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Lesson Info

Adding Backlight

Now we found out how to find your main light with available light what's the easiest way to add backlight okay and we're going to get into that and so you find your main lights to see how their skin is glowing there is there an awesome okay, do you have this? You have this look in your portfolio it creates variety create variety in your portfolio when you look at your portfolio do you see the same type of people all the time you want you want to travel the world you want to meet interesting people from all over the place if you if you don't have that variety in your portfolio then you're not going to get it. You want asian weddings? Asians have we have a lot of money you know we say we don't but we've got money hidden underneath the mattress there ready? Right. Okay, because everybody goes to college there and everybody has like seven degrees so what? You want them? You gotta show them right it's obvious show what you want to shoot that's it okay anyways, do I'm getting off on other st...

uff? Okay. Use a video like there for backlight video light is very easy and that's what I use that's what we did yesterday actually for the main light but I just used this killer video like that I have I love it because I made sure that the led was pure it was exactly like the sun because I tested some other stuff and I know if you get some lower quality video lights it has like a pink tinge to it or green tinge to and I say listen man this has got to be right on I don't care I got to pay more for these leads they need to be high quality light so I created this video light that I love it very powerful and so how you use it is you have put your you have to be in a situation where s o eight hundred above or is he really not going to see it put your f stop low two point eight or lower and keep your shutters speed high why is because you're using available light you're not using flash teo kind of tighten your subject which will get into the next segment but so you you're going to see and so what's the rule do you guys know what the rule for shutter speed iss and how how high to set your shutter speed is basic what's that yeah the length of the land so in general a general rule is this is that you should be well at least one to one so if you're is using a fifty millimeter lands then you've got to be at one fiftieth of a second to be safe you should be at one hundred but I know how I suit and I'm pretty steady so for me, I know I can get away at being one half of whatever that lens is but if the subject moves what's the big deal if you're steady and their subjects not steady, then it's still gonna look blurry so still keep that in mind. S oh, try to keep the one toe one ratio and that will help you keep your image is sharp. Okay, so yeah, that's the situation adding little video light from behind and that's what it wass uh, here's this other situations right, that natural light coming in? I'm just taking a video like toe to kind of highlight that hair behind there, okay? Especially when you're shooting a dark haired subject that hair is going to blend into the background if you don't have a little, you know, a little just a little back, their kicker or just a little highlighting a rim light around there. And so this bride she spent all this time doing her hair and and all this stuff and then you get into her natural light situation and you don't see it, you're not doing your job, okay? So that's, why it's very important video life it so you saw it when we were using it yesterday, how great the video light isn't just sophie fast and easy because you can see it right away you could see it that it's not bright enough or it's too bright so it's very easy to use okay same thing here now we're going to use with it with flash okay so you same thing you've put a person in oh look what post is doing oh that's that's very easy you guys know how to do that pose very simply now okay so it's a expose the subject with natural available light whatever that isthe right you put him in a nice light area you expose it and then to you keep your shutter speed below two hundred why anybody know flash thing? Yes eso when you're shooting in manual which I kind of recommend that you have to keep your shutter speed below one to fiftieth or for sure one two hundredth of a second just to make sure so that's your only requirement now you can put your flash and manual and khun do whatever you want back there whatever suits your fancy you could put it on sixty fourth power if you want you could put in a full whatever turns you on you could put whatever gel color you want on your that's the reason why I love flash I love flash is because I can color it so you can put a jail over it if I wanted a purple I can make it purple whatever my vision is that's what I can get and that's why I love using flash for backlight so this one you see this light isn't sort of orange in this picture put a cto jail on it to give me that orange field okay, you've got to use ah wireless flash system I know that we didn't talk about that a little bit but this is what I use I've created this low cost triggering system where you have what they call a transmitter on your camera the transmitter transmits a signal to the receiver that's on the flash so you place the receiver on the flash so when you push your shutter down it segues that sends a radio signal to the receiver and all it does it tells its go off doesn't calculate light it doesn't do anything sophisticated because you're going to calculate the light because you've got my three day lecture on lighting that from creative live that you bought and you already know how to do that and you and it's very easy and you just control the light but in this case you just set your flash on whatever you could do it by trial there you get it going and then you can put that it's like a you know what this thing is here look at this is the situation here okay? So here's my flash and here's the receiver right here this this accept the signal right and all you do this thing is so small and sort of horrible this khun match the power of the sun at close to incidences right it's just this part when you when this thing is six feet away from your subject is just as powerful as the sun this is like having a son in your pocket right here isn't that amazing really when you think about it this little thing can be this son that's what you saw in these pictures what you're doing yes ready for quick question from the car please sir this is from a pro photographer thank you sir for all your amazing questions how do you determine the best placement for the light behind the subject? Oh yeah that's a good question I usually like to I kind of do sandwich right so if here's here's my subject if I have my main light coming from here I try to have the light backlight coming directly behind it that general roll start from there then use your own creativity but that is the general rule so let's say I'm doing the walk away pose here the light is coming this way we have the back coming this way or close to it and and height wise do try and oh yes that's a good question so the main light well the main light I like to keep above the nose because that simulates the sun right if you can not let you using natural light but the back light sometimes I have it on the ground sometimes I have it above it depends if I'm trying to simulate the sun then of course I gotta have it above like this right? Is anybody taller than the sun not that I know so you gotta have it above okay and very easy okay that's how I did this shot there is no sun behind her but that was my vision my vision was that have sun and because there was an open window back there it looked even more believable so my vision was okay let's get her naturally I want to pretend that their son back there all right I put a flashback there I put a gel on ac and remember what I said it on pope most likely like sixteen power I'm just guessing was that three point two yeah, I don't know that sounds about right thirty two probably sixteen and I just put it back there and it made it that was my vision isn't that amazing? You can accomplish whatever you want that's in your mind with lighting that is just so empowering to me it's like that's what just turned you on it's like you keep learning this stuff you just feel like I could do anything now come on wedding bring it on like challenge me see if you can stump me today that's what? I kind of felt like I was going to weddings like can you stop me winning today? Let's see let's see what you throw at me and I'm gonna see what I can come up with I have same situation here where I got it but what I did was on the back light I just used a blue gel instead there I talked about that one before here's another situation I amplified the light by using a flash behind them so I get that nice rim light that glows around them. But what was happening here? That was actually a flash on a one of my strobe sticks, but I just erased it in photo shop so you would see a line through their heads. They're actually but through photos I just took it out, but there's a flash directly behind them maybe like two feet behind him so I could get that glow around them here I'm not backlighting per se, but I'm back lighting the background and that looks cool so that door was brown, but my vision was she was wearing this kind of light pink dress like all I'll just make it like pink back there so I took my flash and I put a pink gel on it and I fired it back there and I matched it you're in control, man whatever you want to do whatever you see whatever you want to expect doesn't want to make you get out there and just do stuff well, you're in here right now so you can't do that but uh it's so liberating it's liberating right and just don't be fearful take the knowledge and let it set you free delusional setting you free well okay and and and you can come up with all these different things your mind is amazing you are amazing. Did you know that the human mind is amazing? Let it go don't hold it back ok same thing here where I stayed where some great natural light coming in but it's like oh, her hair I can't see her hair back there so I took my assistant she hid around the corner and just fired a flash uh so light up the side of her hair so that was just my assistant they're holding a flash here's another one here great main light on her see the catch lights in her eyes ah, and then I think that was natural light coming in uh maybe maybe not. Yeah, there was national light on her eyes but there and then I just took some flash to one that fired that gave her a nice rim light but I wanted her sordid to mimic the background there that that gal on the back so I had I had to like that too because it was dark so I put a flash on the background of that girl in the bikini back there and then a flash on her teo accent that room light here's something that you can do wedding day when you're getting ready a lot of times you'll go into the hotel room and they're getting ready and it's dark it's like very dark in there so what I like to open it up make it brighter so the technique that I like using is that I see where the sliding door is wherever that natural light is coming through and enhance it more I just put my flashback there you might want to set it on sixty fourth power when thirty seconds I don't know whatever you want to do, it doesn't really matter it's up to you freedom just do it right and it adds more light into the room as if that son was brighter and you get that back light when that bride is getting ready and it really looks beautiful and it creates that romantic feeling to it okay here's the revolutionary idea number two okay and this is video we did this yesterday, right? You guys were like all wow, I didn't realize that looked that good on dh so what I do is they take a video light and I put it through in and umbrella, uh, you know, one works. If you use one, sometimes you might have to bump your eyes. So up to sixteen hundred. But you can put two in there and it's a bit brighter. We had a lot of ambient light in the room yesterday, so I had to bring up. I put two video lights in there because there was a lot of ambient light. The lower the light, the darker it is, the less power that you need. Doesn't that seem ironic? Yeah. That's a new ruling is just not about okay, so the lower the light, the more dim it is, the less like you need doesn't make sense, right? But it's, because you khun, turn your eyes so up when you were in bright light you can't turn your eyes so up because you want to shoot at low f stops right on you want that blurred background and all that kind of stuff. So that's, why it's kind of kind of intuitive so that so you can only use video light when it's in a low light situation and so lookit, this is what happens there they are without the video like you go in, you expose your background first, I cannot light up I know maestro be one thirties are amazing but they're not going to light up that entire theaters that correct? I can't light it up so if I want to see what's in the background I have toe get that in my camera and in order for me to create that contrast I under exposed the background so those lights become more pronounced. Does that make sense to you under exposing that bacchus I slightly under expose it then I bring my video light in tow light my subjects up and you get that okay that's how easy that's how easy it was yesterday, right? So simple and because you can see the light with video you khun just reposition that light very easily until you get what you want and it's very, very easy to do yes, on these shots here when I first saw you post just a few months ago online I assume that you had done it with the strobe right young because I've seen you do that technique where you exposed for the background and then you light it up with stroke. Why would you use video light versus strobe? In this situation it was seemed like you could control him online a lot more with the strobe as opposed tio by using the scroll is the same principle in this situation, okay, because my video light will not like it's not going to contaminate your background at all right? So no matter what the power of the video light is it's not gonna light up back there? It wasn't a stroke how more power to where you could shoot a low rise oh, you know what you mean? You don't need to see say you don't need a lot of power when you're eso is eight hundred you get it so when you turn your eyes so up to eight hundred sixteen hundred you just need a little tiny bit off light and so that's a difference between video light and flash flash is a hundred times more powerful than video like so what happens is is that if you turn your s o up a lot and you use a flash even at its lowest settings it's too powerful, right? But what the problem is with video light you could I could certainly I could do the same thing with a flash but it's guessing more okay, because I can't see where the light's going to fall to shoot it. Oh, move it, shoot it, move it! Position it, where's that the video like we saw yesterday see how easy it wass you just position it and you can see it right away bam, you take the picture yes, one of the things your video first time using him and being able to see not on ly like make sure her catch flights weren't but you could see when the shadow would hit on her cheek so it was so fast and it was like a one shot pose and you yes instead of guessing shift guessing and then what happens if you move? You're using flash and you move it because you just shot it wrong and then the face moves then she moves her face right then you gotta remove it again, right? Where's video light you can see if you have a good assistant they khun give it to you before you even like you don't even have to direct mission direct him they should know howto use it yes I think I think yeah the video life will work a lot better because it was a flash it will spell light all over the place and you really wanted that background the way it is as he said as you should know, I don't want to get into the inverse square law that even with flash it was not its not gonna reach the background in this situation but it will spell around her I think it was around here a little bit more yeah was that light it was just like lighting her purpose look fantastic look really good yeah yeah so, yeah, I'm not quite too sure about that, but in general, yes, because the light just goes all over the place when it clears out of flash, but when it's, um, lower levels, it won't spill it, but I don't know we'll have to experiment with that later. I don't want to get into it now, but yeah, good point. Okay, so here's how you use it? I talked about that later. Keep shutter speed above fiftieth of a second. My camera has a built in image stabilization, so no matter what lens I put on it, if I put one hundred dollar lands on it, I still got image stabilization that's baby should check out the eight, ninety nine all the other choices are great too. But that's something considered school okay, set background exposure first. Okay, two is better than one. Okay, this is what I mean about that glow. You see the double catch like that? See the catch light on the bottom of her eyes. They're so what happening is this is I when I use the video like a lot of times I like to put that video light above my subject. But what happens is it depending on the deep socket of a person's eyes that view light, even though it looks beautiful on her body there's no like getting into her eyes or his eyes because the socket of the eyes is deep were depending on it, right? So in order to get that catch light in there, you have to get it from below. And so in this particular case that's what I did, I had the light from above and I wanted that and see how our skin's glowing too and whenever you use that video light to create that glow in a person, you used it and it and it's really nice you can see that we'll try to demonstrate that in a little bit because we got a little bit of time so that's the situation anybody have been to the spanish steps before in italy this is where it is and people always ask get all the time there is nobody there. What did you rent? Did you rent out italy or something until people not to come during the daytime? There's literally of thousands and thousands of people. So I guess when we started this session way started at one a m in the morning but nobody was there so we could get those amazing shots. Hey, you gonna spend all this money to go somewhere just you got to get the shot, you've got to do whatever if you've gotta wake up in the morning, do it to get it okay ok, so what I'd like to do is I like to go small and modular versus big and bulky so I rather used to small things that give me equivalent light or better then we're using one thing and so you could get those set ups I know a lot of people say it all you got to get these quantum things in the battery pack for the flat, fast recycle speed and carry that around or whatever and then get the nice like, huge light that whatever but those could be very big and bulky for me, so I rather take two so if I combine like if I combine both of my flashes it'll give me the same power is that one expensive one over there? Uh and so but then also when I have to I've got automatic backup what happens if you're going to paris and you get paid ten thousand dollars a wedding and you bring your big flash over there and it goes out? I don't know flash now right or your video light or whatever and you just got one your host you're getting paid a lot of money to do this, you've got to be it you've got to think about worst case scenarios so I always have multiple and it's got to be small and it works and so I rather go multiple small and modular than big and bulky so that's about twenty inches there and this is only twelve inches there it's and then plus when I use the shoot through umbrella if it rains pain I'm good I got it umbrella with me it's easier to pack you get equal light put output or greater a lot of times you get more light sources so now I got to light sources so I can go with the video light here the main and I could go back like two so multiple light sources allows you to do more complex lighting effects so that's huge with me that's my style so I have to have multiple has versatile power and you back up and most of all it's a third the cost so that's really going to save you that way two so all around that's what? I would rather go that way okay here's another situation I kind of created a fine art texture with this thing but this is the same situation what did I expose first for how did I do this shot? I'm coming here we're in florence were on this ledge here uh it's getting to be night time what's goes through my head first how would I do with my camera settings first background commuted for the background make that look good in my camera my subject is dark at this point because there's no light around it's it's getting to be night time so my background looks great but my subject is dark so I just bring my video light in whatever you need if it's not bright enough or but it closer if it's too bright I can either dial it down or I could move it back so I have full control of the light at that point but it only works when you're s o is up high because high and when you put your eyes so high eight hundred above you just need a little bit of light too exposed your subject okay you look confused yeah I'm blowing your mind with different information I wasn't anticipating as much reliance upon the video light as opposed to the strokes and I understand the philosophy behind it with the control but I mean a lot of your shots this one included you know the strong back lights really come into you know come into play. So would you use that strobe in connection with that video light overpower the video light be able create a stronger backlight as a close to I use bull sometimes uh to create backlight but I always put my flash on sixty fourth power because it's super strong right we're not using with the video but it would seem like it be easier to overpower the video light to get that back that rim like yes behind with a stroll first backlight I use because backlight usually I'm over exposing the bat like so I oks overexpose it a lot that's why I like flash for the backlight video like for the main because I got plenty of juice for my flash if you're good at I also eight hundred and you're using a flash from the back you've got plenty of power what my rule is when you use video light for the main set your flash at sixty fourth power and started from there and see what's going on sometimes even that's too strong but then if that's the case you can use to video lights but uh that's what I use okay here's, another situation here uh, we're in venice and, uh, I've exposed for what first that background, right? I love that was walking by I saw that little window there go that don't look like where I come from monrovia I don't see any of that kind of stuff. This is cool. Looks like europe right here. So let's, get the subject's right here. Let me expose for the background first cause I loved that yellow hue that was coming through that window I expose for that first that is brighter than my subjects my subjects are now dark, then I simply bring my video light in above her right nose towards the light that light is see that shadow on her arm? Because I had that light up its giving contour every woman in thinks her arms are large every woman even if it's their skinny so what you do is you put shadow on their arm all the time. That's a that's a big thing. Okay, okay. Yes, you shot like that. You re adjust your color balance for a shot. Obviously the background is going to be much yellow where you've got a lighter color balance on the ok when I'm using my video light my video light is the sun yes, I'm always putting it on flash or sunlight on then it makes everything more orange or or whatever so you can keep the color balance always a daylight I keep it set for the subject. So that's, whatever the subject is that's what my wife balances not unless I want them blue. If I want them blue that we're gonna do that later we're we're going to make him blue but that's fine school that's gonna be a silhouette. So it's cool. All right, okay, this is the same situation here. What did I exposed for first on that other picture what's that they're street and the clouds I wanted those clouds and there was very dark so I exposed for that they're completely dark at this point I bring my video light in and then I take another flash off to the side to give him that edge light at sixty fourth power the flash I was shooting it suit look at that two point eight at sixteen hundred eso so that was very very dark at that point I think it was probably about nine o'clock or eight o'clock or something like that is pretty dark here's another one that I did okay what did I expose for first hear the delights the ceiling lights right so I exposed for that then my subjects were a little bit dark I did one video light on them I took a flash and just went boom pop him from behind it was just on the ground firing up at them to give him that highlight this is another video here so I'm just putting a video light on them and then I'm taking a flash against a background that will soon be on my website for purchases pretty good to be pretty cool on dh it's basically smith metallic silver like material and then it will come with a gel kit so you can make that any color that you want so that's what you said I put a blue gel on the background on it reflect off the little metal type of you know sequence that I had on the background to reflect back that gives us me those little glow areas there but that was all her the main light on her was just video lights how beautiful and soft that is and then that little edge light on her hair I just had another flash with the cto jail on it to make it orange so I was using complementary colors there that's what I like I had a blue background with the orange highlight and that I liked that complimentary look to it. Okay, so here's another situation where I'm photographing at night uh what am I setting my background to first I mean one of my camera what's my camera setting set to first what's my first rule background so that street looked like that in my camera. Okay, okay this is the brightness of the street my subject therefore she is dark now now I have to brighten her up so I just bring the video light in to give me enough light and I took another flash toe fire behind her just to give me that edge and you kind of need it on this shot because she's its dark she's, dark haired right and so you need that light to separate her from the background and that's all that was I think there's actually to video it's yeah, I can't tell but see how she's glowing I can look at her, I guess. See she's glowing it's because I used to video lights one from above and one from a bottom. Yes, like the shadow from her. Yeah, yeah. Now you know, okay, something, scott, you can't do all that on a wedding day. Like what's. Good. I mean, you said you got one minute and you're doing all this and you're doing all that true. I don't do it all in one day, but there's one shot, usually after I'm done eating and I'm thinking about things at the reception and I've got some time and I think about okay. I need to do one shot. That's my signature lighting style let's go set it up, figure it out, then I'm going to go to the bride and groom. I'm gonna show him here. This is my vision. I'm thinking about having you guys here and I'm doing this. Can I take you for one minute away? So I set it all up. I figured out I do my homework. I said all that lighting and I take my bride and groom. I already had the lighting set up already know what it is? They come in opposing him for one minute I shoot it there, amazed they go back then I got my signature shot I can't do this on every single setting but there's one you've got a couple minutes during the wedding day where you could at least do one shot where you can you know what at this point the wedding's over you've already got some great shots this is where you're trying to hit the home run you're going for the whole run at that point during your wedding day at least one time allow yourself to go for a home run sometimes you might strike out I don't care that's cool but at least you went for and you tried and you're going to surprise herself with it do it at the end of the day when you're feeling good you got some food in yourself that's like you've been getting some great shots and like okay, we're going to just knock this out of the park right now it's about one little thing that's going on blow your client at the way at the end when you do this something like this and they're gonna go wow you're the best photographer in the world ok so what happens to teo us is you know teaching you to hit singles all the time right then you can just get trapped into being this photographer that's just hitting singles all the time but we've got to stretch ourselves too okay so anyway that's the end of it so we could do something examples now s oh, let's. Do that let's. Uh, let's. Keep it on here and let's. See if we can get the lights lowered a little bit. Let's, try that. Can we bring the video? Light stands over here with that umbrella. We have a lot of ambient light here. So in order to see the difference, I might have to, uh, used to video lights. But normally, if it's really dark, I don't have to. Okay, this looks pretty good. So does anybody want us? So this is what I like to use and in general, this is my big boy bar with an umbrella mount. Okay? And what I love about my big black bar is aiken attached four flashes on here. If I want to give me some amazing light not going to get into that. But you can buy my three day workshop in the creative live look over all that. But also, if I want to, I could put so during wedding day. Really? My setup is one video light here. One flash here, so I'm bi I could go both ways. Okay, so if I need to go the harsh light, I gotta hear and then and then if I need to go little light, I got it here. And damn, we're ready okay, so let's just demonstrate really quickly but in this case I'm going to do video light and because we have a lot of ambient light it would be normally brighter right now is brighter than actually when I'm using video light so I've gotta use a little bit more juice here too so people can see the contrast in light so let's see what's that oh no yeah yeah, maybe once you uh so uh let's see who wants to anybody want to just, uh model for us here? Anybody you want ten first let's get somebody without glasses. So how about to dina dina okay, so won't you sit down here be your lovely self, ok? And can somebody hold this? Yeah, come on up and so this is the situation here like this right now watch bring this video lightened right in look at that beautiful light that's that she has right away from there to hear she's got really great light here, okay? So kind of lean upon that hip and then look back this way with you. Yeah, yeah and then just look back this way right perfect. See that light right on her so if you could hold this right here and now she's got a really nice light on her let me see if I can do this here I know I've learned that with strobes the close of the light the softer it will be to the subject is it the same with video light same thing thank you, principal I can't get this to ggo here but we'll just let the audience see house that there's okay, so let's do this let's see how well she's got nice go ahead, hold it here what I'm going to do here is what I want to demonstrate wanted to demonstrate is actually the up light too so um now you don't have to get closer see it's not that dark in here so you don't see much tv jessica, you turn your head this way towards light with your eyes towards me okay, so now what I could do is I've got that nice light above and sometimes if you put that light here she starts to get shadow in her eyes but I love this light high because now I got to start to see some shadow on her cheeks. I don't know if you can see that and so that's why I love the light high but the problem is there's a lot of times I don't get light into the eyes at that point, so what you could do is you could take your video light and you can just pop a little light see how she starts to glow now when I had that video light it's like automatic reflector that I have and even see, I could see the catch light in her I start to get you can smile a little bit, eyes only like thirty thousand people around the world watching you so don't make a video see that glow that on that and that the difference right there and so that's that's, what you get when you and then I see a little bit catch light in the butt if you don't have that, you could definitely put the light a little bit lower to make sure you see the light and you can still get catch light in her eyes, but you just might have the reposition that light a little bit lower right there see that you get that and that's how easy and then so what you could do is light this way, and we could also just have another flash here at sixty fourth power and then bam, this way, whatever suits your fancy at this point, okay, so we condemn. We're going to demonstrate a lot more of that in the next segment, using flash and things of that nature, so we'll get it going, but I just wanted to show you with the video light looks like, all right, thank you very much.