Lessons

Lesson Info

Introduction to Knowing Your Light HD

We're talking about light all right and I'm going to be shooting um we're going to start with window light we're gonna talk about head shots were gonna jump over here to the seamless andi we didn't set up a full on white seamless luke the role in all of that were like hacking it together the last the last time I was here in creative live we did a whole three day studio lighting so the kind of thing with the white seamless uh this time around I said let's just hack it together where it's not perfect because a lot of times like you know, you might get in a situation where you can't get it all together and you have a white wall and get some white flooring down then do you make it happen is not going to be the prettiest that the capture um but if if I know that I can I can snap something to where I needed to be very quickly then I'll do that you know what I'd love right over here is a cycle which is basically a permanent white seamless rollout um we don't have a cycle and I want I want to ...

show it kind of dirty and messy like you don't have all of the tools like all right, well then figure it out so I want to do that um so we're gonna kind of bounce from head shot to seamless uh and then we're going to kind of just go from there um we're going to be talking about media ring and finding your exposure and all of that today is somewhat of a challenge for me when I'm out on a shoot on I'm not tethered and I'm not either aid tethered by you know cameras toe monitors I'm also not tethered to the internet and it's like let's go here let's walk three blocks this way let's walk four blocks that way let's go this way let's like I saw a location well I'd love to shoot there but we need like a twenty thousand dollars a day satellite truck to get us to there and all of that so um today one of my main goals is to is to just demonstrate different things like working with your lights and working with your subjects um one thing I'd like to do today is is it's I just treat this more like a client shoot that you're uh just observing so I want to interact with my subject I want to pose them we talked yesterday about posing on dh I think of it more his body language um and things like that before we get into all that though I would like to start off with questions from yesterday if there's anyone if you've got questions from yesterday um you'd like to go over we can kind of start off this class with sort of that kind of thing yeah all right questions from internet on and if you guys have any questions to feel free to jump in yeah I have a question from parana he's one of our regulars here on creative life he would like to know if there's a guide to the shutter I s o f stop ratio in the way that you had explained it I'm sure there are in ah some photo book somewhere I bet if you looked it up like reciprocal chart or something like that on google you probably find something I don't have any uh resource exactly that I could go to um you can also you can just about make your own slider if you take take a piece of paper and you do f two to eight four five six eight eleven sixteen twenty two on one end of it and take another piece of paper and do you know one second half second quarter second eight second fifteenth of a second thirtieth sixtieth one twenty fifty to fifty, five hundred thousand whatever and then you take those two pieces of paper and you khun slide him back and forth kind of thing like so you match the two aid up with the two fiftieth of a second and then that shows you're reciprocal cz actually to the class and we had two wheels yeah yeah like a paper clip I think I used to have old kodak wheel uh that you could the center was like I esso and then yeah, you're reciprocal cz were were there and if you can just commit them to memory, commit them to memory and remember the relationship that as you close down that aperture shutter speed has to slow down is you open aperture shutter speed speeds up so you remember that relationship of when one goes one way the other goes the other way and then you can remember the numbers of it two, eight, four, five, six, eight, eleven, sixteen, twenty two you start to put him in your head you just committed to memory you just flash cards what whatever you have to do, it just makes me think you're one light video you really say the same thing just like if you don't know this I really got to know that you got to know it. You got to know what you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't question from chris be alaska in the chat room from earlier today I know zach was explaining focal distance choices. My question is about concert photography f stop settings since you've done a lot of that is about go about choosing well you're you're shooting a concert, you have a lot of limitations typically on you, especially if you're doing a bigger show of like where you're stuck in the pit and you only have first three songs to shoot um you know you're kind of wide angle trying to get the front of the stage and you might have to go tell a photo to get the drummer you know, fifteen feet back in the stage or something like that um there's um you're usually dealing in low light especially like if you're doing local clubs let's let's say a band comes to me and says I want to shoot our show or I want to go shoot this show at a local club where the lighting isn't all that great you know it's not a hundred thousand dollar lighting system you know their million dollar lighting system or whatever um it's just you know, sixty watt light bulbs with red filters on him just about then you're shooting wide open you know you're shooting it f two to eight because you're trying to get your shutter speed up oh, here s o is going up your shutter speed needs to get up to a point where you're trying toe at least, you know, capture something sharp you don't want to be shooting a show eighth of a second unless you're you know doing fine art or something like that, but if you want to stop that guitarist in action than yeah, that aperture needs be wide over, you're not shoot to show it f twenty two unless you're at I s o billion you know or something like that for local for small clubs where I have full access, I like to bring a flash and put a flash off camera somewhere on a light stand and light the show with flash, but I'm still shooting it to a f four max kind of thing have a question from twitter from adelson media it's our friend shannon um he asked what is your favorite test subject when trying to find the sweet spot like the perfect I so's speed et cetera for each lens it's my favorite test usually it's I suit up you know portrait I guess you could say I want to see I want to see how this lends looks on people I should people, right? So, um, I want to see what does this linds look like? So, uh, there of times that will, you know, we'll find a model or someone in town that wants to do some testing, we'll do some time for print kind of time for disk trade out kind of thing, so they come in and I'm testing a new lens or in testing a new light or, um, something like that I need I usually want a person in front of my camera to test with, um, when I am testing lenses or I wanna shoot, I want to look a difference between things I I prefer to shoot that with a person because that's where that gear is going to go in to work for me is photographing people so whatever you photograph do that, um if you're a wedding photographer all right um make friends with other wedding photographers and see if you can tag along someone's wedding um you know, I know a lot of wedding photographers who they have very close friendships with other wedding photographers in their area and they want to try a new lighting setup or they want ah, they wantto shoot a different camera or they want to shoot holders at a wedding never have and they're not going to do it on their clients time so they kind of second or third assist a friend at a wedding and they run around and shoot their whole guard they shoot their new lighting set up and they get something great than awesome name what the friend deliver that the client so yeah in my second or third photographer shot thes and here you go the little extras you know, um if it doesn't work out no big deal, you know spent man weddings like if you can just tag along with somebody and you have a good relationship with them and you could just try stuff out at a really wedding and if it works awesome if it doesn't if it comes pleat lee just blows it's no loss no lawsuit all thanks question in the audience just quick question you said if you were going to a small club you probably bring your lights um would you do continuous or stroll strobe okay yeah definitely do stroke because if I'm doing continuous lights I've gotta run extension cords and then I might be messing with you know then then that you know the house guys like why you turned on these lights you know things like that they're big they're heavy they're hot by the time like like if you got a light a show with continuous lights like maybe some good lights like you need six fifty one k's at the least andi you're overpowering probably whatever they have so just little strobes on a stand or if I could get like a super clamp and put it up on a you know clamp it onto something up near the ceiling um then I'll do that keep it out of the way I'm not going to have it anywhere where there's foot traffic you know don't block the way to the bathroom with your light stand you got to keep it got to keep it to where no one's been trip over it walk into it because the club it's dark and all the house lights come down and there you go um I usually have what I am shooting at a club I take green really bright green gaffer tape and I put that I have these on my it's really for weddings in for shooting concerts I put this on my flash like this there's a lot of times when this is often a dark corner I don't know where that flashes I can't see it so when I have some green gaff tape I'll hold this up shooting backlit into that window um when this is up in a dark corner sometimes I can see this tape and so when I'm like where's my flash where's my flash and I needed to be behind someone's head to give like a halo effect or something I can live in and see that I also put this tape down the sides of the legs of my life stands so that if it is in an area where people are walking at least there's some sort of bright something down there saying hey especially at weddings I always try to keep my off camera lights at weddings out of foot traffic away from tables places where I think is a kid going to come running through here at a hundred miles an hour and hit my life stand um so I like toe put satellite stand up and neither sandbag it and I put green tape on it so people see it how concerned are you with like too many flashes during the show pretty concerned a the more flashes you have them or like like you have lighting coming in from different directions and does it make sense? Or are they canceling? Is is it over lit kind of thing on the more lights you have, the more you have to worry about more things that could go wrong. So one or two lights max kind of thing, and I try to find a spot where ok, what I'm gonna do have shot shows recently small shows is is I start breaking it down, I'm gonna concentrate on each member. I tried to get there for sound check. I just want to see what they're sort of stage presence is are they jumpy? So they jump all over the place that they go back and forth back and forth, they walk over to the drummer and walked back to the corner and walk back to the drummer and walk or do they just kind of stand there in one spot like they're nailed to the ground and don't move? So I tried to get their stage presence and an idea of what that's like then I kind of work from the left or the right of the stage. I work on the bass player and I shoot pictures of of you know them, then I kind of rotate that light and get it on. To the lead singer and I should lead singer pictures than I might have to move the light over to the other side of the stage and work on the guitar player and then I have got to get it up and back to the drummer and I work on the drummer shots so I try to get like a great shot of each member individually then I start backing off going ok I'm going to get the guitar player in the lead singer in a shot that I would get a bass player and the drummer in a shot and then my goal is by the end of the show that I'm more to the back of the club trying to get the entire band and one shot and that's for me that's the biggest challenge of shooting shows is getting the entire band in one single pick usually it's like ok I got the guitarist in the basis and the lead singer and the drummers always stuck behind somebody get them all in one shot and then light them all in one shot you just back there go sucks last question about a weekend get it do you ever get on the stage to get like you know really good close absolutely if if they'll let me on stage and I don't just go become the fifth beatle up there um you know you ever see it clarence the fifth beatle was so funny um I don't try to become the fifth beatle or anything but if the bands like do whatever you need to do to get the shot get shot so I'll hide behind you know speakers um I'll jump up there real quick quick, quick quick and jump off state road quick oh um I don't want to just hang out and just I need to I need this all comes through pre visualization knowing my gear knowing my apertures knowing my shutter speeds and I see ok I see this shot I don't have my laptop hooked up um I'll see I pulled some live pictures up tomorrow maybe um I know I have one of a drummer where I popped up on stage I had a put a flash behind him so I already sort of pre staged the light behind him and then I had a handheld flash and I had this idea for a shot and I just jumped up on stage right in front of his kit bam bam bam and then off stage again okay um and got the shot that I was looking for um and so yeah if they let me on stage absolutely absolutely I won't shoot shows uh that would have the three song ruled the big bigger shows bigger venues, bigger musicians, artists I won't I just won't do it I want full access for nothing unless it's just somebody I really want to see uh I shot the white stripes um yeah and why I took it was like ok, I could see the white stripes from the pit and I shot the first two songs and then I just sort of hung out in front of front row for one song all right everyone leave you know so yeah I have a question from digits digits tweets how do you get the flash not to go to sleep in these situations that you've been describing are at a wedding when it's in the corner right that's usually in a menu system you have to read the manual um that they go into a standby mode um and you can go into the flashes menu system and turn that standby mode off yeah and I have one of my nikon flashes for some reason I have standby mode off but it keeps going into standby like something's kind of funky with that I don't know what's going on but yeah, you have to push your pocket wizard turn it back on and then you can shoot again yeah there's been quite a few people in the chat room who've asked wanted to know about gear that you buy yesterday you said you know you've got this lens use for this amount this lends for this amount and j p just wanted to know if you could give some tips on where you buy used their bodies and lenses yeah, I buy a lot of my used equipment from k h k h dot com um they're rating system is great it's trustworthy if they say it's an excellent condition it is an excellent condition um and I bought bargain conditions stuff from them and got it this is great is better than here I own now you know um so I buy a lot of stuff in k g eight um by a number of things from you know, friends or people I know online like hey, I'm selling this or I'm selling that um I trolled craigslist and locally and you get a lock on craigslist I never have any luck on I got a nice meter for one hundred bucks you know? I mean it's not all the time but it scares me scares me well, there's certain sections of it you should stay away from but the photo section is not too bad, you know? Really. Really? Yeah, you know it's um but ebay ebay yeah, I like something's off ebay. You know, if they have ten thousand feet back points and ninety nine point nine percent of its positive right that's a whole lot of people that have bought from these folks who said yeah, they're good and reputable I will not like I saw this uh, hasselblad digital system uh, someone was selling, and it was just insane price they'd only sold to things on e bay. It was like a limbs cap and a fluffy kitten, you know, something stupid, and then they have, like, this whole hassle blood system, and I looked at their screen name and found their website was this photographer out of miami and seemed reputable, but I was not dropping that money on that kid because there wasn't enough feedback, so yeah, and then I guess being a jew also has used being aged seventy years on a number of views, things from being a church, and we have a local store in atlanta, um usually doesn't have a whole lot that's why I got my thirty five when I got my thirty five millimetre lens, I was at its place called showcase in atlanta, and they had a and a film camera thirty five millimeter nikon camera with thirty five on it. They were trying to sell us kit, and I'm like, how long's that been sitting there awhile suddenly that lynn's well, we want to sell it together, we'll sell the winds one hundred dollars deal, I'll take it. Yeah, so they busted that kid out and sold millions for under bucks you basically you basically just go through the normal resource, is that aaron what else does? Yeah, ok, yeah, I got nothing special, right? Yeah, no secret, okay, is no secret cave of used gear. Ok, we're good to know. Yeah.