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Making a Wall of Light

Lesson 21 from: Building and Using DIY Lighting Gear

Kevin Kubota

Making a Wall of Light

Lesson 21 from: Building and Using DIY Lighting Gear

Kevin Kubota

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Lesson Info

21. Making a Wall of Light

Lesson Info

Making a Wall of Light

So we're going to talk about now making a wall of light, so we're going to take the two of the screams that we made with pvc scrims, and sometimes one is not enough put two together blast that and you've got this really nice, big, soft. This works great for groups as well to talk about turning horizontally for groups over that yesterday, but what if we actually took two of these side by side and imagine that how much big even window light you're going to get? So we're talking about, like, just changing things up a little bit from what we taking tools we already have and doing something else with them spring those out, and we're going to kind of position these right about there on we'll use a we'll use some light stands to hold them up easier and some clamps to hold them together. So I'm just gonna clamp these toe light stands here, I told them up, and you want to have them so that there there's no gap in between if you want to clamp between them that work as well, and typically I would...

clamp them together, right in the middle of a carpet underneath this little space and the idea being we're going toe put light behind it, bring it over here, and we can do use that for kind of a fooling shot maybe is daniel here, right? So the idea that we were trying to get across here is sometimes one is not enough you could build too, but that the quality of the light sort of starts to broadened and softened as you add more I've even done years ago but shooting commercial photography and we're shooting a car at a request to shoot a photograph of hummer in our studio and basically made a whole wall of these alongside the studio in position lights all behind them to illuminate it. So you have that big, nice highlight that they haven't car photography, you have to have a giant light block basically to do that, but being ableto have access to these air, you had some professional ones, and then I didn't have enough because I needed basically almost like ten of them together to do this thing. So I tow make someone stringing all together. Ok, so let's, take a flesh or two that behind keep doing me a favor, would you carefully unpeeled that light clyde alight from there and then I'm gonna bring my let's stand back here and I'm going to use to flash heads for this one to make sure we got enough coverage on the back of this and that it's even so, use a little flash splitter that I used earlier bar over this thing here it enables you to put two flash heads together, so use this and put my two speed lights on it, and we'll double that up. All I need is a big it in there. So what? I'm going outside to shoot or even in the studio when I were amusing, something big like this or if you're shooting fashion again, putting two lights together is really important because it it enables you to speed up your recycle time and if you could bring that flash painless and you're done and save your battery so when which mission? Together there should be another quietly record like this underneath my card as well if you see it it's not no worries, you got it. So there's a bull pack? We talked about this yesterday. This is a battery pack that enables me to speed up my recycle time, extend the battery life of my flashes with a nice low accessory to use. Trade you this for that, and I'm gonna zap this onto the front of my flashes it in. And this is a typical setup for outdoor portraiture. If you do outdoor portraiture and you're looking to balance your light with the sun, this is a great way to do that you got extra power, turn on, turn on, turn on. He's both on the same channel so I can control them simultaneously. So now basically two flashes acting like one flash here in this set up just kind of fun, so I can control them with my controller on channel eight, both on channel a so when I go down to stop, you both go down to stop, go stop, there was such I don't have to remember to change my thinking when we talked about the rules of the power, like, if I wanted to bring two lights up by two lights and you gotta stop, they both need to go to stop, not just one up to stop both need to grow up stop. So this means I don't have to think about it when they're on the same the same radio channel, so zoom wise, I'll probably need to be thirty five to fifty millimeters or so, and we'll test that theory to shoot this and see we're at so danya, you're gonna stand boom right there, I'm switching back that way a little bit little bit, so we're still kind of trying to stay the similar when we talk about the lighting thing, but from here to here, so I'm going to shoot this way, all right, I kind of want this light frame, it probably come a little bit more towards me and expects you but screwed the whole thing towards me just like a foot or two then I want to move in you yeah that's good because that's still overlapping sure flashes in the right place and then we'll do a little test test of the light we're going to definitely get some spill onto the background because the flashes are behind this of scream here are shooting some to the sides and I can avoid some of that by bringing it closer to the scrims and making the zoom whiter thank you so I'm gonna set these pretty wide and that way it's just going to go towards that wall there so set the zoom on both of these two twenty eight millimeters way should be good and the power is going to be one twenty eight months that it is uh battery's dead on the camera eight hundred who's got the my tech support guy in the eight hundred a new battery eight hundred battery so we'll talk about this this is gonna grab a new battery quick so yeah bring the questions on alright fantastic. So question is what effect would placing the two speed lights heart versus together have apart versus together uh you mean expressing them wider part behind the thing here? Yes um what did them onto the two brackets next to each other right? I actually can't see anymore yes there next to each other and essentially that's going to keep this concentration of light here towards the center but they are they are still kind of slightly off to the side of each other so one's kind of illuminating here one's kind of ruminating there I could spread them a little further apart if I wanted to really even it out and it really depends on what you're shooting into it how far away you are from the background so that that bracket is nice is aiken slide them apart but I can also just angle the heads whiter like that even it out so you'll do a test shot if I feel like this is not evenly illuminated enough, then I can adjust the heads after that okay, thank you so let's see for firing here one going on one turned off one going wait so again I don't know exactly what we're going to get yet until I take a test shot pop up on screen okay? We got to spill, but the quality guys can't see sorry back there, but if you look at the quality of light on her is just gorgeous it's just a soft, soft, still shapely light if you guys want to get up and move around and come see that's fine there side so that I think I'm getting is a little bit of the spill from this, so I need to do it one of two things either bring that back edge back a little bit. So, caitlin, if you come on over here and thiss angle that back edge of that scrim just a little bit in towards us. Not towards me, but just angled angled a fan in a way. Yeah. There you go. And then also probably scooch danielle over just a little bit that way. Just a little bit that's. More important, if you just stand there on the package and well, that's the other thing, what we would do in the studio would be too, is to put us flat, like one of our v flats on that edge to just flag it off. And that's, maybe what? You know, the easiest thing to do if you would have an assistant. Just try to get through this little quicker here. But the flat would be a nice solution to just block that lights. That only goes in that one direction. Good, but as faras flash output wise, the power looks pretty good. That looks nice and clean. We have a beautiful window light soft again. Just just one light. There is no need for a fill in this in this. You want to have some fill on it, um but the nice thing like that it's a full length covers full length really? Well, the shadows, underside or face were there, but they're soft. And so this big double scream comes in really nice for fooling kind of shots like that where you need to get mohr the room illuminated so it adds overall elimination but still it's very soft. Okay, there's a little bit of that in the top over there, but I don't care about that side crop that out anyway looking pretty good. So let's, just shoot a couple more just like that. Good play that so, let's try shifting your weight left to right, maybe nice do that to the right again and shit chin up to the left towards the light just gonna that's cute on day shift your weight onto the right hip and turn your hips this away good point that need towards me like I'm looking up towards that light and smiling at that thing left and you're cute they're just shake it out dance a little bit in place there hey, there you go sassy chained to the right ok, so great three like quality of a shooting is that f two to keep our background somewhat soft so you can't see back there, but ah, if we kind of just if you think about for fooling something very simple, the only thing we would do to this maybe would be to scream it offs that caitlin and have to stand there or just play with that we have to worry about that and then we clean up that we could basically that whole wall nicely evenly illuminated and um it's just beautiful on this works really well too for kids or babies if anybody photographs kids or babies the reason that a big light works well so they could just plop right onto the carpet here and start playing is that this big soft wide light allows them to move around that's the biggest problem with kids and babies is they wiggle right? They never sit still so if you have like a one year old two year old over that's not just like sleeping and did basically they're going to move around and they're going to play with toys or whatever and that's something that I love to use this for that because they could move anywhere pretty much in this area and the light will still be nice he was a more leeway tio photograph kids and things so great purple links great for even just sitting there into a a tighter portrait because the quality latest so nice and the sexy just do one more where will this describe one of those chairs for her? You bring one of your well just tighten it up so we can look at the lighting on her face just a little more and then we'll be set with this one you grab for me either one of those longer lenses up on that table I'm gonna grab a long lands on we'll just use this as a head shot kind of a light yeah that's pretty good rearm I was shooting it off too before meant to eight now so maybe a little bit darker so I'm going to but I also moved a little closer to my actual balance out ok nice someone a crank it back up power is good all right so now we can see that is is a headshot portrait light is really beautiful too because it does shape her her face beautifully it picks a nice sparkly catch light fairly large catch like because of the big size of the the screamer using um great catch lights on her jewelry the only thing we'd add this to make it a full on portrait with probably some hair light I think they were less there are we'll talk to you you know they're all hiding behind over there the cameras and get even see him well we get out a little hair light behind here tio sparkle that up and let's do that for a quick I'm gonna have one of you be my assistant here we're going through a hair light hair lighter attention hair lighters where is mother flashing by see what lying around somewhere a flash way haven't stuck understand one on the flash on the little gorilla pied right yeah there you go thank you secret quiet hidden person this is on channel b and I'm gonna take this jill off of this meat on this one man we're gonna boom I get that right the backward head okay is on channel b that I said so I'm gonna turn that on bringing down to maybe sixteenth of a power start with that and make sure that's pointing right at the back of her head okay good thank you god well you're pointing at her back right there were lifted up a little bit you get a nice nice arm light on her return it's good gave it up just a little more angle up there we go to beautiful and should be in my opinion step right up closer to her there we go okay beautiful animal drop that down just a third of a stop and got right there nice and it's got a big smile of the tend to be ever slightly okay so here lightheaded separation we have ah just the fall off onto the background I really don't want to crank the background light too much more up we could throw collide a light in the background if you wanted to make it more funky or you could add a little milk jug light to light up evenly eliminate the wall if he wanted to but I like the darkness here behind her because if you look at that there's a natural kind of vignette in this image and jenny what you're looking for not always but sometimes it's a good idea to think about going from dark to light to dark delights you're kind of layering the depth of your image so for example the dark side of the background comes into the bright side of her face and then the shadow side of her face goes into the highlights in her hair which then goes into dark so we kind of have a nice in depth by alternating lighten dark by putting the highlight in her hair it gives me a nice alternate light dark light dark light dark from the background into her face into the background again and that just helps to add some more depth to your portrait so that looks pretty cute I like it was to shoot a couple more good nice that was a cute little sco's he look there you can smile that's right here you lean forward just a little bit and lean forward that way towards the light on in the future it was me just been good and hair light make sure you're following her she moves ok so she starts to go that's my friend my frame just humor me good tend to me ever slightly right there. Okay, so even though this is a design for a full length, maybe it's nelson's great for a head shot. If you just want to look a single light, super beautiful, soft wall window late works really good.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Kevin Kubota -- DIY Lighting Tools Manual.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

Kevin Kubota - Special Offers.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Geo Montecillo
 

Super good course highly recommended it will help you get started on a low budget, yet creating wonderful images. Is there a link to west got?

F8 and be there
 

This was an awesome fun class! So many great ideas on how to achieve various lighting effects on a smaller budget. You will save the price of the course most likely by making one softbox (or whatever) yourself. Highly recommended!

Adrian Martinez
 

Going into my 4th year of photography, I finally built a photo studio in my home and after purchasing some lighting gear and other accessories, I decided to buy this course for additional ideas - GREAT class! I learned a LOT and was very inspired to be more creative. I especially liked that Kevin didn't joke too much or stray away from the course very much at all. Yet, he was still very entertaining and very informative. I'm putting so much of what I got form this class into action right away! This course DEFINITELY pays for itself - right away!

Student Work

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