my soft box it's different than that dr it's different than taking the baffle out it's different it's this to spot how it falls how it feathers off the edges its feathers differently than my other modifiers well tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me what it is it just is do I have to have it right now no you don't need to have it you go build a hole you could go build a whole career off a sixty inch umbrella and you never need to all this other stuff but typically here's my thought final on that question thiss thing was designed to have that baffle inside and have that front cover on and it can be kind of modified take cover often do this that and the other I buy an octa for that classic octo look I buy a soft box for that classic soft box look that usually requires baffles and so on and I run with him by default like that yes well you have you've been waiting for a while hi we've had some people that chat room wondering about how the overhead lighting is affecting your meat a ring and what kind of studio what kind of lighting what you recommend first okay I overhead question is how is this overhead lighting affecting me in the studio let's grab my meter on is still on all right I am but I s so one hundred hopes I'm not different mode let me put it back to transmitter mode all right it says six point three and I am at one twenty fifth of a second when we come back in on this beautiful thing about this um about this iconic meter can we see what we see that there's a little percentage reading at the top of this meter I need to go I wish there's some some way to turn the back light on that I can't remember how to do it all right no your gear I usually don't need it for a video camera all right so it's like well I don't need that I'm fun all right so there's a little percentage up here and what it's telling me is that when I take this meter reading that is the the light hitting this at one twenty fifth of a second a six point three is one hundred percent of my exposure as I start to slowed down my shutter speed toe like let's go fifteenth of a second it lets me know that eighty percent of my exposure at fifteenth of a second is going to be flash twenty percent of my exposure is going to be ambient it is letting me know what my flash toe ambient ratio is so eighty percent flash twenty percent overhead lighting as soon as I go up to a faster shutter speed because shutter speed controls ambient light right I'm at one twenty fifth of a second I am now one hundred percent flash and zero percent ambient light if I wanted to come in here and shoot a portrait at one twenty fifth of a second at f too so let's say I want to take my aperture open it all the way up toe f too and I'm at one twenty fifth of a second remember that's my safe sink speed especially with alien bees my flash at that point is now on lee sixty percent of my exposure forty percent of this light will be coming in on top of that at that point that's way too much that's way too much overhead lighting I need it to come down so if we set something up today to where I want to shoot a portrait at one point eight these lights have to come down to answer your question I like to keep a a little bit darker oven ambient field so we have track lighting in our studio and we point those track act at the walls and stuff and wei have lots of windows but we can pull black curtains over the windows when you walk in it's a little bit darker um and that way if I want to shoot a portrait at one point eight underneath a knocked a bank or whatever I could do that without having to worry about my ambient light readings messing it up okay uh thank you for that and also we've had some questions about what you used to hold the strip stripping with the alien bees yeah what I used to hold the strip bank with an alien via yeah the speed ring question here okay speed here your traditional octa bank and soft box and strip box have a thing called a speed ring it should be called a slow ring sometimes they death ring because putting these things together the problem with this kind of stuff like the oct if you put it together you don't want take apart again and you take it apart you're like I'm not putting that thing together again like it's a pain so this is called a speed ring and that's the wrong name for it and all of these little ribs of the modifier strip a strip has four um has four ribs uh can john could you grab that strip bank over there we'll look at that as well thank you sir multi tasking all right way take this back cover off and there's our speed ring right there all right we got that now then I'm gonna put a little pressure on it pop that out pop that out and then these will come out and that is our speed ring and these are made for the kind of lights that you're going to use you have brawn color it's a different springs during you have pro photo difference be during this is an alien be speed oring made by westcott so that it can snap on to an alien behead on here wei have strip strip strip and strip and then there are a couple other markings for different modifiers that they make s o way have a strip bank I need to put the poles here here here and here so these coming here make sure I got this lined up right gotta bend it in it's the third and fourth that that's you've got to give that we are good been to get in there all right so that's what that looks like what's that sometimes it feels like you're going to snap it and I've had old old soft boxes when I was assisting there were times I did pull one like these big soft box had a whole lot of tension on him you'd pull that first one and it would snap and you'd have to have it away from your body and get your hand off of it as soon as it came loose because it would come in and just bam smack you in the thumb and you just curse way scratch you had to like art directors all around and you're working for a photographer and you just everything's great some questions about the differences between like an indirect octo versus direct doctor like the one you're using an indirect octa versus a direct octa like the ellen crumbs have the light facing back into the reflector first one facing it I've never used the ellen chrome octa bank so I can't say but the fact of the matter is the light that's coming out of the face of it is what matters so if the ellen chrome faces into the back and it comes out all nice and even great if it faces into the front and through baffles they could make it all nice and even I bet at the end of the day you'd have to pixel peep to really see the difference between too I know a lot of people shoot that ellen chrome octa it it sets up differently and and it's gorgeous I've seen the results of it so they've been questions about how this might be a little bit outside of the class but lighting a larger area evenly with strobes twitter tips and tricks on getting that even light across a larger area even light like you're doing like a big interior for large group a large group typically larger modifier um if I'm doing a large group is it could be up to thirty people I'll still do it with a sixty inch umbrella but the thing about it is going to always start straight up over my head so if this is my group shot I'm june a group shot from john derek here we go that's sixty inch is going to be up here way up high and just bringing that light down on everyone all right and it's going to be up high enough so that everyone who has a chin gets gets a shadow under it and everyone gets light in the eyes all right when I'm shooting thirty people that's typically not thiss editorial band shot it's thirty people on you just you just you want to pull off a nice shot but when I do it from my clients the times I have to do that those are the we need a group shot of thirty people it's at a wedding or it's like a quick company here's here's all the technicians that work for us it's not for the network cable tv show where I have one hundred thousand dollars budget to work with give me one hundred thousand dollars to work with and I can like thirty people but it's going to take two days of pre lighting a day of shooting and two days of stuff it's a week long job for that one picture for those of us running and gunning sixty inch umbrella over the head on alien be with a vagabond battery pack so you have plenty of power done uh some people heard you talking about senna foyle was wondering what that was let's pop a reflector we have a seven inch reflector on this center foil basically this black heavy black aluminum foil or for those of you in the uk al you mini um um and you can roll it up you can scrunch it up you can make you know sunday school art out of it um it's pretty rugged but you could also just rip stuff off of it um it's kind of like duck tape of metal um and if I want to make a snoot over a light let's say I take this and hold it down a little bit it's also uh pretty heat resistant so if I'm getting flare from a lighter I want to make a quick little snoot I could do something like that frank it's called cinema foiled by a whole roll of if I need to make this new smaller there made a smaller like and I just need a little bit of light onto something just bam right there I want to put a little bit of light on this logo of a computer that is made by a manufacturing company out of california I could just bring in make a cent off oil snoot and just drop a little circle of light on there and then when I'm done with it I can take it off roll it up and stick in the back or you can fold it up in the squares that it takes even less space and then you can roll it out now after a while it you know you're going to abuse it so much um if you need to black out up some windows um you can use senna foil it's pretty inexpensive I've seen a lot of people do a lot of stuff with this you make a face mask yes uh mitch g m in the chat room wants to know if you can talk about what modifiers not to buy what modifiers not to buy that's a good question the ones you can't afford honestly you know I know we're like that eight foot are seven foot doctor but it's an octa bank because it takes off one hundred dollars out of your bank it's a hundred dollar modifier in it if you can't afford it don't buy it um I'd say you know if you're looking at umbrellas just go ahead and get sixty inch you don't need to have every single size of them there's five six different kinds of sizes of umbrellas um there's not any that I can say don't buy that unless it's just cheap plea poorly made and it's going to fall apart on you in a few months like some of the cheap ebay knockoff stuff sure you get a knock debate for seventy nine dollars but is it really gonna last you that long do you have to buy two of them a year or one a year that after a while you could have just bought one that will stay with you for ten years you know so yeah speed lights what size modifiers would be the largest you would go with a speed light any anyway if I can stick a speed line in it also showed that fifty inch soft box with a speed light ah lot of people say oh that's too big of ah modifier for a speed light think about it is is like is like now can you get f sixteen out of a speed light and a fifty inch soft box from five feet away no but you bring in that soft box with a speed light in it at and you and shoot it f to its beautiful you get this big soft beautiful light source you get to shoot it this really shallow shallow depth of field it's a gorgeous light that with the alien be sixteen hundred I can't get f two without neutral density filters on the lens or neutral density light so I'm not afraid to put a speed light in anymore if I can stick one in an octa I'll do it I'll probably shooting at one point eight but at one point eight that light will be gorgeous you know it may not spread like an alien be inside of it or an ellen chrome or whatever would but it'll still spit light into it and I don't work you can also get adaptors that will double up speed lights inside and modifier right you could double speed lights up into it remember that as you double flash power you'd gain one stop of light so you have one speed light you had another you had one stop alight you need one more stop of light you have to double your flash power you go from two to four now you have four speed lights you need to double you need one more stop of light you goto eight I'm getting appointed the watch one more question we're going on break okay we just had some people in chat wondering if you're going to talk about working with black seamless working with what black seamless paper uh maybe um hell maybe we will maybe I mean black seems lose white seamless it's just dark and you're not trying to blow it the white and you're not trying to blow it to black because it's already black I'm going to use black seamless if I need the floor that's a person standing on to be darker I will if I need everything to be red then I will use red seamless as if I needed to be yellow then I put a yellow seamus if I want the floor and everything to be black I will use black seamus I'm still going to use soft boxes octa banks whatever probably not put any lights on the back but maybe but I'm not going to try to blow it the white that's for sure