Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Mixing Strobe with Ambient Light

Let's, talk about the gear for just a little bit about tools because there are an awful lot of people that are watching and many of you as well that are looking sort of for a list of starter equipment. What do I need to get started in the studio? And I think for me, you know, most of the lighting gear comes and kits now so you can get a decent kit, like a two head kit will usually come with two heads to stands, two umbrellas to reflectors s o they come with some stuff, so they're really a great place to sort of begin, uh, I would I would consider, you know, think about what it is that you're going to be shooting primarily, you do want at least two heads, I think even as a start, even to start up with two heads really, really need to at least to get started, the more you practice and the more you get better at this, the more you want to start introducing more lights, and before you know it, you're gonna ask for a third light and then a fourth light it's kind of like skiing. I think I gr...

ew up and buy a small ski well, when you first our snow skiing and you're off going down that hill on your you're in this vicious snowplow and then it's like you know don't forget you wait on the downhill ski whoa and you make this turn and it's like well we got a stiff wait plant a poll ski around wait don't forget the fall I know you got keeping these men uh wait on your downhill ski woe and you're and you're so awkward well it's the same thing in the studio and then after a while it all starts getting a little better and pretty soon you're skiing a little bit smoother and pretty soon you're looking for bigger hills and steeper hills and steep hills now you're looking for double black diamond now you're looking for bumps now you're having the time of your life with the doobie brothers in your headphones well, maybe not the doobie brothers but someone like that, so but what? This is the same thing once you start getting a little bit more smooth at what you do photographically you'll start looking for maura and different types of equipment in many cases we're all horrible about courting equipment and you know we all end up with so much more gear than we need, but you do take a couple of steps first and get a couple of heads first get like I would say there's a couple of things don't go cheap on one of those life stands in expensive life stands are everywhere there's a problem with him? We throw stuff around, we throw stuff in the back of our car. We go on location shoots were in the studio. Thanks fall. All sorts of things happen and what happened with light stands and let me just grab this for one second right here one thing about quality light stands and these air pretty quality life stands here these from photo flex you gotta have him that are pretty solid and this is the this is a quality part I'm talking about right here. Not that I'm not worried about the knobs. What I am worried about is this guy right here if it takes a hit, if it falls or hits the edge of a a trunk or hits a rock or anything happens, if it gets a tiny little divot there, then this thing doesn't go up and down anymore. Then it's ticks and hangs up so you really do want to spend some time and get good qualities some money and gets a good quality like stands so that's first and foremost the quality of the lights of course you want to get a decent lights, but if if all you can afford is a is a lesser value that's ok to go ahead and get him and let them be your starter lights, you know that's what they're there for and most of them all come with really great warranties, so if you break something that's fine, don't take care of it for you. Most of these companies are pretty reputable in the photographic community, but for sure you ought to start with that get a couple of heads, get get, get set up with that. I would highly recommend getting at least one soft box to begin. You need a soft bucks, the one that I'm using today. This is a three by four it's a really great size it's perfect size um and it gives me a lot of writing from that I can do a head shop, I consume products, I could do all kinds of stuff with that one bucks that one size right there, so it will be really, really helpful. Um, and then you know, you'll start getting more and more desire to do new things, then you're gonna wanna grid for your standard head, then you're going to want to put a gel on there. Then you're going to want to put this on you and you just start adding here, but I think I think first and foremost, get yourself a couple of lights, get a couple of head kids and I'm going to tell you the gospel according to tony, the guy on the soapbox is by a light meter I don't care which one you get donald kerr they all do the same thing in terms of guaranteeing you decent exposure you've got to do that. There are four things to think about in terms of the work flow there's a lot of things to think about in terms of work flow, but but for me there's a few things that you have to think about first and foremost is you've got a calibrate your monitors if your monitors aren't calibrate if you're not in a color managed situation, what you see will never be what you get and you will be fighting with your lab for years fix that you could fix it with one simple purchase of a some type of a monitor calibration system I use x right? I've got to I've got the cover monkey and I've also got their eye one pro they're just brilliant and they they neutralize out any noise in the system, so to speak in terms of color so that when houston you're finding the lab you tell your lab, don't correct my color just print this thing just like you just like it is and when it comes back it will match your monitor that's the theory that's why it works so first and foremost is calibrate your monitor second is to really make sure that you have there you understand a little bit about color space and so that you're what you're showing to your client color wise is what you truly will we'll be using as your output so if you're if you're doing your own inkjet prints for example then go ahead and use adobe rgb that's pretty big color space and it works great with egypt process but if you're sending to a commercial lab most of them are outputting with srg be totally different color space so you want to make sure that whatever your output is remember start with the end in mind so you have to back into that so there are three areas where you can control your color space and that is you're at the time of capture in photo shopper light room and whatever your lives just make sure all three of those match and you're gonna have great color makes sense and then the next thing is color balance you can't miss your color balance you've got to get that color and you gotta nail it I own every piece of of color calibration device there is for a custom white balance animal and uh and I primarily used the presets in the camera and I have great success there have good luck there uh however I will say that ex writes passport the color check her passport man is this thing sharp it's clever and it also profile your camera you know you guys know that you have camera profiles that you khun actually save his pre cents and that system works really well for that as well so it will create a d n g that becomes the profile for your particular camera and you can match cameras that way the silly way you can match cameras really so it's pretty clever and then finally the last thing is the exposure you know I always talk in terms of like quality like quantity well for me like quantity obviously we keep harping on it it's pretty huge for me so for me like quantity is a lot about using a light gathering device to tell me what to do and I listened to it and I do exactly what it says so I never I know a lot people that will always second guess their their cameras their meters yeah I think that was good and then I opened up a half stop around closing it looks a little too dark whatever it is to stop doing that read instructions and do what they tell you they know what they're talking about so I will say this let me grab my meter and I was I will say this part of part of the issue that there has been for a very long time is in the world of people photographer whether it's portrait fashion any kind of people photography has always been where does the dome go does the dome of the meter do I aim it at the camera are doing aiming at the light source? Where does it go? So here's the thing the definition of an instant meter the definition is designed to measure light as it strikes or falls onto your subject. It doesn't say anything about averaging it doesn't say anything about shadow does anything about anything it says to measure the light that strikes or falls on your subject? If I aim this at my camera and my life is here that half of that number is going to be live are two thirds that don's going to be live then I've gotta have for this part of here that's not gonna be literally in the shadow so to me, what seems to make most sense as long as that dome is fully illuminated by my main light, whatever my main light sources, whether it's a sky, our window, a strobe, a speed light, whatever it is if I aim that dome at that light source, take a reading and right there says eleven point three well, on your digital camera eleven point three is a full one third stop great shoot and use that it is the true exposure. Do what the meter told you to do you know, if I back it up a little bit to hear now I'm right there there's a eleven dead on I'm going to set eleven on that camera had I so two hundred because that's what the major told me to do and I must set my color balance to what would you guess in the studio on my camera from my white balance? Well, in this case I think I can trust it to daylight, so I'm going to set it today light, which depending on who you talk to its fifty, two hundred two fifty, five hundred so that's going to be my color balance so I'm going right there at daylight great, I don't have to take a custom white balance in here I'll use a custom white balance when I really don't know what's going on, but in the case like this, I know exactly what's going on, I don't need to do a customer ok don't make sense this is the biggie the right here that everything starts here if I missed this, I'm I'm I look, I can't do the work that I've done in my career. I couldn't have charged the rates that have charged that could never have done what I did without this with that, but without understanding is and I didn't own a light meter until the mid eighties late eighties liam old god stop may um yeah for the first five or six years I was in business, I didn't even own a meter I won't. I shot house but news polaroids and I shot pullers and kept shooting and shooting and pulling polaroids until I got one it looked good that's when I shot it. What a dummy bat cave studios like that name bat cave studios says why not set the color balance to the lights? Actual kelvin value your very specific in many of the other areas why are you just okay with just said it to daylight it's about right, then that's a great question, mr baquet promise back gave the answer is I can get away with it because I know these lights if I don't know my lights that's exactly what I would do but every brand is a little bit different and some of them tend to run a little cool or a little bit warm and even with the manufacturer says these lights are fifty five hundred and if you said fifty, five hundred you might look at the skin tone ago that's a little cool. So yeah, the answer is that's a great idea as long as you just as long you know your lights yeah that's, that's, that's the answer that is the answer as long as you know the lights so good point, good point colors huge I don't want to fix color later I do not want to do that I mean it's just too much wasted time any more time to waste it's one thing that none of us can get back you know so let's stop wasting ok doesn't make sense all right so so I don't want to talk about here is on by the way that just just to finalize this steer there's always talk about world is the dome go out or do you retract the dome this way what I have found and this may be just me but what I have found is that when the dome is out is when I always want photographing people I used the dome at ninety percent of time the only time I put the dome and and retract it is what I'm doing any kind of flat art copy so like if somebody brings me a twenty four by thirty six painting toe photograph for a catalog and it's going to go into a brochure for a gallery exhibit or whatever then in that case I would put the dome in and I would put the artwork on the wall and I wouldn't take meter readings sliding this guy around all four corners and lighting it until everything max exactly within one tenth on all four corners it's really critical how how accurate that is when the dome is recessed but for people I think there needs to be a little bit more of a dimension to the dome and as long as I'm fully illuminated, it doesn't really matter like this if that dome is recessed and I miss my aiming just a little bit, and if I miss like that much that's of the off by a third of a stop. But if the dome is out and I miss it just a little bit it's not gonna matter much. Now we'll say this. And in defense of those people that point the dome of the meter at their camera, you can point the dome of the meter at the camera and have great exposures as long as that light source is within forty five degrees of my camera. If that's within forty five, then if I aim it at the camera or at the dome, exposure is going to be with him one or two tenth and it's. Probably fine, but if it gets a little bit further away from the camera, I have to go and aim it right at the light source. Ok, pretty important stuff. Okay, so let's, see if we can practice what we preach. Shall we see if this is going to work? What I'm gonna do first I'm going to do two pictures here in this session, I want to the first picture I want to mix. Uh, my studio like my strove by soft box and with this life that I've got aimed at the background here, I'm going to turn this guy back on, but I'm not gonna turn on the stroke. I want just the modeling lamp only and else and I'll tell you why in just a second. So what we'll do is we're going to make basically on one exposure, we're going take two pictures, we'll make one exposure with the flash firing off unfreezing tessa and then I'm gonna let the bagram burn in for about four, five seconds and I like the background separately and I'll show you how that works and why I'm going to do that. Okay, let me get a couple of readings don't let me get let me get the strobes set because once we get ready to start doing this then where you have to go dark so the room is gonna get really dark to be able to pull this off, okay? So let me get my let me get my studio strobe first with her and I'll get her set up so tested come on out, let me get this out of the way I'm gonna put you write about thanks that's back, you have this little we'll put you right about here, I think that'll do it and I've got this I've got my this has the sensor built in for the for the pocket wizard, which I have plugged into this light, so it'll automatically see this because I've got turned on to transmitter, so when I push the button that life fires that's pretty good, that means I don't have to have an assistant do this and I don't have to unplug a cable and plug it into the meter and walk around the studio to do this so I can just walk under here and this is just a habit of mine. I almost always put my dumb under the chin and aim it right the light source damn! So right there, it says f eleven says that eleven and she's going to look like she's supposed to look interesting thing I talked about earlier with the incident that the reflective meter, the luminant value being relative eighteen percent great, so that is a reflective meter and the only brain it has is eighteen percent great the incident don't this meter the on ly brain, it has his reality that's all it knows his reality. So whatever I do, if I do what this meter tells me to do she's gonna look like she's supposed to look, I don't care for skin is white or black or her dress is white or black, it doesn't matter I'm not exposing based on the tone ality of my subject but I'm exposing based on the quantity of light that I have how's that for a statement that's that's my line I'm sticking to it so ok any questions about that quantity of light you guys this is huge big enormous okay so I got eleven so let me come back for him ready to take a picture and then we'll kill the lights here in just a few minutes let me just get her set so let's do this my dear let's turn you that we just a tiny bit yeah yeah with your weight on your left foot yep good and I just bring your head kind of cross toward the light yet right in there so from my camera's position you guys I'm getting good light on both of her eyes she looks great I've got cataracts in both eyes I'm going to go ahead and for the purpose of what we're trying to accomplish here I'm gonna go ahead and shoot horizontal to fit the aspect ratio of our screen and our video on everything that we're doing visually here in a working situation I would probably shoot this more vertical or even square some like that but for what we're doing and educationally I was going to shoot square so let me just set this on that I s o two hundred let me double check that remember, I'm measuring twice here. S o is two hundred. Yep. So I'm not I so two hundred here, and I'm going to have eleven. I'm in one twenty five on daylight balance, so everything is all set. This should work. Hopefully this is not a disaster. Let's, take a picture of see what happens. We got ourselves a girl that looks like she's supposed to look ready. Said everybody below on the screen. There you go. Okay, so she looks like she's supposed to look the screens a little bit hotter than I'm seeing here. It's probably a third of the stock hot. So you're saying this a little bit hot might not be perfectly calibrated, but it's pretty cool, so that will account for that. But if I spend this r and you can see what I'm talking about, so we're right there, right? And I'm not a genius. All I did was what the major told me to do. Ok, I follow instructions, okay? So that makes sense. So we got ourselves shot number one. I do want to move this around just a little bit more to the side and I'm going to skim it away from the background a little bit. Like of that can you move forward a half a step that's it right there yeah there you go and I want to re measure that because you know that's what I do and then I think we're going to be ready to go and then I'll tell you what I'm doing in just a second why I'm skimming that I want to keep that light off of the background so right there I met eleven I'm eleven third so I'll go deaf was thirteenth just above that eleven so we're in business we are in business so now that at thirteen and is to make sure it works I'm going full of one more of those let's take a look good good good nobody moves ready set go there you go. Okay red lights when my daughter was little would sit at the red light bully it'll turn green yeah anyway that saw a movie once. Okay so now at this point let me put a reflector head on that light in fact I'm just going to put one of these little small umbrella reflectors on this head back here so I've unplugged the remote on that head so there's nothing that's going to fire it can't fire off the flash tube I only want the morning light to go off okay, so I'm shooting at eleven, right? So let me turn this guy on I'm shooting it at eleven I'm going to put that guy sort of aimed right about there let's check let me put that right about there and now let me measure that yeah I think before I measure and we're gonna have to call for dark so I could get a measurement all right looks like we're good to go till you're ready to take it back I am let me use six blame to you what I'm about to do here because this is pretty this is kind of a funky thing that most of your taking your head going what what what so here's what's gonna happen I'm going to turn off the modeling lamp on this soft box but I'm going to leave on the morning light on the background there's a reason there's a there's a method for this madness I promised so here's what's gonna happen I'm gonna turn off the money lead and I'm gonna take a picture bam! The flash will fire even though there's no mining light and it's going to freeze her and she's going to be perfect exposing seasonal look awesome then during that exposure I'm gonna let that exposure go for three or four seconds and burn in the background and because that is a tungsten sort of light it's going to have a much warmer atonality instead of the white while they won't look white anymore it's going to look a little bit warm and then just for fun during the exposure I'm going to shake my camera and this is the part where he's going what if I can get my camera shaking during the exposure than I've got this soft, dreamy flowing thing around her hair around her shoulders and around her arms because she becomes a silhouette for the background and as I'm moving the camera around I'm moving the scylla right around so I'm dodging and burning and moving and creating motion blur all around the edges get that think it'll work you guys have a lot of faith we'll see if it works we shall see okay, so I'm gonna you need to be real still my dear let me check focus before you move and before I move let me get focused that is one thing that I have learned over the years you've got to get focused before you turn off the lights it does help oh you're also I want to just turn your shoulders that way a little bit now bring just your head back back back more more, more, more, more, more more holy toledo nobody moves, nobody gets hurt here we go here we go we're killing them lining land model model we're killing the model she's going don't kill me okay so she is frozen and here we go here we go or by ready and flash and two three four you don't feel that I want to see what looks like first pop it's pretty awesome look at that motion around the hair now it's a little hot so I went four seconds I'll pull it back I'll pull it back a little bit let me get I'm gonna pull back in fact I'm going I'm going to do a couple of things here darkened her just a little bit but I'm gonna get myself a little bit more motion in fact, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna move I'm gonna have her move so what's this this time when I shoot bam, I freeze her with the flash then I want her head I want her to have just I want to head this move around like this so that's what you're going to write a soon as it fires I just want you going just like that not too much, but just a little bit and you can let your shoulders go a little bit yeah, you got it. You got everybody ready? Okay, here we go. Set she takes a deep breath. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go and go now move a little bit yeah, ok, I'll feel it that looks good, let's see what happens, ready bone screen I believe we can all feel a tonic I'm not quite getting the blur that I want but I got to get more blur I got to get more blur I gotta get more blurred let me figure out how to get more blur let's try this one more time let me just make sure thing of one second oh that's why? Because that light back there is on the slave and it's firing it's not supposed to fire uh tony tony tony oh, this is one of those things where you have to admit your failures right now if you're keeping score at home it's photography one tony zero I'm just saying we'll keep score throughout the let me get my test but here and I mean just double sure let me double check and make sure that that guy does not fire we don't want that guy to fire that's better now we're talking sorry couldn't figure out what's going on that should not have been sharp okay now won't be sharp oh this is good you guys this is good. You ready? Let's try this one more time here we go here we go and I'll move this time you don't have to move and get my tripod loose here we go and good go well, that was good because you'll feel that one now detective blur on this one sorry that first unless like appointment with my blur go but you get the idea and it's like what we could do that photo so you could, but you're going to miss dinner again. What I'm talking about here is creating something that you can do with high school seniors and create some very cool looks, and we're going to do a couple more of these things and kind of show you some of the some of the things that's possible. I mean, the thing is anything that you can do, too grab a hold of the complete and total control of your craft, the better you are, this has an application, which we just did, but this has another application that you haven't even seen yet or thought of yet because it hasn't come up, but it'll come up probably the next two weeks. You know, people told me that wedding guy told me that I would never use this technique, and then he got a magazine shoot, like two or three weeks later and exactly called for something like this, and he said, you have to so is great. So let's, do a couple more of these variations? Um, let's, turn you a little bit more, in fact, come back toward me just a little bit this way, there you go, I'm going to get a little bit more light off of that background I want you to turn you're back sort of toward that corner over there I'm sorry your friend toward that corner over there yeah yeah yeah yeah a little bit more little bit more and I'll bring you head this way like right about here and kind of just do this like this and if we can move it here back on this I can put behind you when you're just so it's not hanging on your chin there you go perfect in your eyes perfect everything's looking good I'm gonna power this down just a little bit like that oh, this is good this is good and we're gonna get a little bit of emotion thing happening here again all I'm trying to show you guys is just something different that nobody can you know nobody's even thought of doing that can be really kind of a clever thing here we go no move don't move and I'm wiggling my camera oh, that was a good wiggle right there that last that last wiggle I could feel that that was a good wiggle tell me how it looks way do good to have a good wiggle I'm really anxious to hear what the chat rooms resent on this one like this guy's an idiot I'm hanging up now but you can see I mean look at the d look at what you can do look at how the strobe fires off and freezes her and her eyes sharp as a tack because that throw that she's frozen she's not going anywhere and it doesn't really matter that the flesh doesn't rely on the ambience to let her face the flash relies on the flash and the aperture combination that's what's lighting her the only thing that's creating the ambience is that light back there and by shaking on them is just I'm just wiggling my silhouette a little bit makes sense yeah, I'm not in that particular photo she now how's this black outline sorry in this particular photograph, she now has that black outline around her nose on the front of her face, which makes it look like a poor photoshopped selection. Yeah, yeah, so if you don't like that don't want that, then instead of going for seconds like I did go two seconds and bright enough that light a little bit. Okay, any time you combine the ambiance with the strobe like this, you're going to get stuff that's not perfectly in register and I think you kind of want that or you wouldn't be doing this anyway, so but I have to answer that particular question let's do the same picture and I want her to movement watch what happens, ok, so let's do the same thing here we go, let me take a look and get her eye, sharpe oh that's good I got you you're good you're good good this time assumes that fires start wiggling your head a little bit in fact kind of lean forward and back a little bit like that to just a little bit don't go crazy but yeah here we go here we go here we go and go oh she's wiggling sees wiggling now see that's a mega wailing you kind of over wiggled a little bit there yeah this is this will be this will be an exercise and what not to do let's do it again with a little bit less wiggle but I want your show I want your back to me a little bit more I need more whipped from your shoulders yeah yeah yeah that's good and now push your hair back for good great great great great great great great okay, here we go and go that's it that's that girl right there. Great beauty. You get the idea you can play with this all day and you're going to and you're going to find tune it. And when the smoke clears, you're gonna find too that you like because you don't know what you're getting until you're done you know this is the one thing you can do that's not real predictable but you can get close and the main thing is just to start thinking about it you know, there's a lot. There's. A lot of cool little things that you can do if you just give it a little bit of sort of, um, I do want to try one other thing. I want to put their way have a blue gel that she brought out. Can I? Where is killing you in the room? No, I just was going to cut a piece of this real quick, and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna hang this over that strove back there. Let me do this like this just to go contrast ing with her with her top. I'm just gonna hang this guy right there. Hey, uh, brit, let me get you jump up here for me. Just come on the left side. Just hold it right there. Well, good. Well, they got some tape and do it right later. Let me just do this real quick. And I think that what you'll find is when this glenn get back in place again and I want to show you more front on this times turn back this way. There you go and back up a half step. There you go and this turn away from me that way yeah, your hips and everything that way and I'll back up again another one more step, one more and that we're just a little bit now turn your head toward the light like they're just fold your arms for me like this and this time while we're doing this I want to just kind let your shoulders kind of little just a little bit in your head just a little bit wiggling I really want the motion on her shoulders more so than her hair if she was light haired you can get away with more motion but with dark hair the motion over can overdo release lee so okay so now that light that blue cut out quite a bit of density so instead of being four seconds now I'm going to change my four seconds down to about eight seconds ok? Because I think we just ate up a little bit of output so here we go for eight seconds he's going to start wiggling and you know we're almost there, right? Hey, brit, I know this is gonna sound goofy but can you bring that gel my way a little bit? I'm seeing a little highlight that's it you just fixed it you just fixed it. Oh you're good those law enforcement guys ok, here we go. Here we go. Okay, ready and start those shoulders going just a little yeah that's it this is going to be perfect, I can tell already good and that's the end of that one oh I'm loving that so what just happened is that gel that blue just neutralized out the tungsten look from the balance of the time stone versus the balance of the daylight so now it's back to neutral again pretty cool how that works huh don't you think doesn't work okay that I didn't listen they just glance at that motion I'm liking that I could sell that one that could go on a magazine ok so again you just think about what you're doing here any time you're using the studio strobe or is speed light on location anytime you're shooting with elektronik light source of any type you're taking two pictures one picture for the ambience one picture for the flash and sometimes you'll never know that there is two different pictures being taken but sometimes you can separate through like we just did if I turn off that I can just power that light off the switch is on the right on the back just fire that toggle down one click right where you're from is go up with them so now if I take that same picture without the background like two three way just with just yet it's just going to go go stop ready set go come on ok so now that's just her wiggling a little bit without the background I'd even go off and that what you're seeing there that motion is because of the ambience in this room if there were no animus in the room she would be perfectly frozen there wouldn't be anything behind her here's what I hope that this is going to trigger you guys I hope this will trigger you guys getting in and experimenting try some stuff that's what this is about get in and try some things there's a lot of really cool techniques waiting to be explored and you'll find uses for my promise that you will you'll find uses for okay okay thank you. Okay. Test of thanks okay I think we could bring lights back up and we'll throw it back to you for a second while we're lighting beautiful we would actually love it if you wouldn't mind going through kind of the process again for that shot from the beginning so absolutely what metering are you using with that with the meter? What are you shooting on full mo like all that kind of stuff just in the beginning yeah ok so let me grab let me grab my handy dandy diet coke because that's what I do so so if you think about this you've got to start off it's almost like in any given photograph that I take in and literally almost any situation my main light is the most important thing there is that main light gets my meter and whatever it says that's what I'm shooting at that is what I used to call the handle of the picture that's it that is everything revolves around that so I take my first thing I do is take a meter reader with the flash family reads up eleven ok, guess what I'm seeing that anyone that anybody wanna guess after eleven I'm not going to sway from that okay so that's first second is then in this case what I did russ and what's fun about this for me is to them put this this continuous light source on the background turn off the stroke back there and then I walked back there I don't know if you guys so that's clever I think he knows what he's doing back. Thanks thanks to big mike in the booth and he can draw too I heard definitely conduct is amazing that's nice mike way to go you win the prize so here's the thing I think about this the first thing I do is freeze and get the exposure for the flash. Then I took my meat around with you guys were paying attention to that but I came back there and took a meter reading with the ambient light with that dell on the mean without the jail just with this on by itself and took him I turned it off of flash reading and turned it on the ambient reading and took a reading and it said four seconds at eleven, okay so that's my exposure my exposures for seconds at eleven but I gotta get rid of all the indians or I'm going over expose everything so says we kill the lights damn, I can't do that in this life that's on right now with that light on my face in this room this shot it's impossible but by killing on lights I can do it because now I'm basing the exposure on her face on the strobe and it's not being contaminated by any of this other available light in the room and on lee on the on the ones where the yeah the first to the flash went off in the background but after that look at the top right and in the bottom two that's when we have separately let the background from her it's just kind of a funky little utility tool that sits in your back pocket and you'll draw it out once or twice a year for some specialty shot I know that I did a highway patrolman in new mexico on a desert deserted blacktop at sunset and I let him with the strobe and I went with about a four five second exposure and while that was going on I just wanna head him he was kind of straddling the white line of this old blacktop road and I shot the picture and I said now during the exposure said not just wiggle back inforty did this and it was perfect. I mean, the first test was like, but but I couldn't shoot as much as I was charging a client, you cant you want exposure and say, we're done and go home, you got to start, you got put on a show, you know? So you got a screw up a few things and make a few tests and give a few examples, but to use the first side usually hold up your light meter. Two way, tony way had an assistant sandiego named kevin on kevin was really funny. He would walk through the studio holding a light meter, and he would take his headphones and plug him into the meter, and he would you be with talking to a client. Kim would walk by the studio on the bank on if a half eight there's a funny kid? Yeah, yeah, tony, what you're focusing workflow with this process, especially when you're in the dark? Yeah, well, and that was my point with with tessa is you gotta focus before you pull off the lights because you don't want to be trying to, you know, you don't need to know, especially some of the lower and cameras that just can't find it, and they're like, we're trying to find focus. So either that or be very very clear and if you're on manual focus you can focus on the silhouette and probably be okay great so but for the most part of the reason auto focus and that's where you kind of live then get a good focus and then get your hand off I've got my focus that back button not on the taking button so once you've established and push that back button and focused then when you touch the button up here it doesn't change focus doesn't move it it stays where you put it so that's pretty important perfect and that's something I didn't know for years about that back folks, but once I figured that out I'm never reasoning but the back button I love it cool and other questions coming out there we need to cover but we're good when you guys were okay on this can you see where there's my been application for it somewhere okay and then think about mixing colors to now now we're talking about getting gel colors and totally changing the colors in the background you put greens and vibrant colors and magenta is and things back there and you could do all kinds of fun stuff you know as long as you get just that little bit of emotion look that's kind of a cool technique, you know? So maybe one more just came in bob in dallas says that he's confused because the first reading for the key light flash was that f eleven. Yeah, but the final exposure was f sixteen. Yeah, all I did, all I did was I thought that I was getting a little bit too much light on her face and so I just went ahead and changed it down to f sixteen just because as you can see, look at the top left, see how bright she was getting and because in the studio it's hard, we can go one hundred percent dark in here because we got a little bit of ambiance in here and I was afraid I was getting a little bit of that. Bob so that's that's my only reason is I was really worried about a little bit and it's in the studio, but for the most part, but what I'm saying about going so whatever flash reads that's your exposure, but we had a little bit and delighted here, and I just didn't want to cause me an issue someone had to close down a bit more beautiful that's all thanks good, but it is a great catch in the auto get a prize uh, and besides he's in dallas and I'm from dallas, so he ought to get to prices there you go, you can deliver and when you go back to that