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Lesson Info

Low Contrast Lensflare

As faras lighting goes this is going to be my most complicated of setups that we have so far no we have not talked about it yet so you will see us build this um I am going to go for kind of even flat light that's glowing and lovely and pretty um so what I would like is can I have two lights in the background and I'm going to have two lights pointed at v flats do I need somebody to hold those for me or they stand up these ones well okay so we put to life in the background and so what we're going to do here is it too late ce in the background are going to light the background white because what happens is if you have a white background and you have a subject of here that's illuminated the light isn't hitting the background enough and so if the the black of the weight backgrounds not illuminated it goes gray and so it looks really muddy so I have to actually like the background so out of any of the studio lighting setups I do this is the one that involves the most lights majority of what ...

I shoot for fashion photography usually includes three heads two to three heads ah lot of times we'll have one on the subject and maybe to rim lights or one on the subject one in the background or two on the background something like that I sell them go over three heads for ninety nine percent of what I do, so if you have a kid with three heads, you have what you need you don't need a lot this one I'm going to use five lights looking overseas he hates snakes even talked about this uh so we're going to light the background to make it white um I'm going to bring you out here just to show you roughly where you stand and I may need some assistant, so keep this in mind this is a little more, uh intricate the normal someone have you standard here? This is where she will be I don't need this anymore this before in case anybody didn't know what this wass when we were doing the new are light, this was blocking it off because when we had that hair light on the side of her face, if it was not blocked off by a piece of foam core, that light might kick back into my lands and created lens flare that I didn't want in this situation. So that is what this is this is another it's a flag or goebel this is an example of a flag ergo you don't need that saved the two lights in the background cool um these things up here and they could just be bear think toliver these things up here are called the flats or book ends? Um, you know what? You guys get them from where you purchased them from glazers and places are on display. So these what type of shops with ease signed shops to give you that they were to get any in camera store camera stores? So ask around, I know that you can also basically put together from things you confined at home depot or lows, but what they are is there large pieces of foam core that are black on one side and white on the other, and because they're avi, they stand on their own. Um, and what I'll usually do on a shoot is if maybe I'm looking at the subject and one side of the body is too dark. You set up your v fold on one side with the white towards her, and I'll catch the light and fill it in the chute that what we're going to do right now, um, is actually using the v flats as the light source, so it is very different than you get that even glowing light. Um, I need a total of five heads, so, um, I just need to bear this way and another one in the background, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to surround her with this. I'm gonna have a v fold that will be like this and you point the light directly into the flat so what it does when you do it this way it's going tio catch all that light, soften it out and fill it back towards her so I need two of them and it's kind of like I did with the beauty teo soft boxes in front kind of even frontal light and then I'm going to break a rule and add lens flare just you know the direct oceangoing let me grab the other one of those and get set up feel free to ask questions what we've set up if you guys have any anything pressing yes a question about the overhead lighting do you have to have any special type of overhead lighting consent? You know like a certain color? Anything? No so because these air strobes on when I'm shooting it's overpowering the ambien god nor break anything um it's overpowering the ambien and so I don't have to worry about it. The only time it will matter is later on for the guys shoot we're going to shoot a constant fluorescent light they're really, really brite's the over part of the ambient but let's say you had a really bright tungsten lamp right next to him it would mix here it doesn't affect it all all of these lights of daylight balanced and um actually so to address the question that somebody had asked the lights that used here are brown color and as I said brown color is one of the more expensive it's one of the higher end lighting brands so the question for people is okay what do you recommend if we don't have a budget or if that's not what we have at our disposal for six or seven years I shot white lightning's um for a really really long time I use them all the time I got great images with them a lot of my portfolio that I had for the longest time was shot with white lightning's but as I shot more I needed more control so these brown color pat's if you look at them you can dial the power of the lights to a tenth of a stop up and down and because they're actually packs they have a capacitor and then which means it recycles faster so I'm trying to catch somebody who's moving and jumping and dancing when I was shooting with my white lightning's I wasn't getting the recycle time enough to do that and then maybe if there was a highlight that I wanted tone down a little bit maybe I couldn't put the white linen down low enough powers would have to move the light so yes, you can absolutely get great images honestly with whatever let you shoot I guarantee you I mean any flight you have you can get good images it is a matter of time and effort um and so the entry level these brown color sense so kids with two heads and two soft boxes I think they're definitely under three thousand for sure I think they're like twenty three hundred but just check out being h because I have a bottom in a long time so I have no idea um but yeah so that's a difference you can you pick and choose it's about power a lot of those model heads or less expensive life can't overpower the sun if you're on location they wouldn't have enough strength so you weigh the pros and cons and versus the cost is well because trust me I've been very practical for a long time I have a question from nelson who asked you often incorporate the use of gels into your light setups question of gels gels are a sensitive subject because you can easily look like nineteen eighties bands photos in my opinion or like those early nineties corporate head shots tuesday we're talking about we're like the blue joel the background put like a red light here and there like sitting at their desk and it's really weird that they're rave even though it's corporate headshot um so the answer is I do use gel sometimes so if you look at my portfolio there's this one shot of a girl with um she has this cool kind of face mask thing on and she's really cool rings she's doing something and it has a green jell o um I let the shadows they were green and then pulled the read out of her skin so it looked white so she looked for me that cyborg wait skin green undertones is kind of cyborg surreal feeling so I'll use gels for that reason but it's very selective if it actually works I did shot an editorial to where the theme with editorial was read I had all white skin she's kind of posing and then I have a redhead like a highlight on the back because the theme of the shoot was red so every shot had read plus the red highlight looking looking good okay um one more answers otherwise I can just go for it well here's a quick easy one from wine lover to fifteen one lover right we'll just get this one out of the way. What kind of focused method is being used one shot a focus are you self selecting your focus points? Sure. Um in my pictures um all right so it kind of depends most of time it's one shot and I select the focus point and I'm moving around all the time and it's auto focus because I have a horrible eyesight like I see you like you're there to kind of see you um no it's not that bad but a lot of times in the studio your focus point if you're shooting at like f sixteen it's less important which one you pick because it depth of field is going to get the whole thing and focus so it doesn't matter as much, but anytime I have a narrowed up the field and time it's like wider than f eleven or any time should in constant light exactly select that focus point and I'm constantly changing it just like the eye closest to the camera or the head if it's a full length shot can I ask you a quick follow up which was asked earlier but from miramar is do you ever use shallow depth of field in the studio? I never you shallow depth of field with studio strobes uh if amusing shelves up the field it's going to be just like with the kino flows in the constant lights um I will definitely do that it feels really intimate for portrait to shoot at a show out of the field, so I definitely will do that I'll have something where it's going to have that subject line really closed into its at the connection with the eyes when you shoot a narrow depth of field constantly and you focus on the eyes and everything else feel soft for some reason I feel like you just connect with that subject that's all about you staring into their eyes but for here no it's it's usually half eleven like most of the time very seldom otherwise ok so you three were getting good okay the fifth had can turn off for a second I'm going to break down really really slowly what we've got going on here because it looks crazy um but it's cool so we'll explain um alright background to lights pointing out the background I just need to let the background well um I'll take a look and see if it's lighting it enough you might have to change the angle like right now if I got some of the bottom in the frame it wouldn't be lit because it's too dark so I might need to stagger them have one pointed hyeon one pointed low but I think I'm going to shoot kind of needs up anyway so it's okay then I have these two v flats and I have them in a visa there surrounding her and I have the heads pointed back so it's going to just be basically like a giant light bank of lights blasting towards her don't make really cool catch lights in the eyes because it's actually like giant big white reflectors in the eyes so going to start with that first um I will tell you about the power because I have no idea right now I'm going to feel it out test that out, I'm going tio you guys didn't see over here, right? Well able to see over here just kind of see inside the set so I'm gonna bring you for just a little bit and modify this move my apple box thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm again just like with the soft boxes I'm gonna shoot through a hole. All right, so can I just move these back just a little bit cool, perfect. Same thing here want to get too tangled? Yeah, trust me, I picked the hard set ups, but I like this one. So it's cool. Okay, and I'm I'm gonna stay knock it over with my tether cord cord out. Okay, good. All right, so perfect. All right, so I'm just gonna test this and you're gonna come really far closer kind move these in. So what I'm doing, I'm surrounding her in light and I actually can kind of see in her eyes going to do a test shot first I have no idea even close with this would be here we go hopes and plug it back in. Okay, just again, alright needs to go a little brighter. Good. Okay, so whatever the second shot should pop up in the screen in a second and you'll see it's really pretty frontal, even light it's very, very glowy and soft um but how I usually use this is not just like that I will actually see if I can give her camera consuming. Um what I will actually do is make use of this soft light by adding lens flare on purpose. So this is what it comes all back down to the whole reason have this whole set up is on purpose, breaking the rules of studio you're not supposed to have one's foreign studio right? Unless you want teo s oh, I see so many music video covers and so many album's thes album covers and so many musicians and singers and fashion photography where you have this even light and then lens flare coming over the shoulder because len slurs on purpose you're setting a mood you're making it look dreamy it's not surreal. You don't see bright highlights glowing around somebody in real life, so you're basically just trying to take that person away from reality as far as you can so that's what I'm going to do in this shot so I will actually take my two lights in the background two lights bouncing off here so the reason this is also not reality when is light that bouncing around and glowing from every angle? It reminds me of harry potter and he's in that that train station and you think he's dead but he's not really dead harry potter reference anybody uh and so it's that light from all directions but no directions at all and then I add once ler s o that's what I'll do now I'll take that last light pointed back at the camera and then the question I always get is what you said it at I have no idea because you can make it so that it's overpowering I have this fashion editorial that I shot recently for tantalum magazine I think it was handsome um and I had it so that lens flare almost wiped out half of the body so it just looks like they're kind of crawling out or stepping out of a halo of light or you could just make it so it's like a little halo around their head really subtle so, um you got it. Okay, he's got it under control, so I'll step over here and we'll give it a test and then I might have some assistance make her flowy okay, so amy's test is for a sec. Good. Okay. And it's probably too bright. My tests have been ok we'll see in a second. And, um one of the things about doing this with lens flare is that it by default because of what lengths lor is it decreases contrast that is what lens flor is because it's bouncing light into the lens, kicking it around and decreasing contrast so for these images I like that I know what people look at us the whole crop is terrible I promise you increase the contrast and now it's light and airy but then her eyes will pop because it's the darkest part of the picture so it just kind of captivated by your eyes so I'm going to take some assistance okay? Just two people grab either side of her dress and we're gonna gonna like flow it around so she looks nice and flowy so just grab a side of her dress okay, I may pick an angle here good perfect can I take a shot there? Good see I said I had to shoot vertical there oh, it does it does rotate okay, so you're getting really light and airy can you just take the tool? Hire just the tool part of it just the tool part of a higher cool can you put one hand wipe across your face like you're catching your hair perfect and then they wouldn't like around your neck so I'm just looking like okay she's blowing in the wind and she's moving something like this um soft hands and the hair good and then we just hold on to that one curl good and instead of hand like this turn it so I just see the side perfect and then kind of chin out towards me good let me test this shooting this little opening and relax your elbow it's off the albert's pulled down just a little bit good perfect good for that hand crews drop it in front good for fix and try another one and squint your eyes at me a little bit pretty again so what I usually do will do something like that and all kind of pop the color and I'll increase the contrast I have lens flare coming from everywhere how difficult is it it's difficult to pull the sweep out a little bit, isn't it? Okay, so the reason the question I just asked him is for ease of this workshop I was trying to not have the background come all the way out because look at the giant mess I created um it's ok, but if you look at the shot there on the screen it should not be dark kind of down now her skirt is because you can see through for the background so I am going to have to extend that for her because I have for right now facing straight forward. I don't think there's enough curve in her body that's what I see and I see like a little curve in the hip but it looks kind of straightforward to me, so I'm going to have her turn sideways and arch her back a little bit so it'll give me a nice curve in her back so that's what I see when I'm looking at that shot ok, you have the clips to turn that way just a little all right, arch your back and then that hand up perfect and a little bit lower that hand perfect just like that. Great. Yeah, I love making things challenging for people it's my favorite while she's facing for would you still have her boom? Maybe, um more of a curve and her yeah, because I looked at that and I just see it looks kind of like this you just looked like she kind of kicked out one hand so I would do something where I would have really, like, extend it, accentuate that so if she's going to do it, you push that hip even further. We pushed her neck out even for this a lot more curved versus or whatever it is here, but now what I have to do is they had to turn to the side kind of art so it's going to make that kind of curve versus st ford? Uh, one of the things to is I have a kind of clipped in the back because the dress doesn't fit because again for me you rent clothing and you clip it to fit the person so you don't have to buy a three hundred dollar dress you can borrow it from the local prom shop or you can get it from the vintage store. You can take it from your sister's closet if she had her prom dress, they're still I have used my sister's clothes so many times for self because she went through a phase where she bought like a new gown. Like all the time what? She went through face. So I borrow her dresses as proper but then that's great, because you don't want it anymore. So I take him in the water and then we lay it's great. And you get your kit stuff let's, let me take a look here. Okay? Perfect. Thank you, guys. Great. Okay, so that's probably kind of attorney, but your hips even more keep going and stick your butt out and chest back like that. Good, good and took your hand sort of straight sideways. Yes, just like that. And bring your elbow back. So all I'm doing this whole time was I'm tweaking her is I'm making it so I see the curve of the back and the space between her elbow enter back like that's. What this is I'm directing it. I'm just saying give me more curve, give me a little space no that's what all that is I'm just watching it when it looks right okay and just pop your elbow just a tiny bit more little bit more space a little more good ok and then turn it so I can't see that hand as much okay perfect right there right there that's great and so I'd shoot a whole bunch of these and I get more lands for less land slur can there you go okay so I'm gonna have you moved that late and just a little bit and this will be my last shot I think something is not the shot went the next one okay. Ready last time here we go one two three okay, that was probably a little much um so you definitely we'll see if you have a light in the background you will see kind of stand so back of one more because that one's too much um no you're fine. I'm done with the shot's good just the previous photo um would probably be the closest to what I'd want if they know that he has something like that and so it's really soft and really feminine and she has a little bit of curve there and she's touching her hair and so I would definitely have to photo shopped out um that late stay in the background but if you're getting the light in the photo unless you're on a boom arm you will get it in there and even when you're on the boom arm you'll see the light sand coming out so you have to photo shop it out just kind of part of it so this is low contrast len's flor what I want you guys to dio is joined me back tomorrow when we go over the images I'll retouch this so you'll see what it would look like because again it's low contrast I would pump the green in there I'd add a little bit of kind of warm hayes to it and photos about the left hand side for me photoshopped isn't cheating if it's find out like that you're gonna have a light scent and if the white sands in it in order to get the lens flare so it just all kind of part of the creative process and avoid a cz much photoshopped as possible but I also know when it's necessary it is okay so I'm ready for questions except for the last look if that models ready so um I'm gonna just jesse I'm good with you if you can go check and see oh wait I lied I want somebody to shoot real quick how we doing on time? Okay cool who do we say she is your shooting this vehicle um I'm going to switch my lens I do want to do one more close up of her head so you guys can see with the light looks like come really close to me really, really really close to char it there chin down. Test that. Okay, so just so you can give an idea I brought her closer to the background because the closer that I bring her up to the background, the more even in frontal the lighting is so yes, I totally blew it all of the detail out of the background. I mean, you can't see the background at all, and it starts to kind of wrap around her hair. But it's okay, because that's what I wanted so it's a matter of need to understand your tools, you need to understand exposure. You have to know the tools, and then you can decide whether you want to break the rules or not. So I think that's really pretty. I could see that being I don't know. Some country singers album cover where she's like looking and her hair is blowing in the wind or something like that. She says that james is a perfume ad. So something like that so that's what I keep in mind, I can do kind of soft, even flowing shots. What lens would you like to shoot the smallest? Fifty fifty? Okay, well, how about twenty four? Seventy canyou do zoom perfect. Okay, someone switch here, here you go, this is samantha, and she shoots really soft and romantic. Feeling images if you have a chance to check out all of the different attendees portfolios and want not I recommend do it just kind of see their style I'm samantha for example, has a really cool technique that she does that is kind of stop motion engagement sessions that air really really cool and is different and so that's actually why I chose her because she is thinking out of the box she's trying to do something different for her clients were you thinking well I like that one was pretty yeah, that one can you just riff a little bit more really nicely and just like that and then smiles ever so slightly so yeah, you just kind of increase the contrast a little bit it pops it out but it's still really high key and glowing light from everywhere and I like that her shoulder disappears on the left because again she's floating in a dream there's no reality there at all I like that. Okay, cool she she's like I like that one a lot for good. Yes, you ever used um you're gosh now I can't think of it under your ornament do you ever do you do that in studio a lot more out? Ok, so something we're going over tomorrow is I use these different tools I have them sitting out here someplace other over there I can touch on it. We're going to in detail tomorrow. Um, but I use these tools that four lengths, flor, what you're doing obviously, is you're catching, lighting your lens and bouncing it around and decreases contrast. So when you stick something in frontier lens that actually catches more light, it increases lens flare. So a lot of times, what I'll do on location is stick something like this half of a christmas ornament in front of the lens to create lens flares. The question was, do you do in the studio? I usually don't, but I think you could I mean, I definitely think you could, even if maybe have that that lends for kind of in the corner of the frame, and then you add this to my kick it back and more so it doesn't have to be as harsh. Um, so I would try it's doing the same thing it's extending your lens outward to catch more light and bounce it around those two lights, and you had the three lights set up and use that. Okay, so the question was what's kind of the closest if you don't have five lights. Basically, um, what I would do to get around it is that one light on the background and pump it up, so try to get the background illuminated with one light, then I would put one light on a soft box as big as I could get above in front of the model. So it's, even frontal lighting and then take that third light and put it kind of behind her shoulder on pointed back at it. So that's, the closest you get soft walks in the front is kind of even one light on the back. Pump it up to blow it out, and then another lights create the chancellor. So it is doable. You don't have to do five lights that makes everybody okay. I just want to do I actually set up. I do this in my c let's see, I've shot to edit fashion it's wheels like this on dive shot, one album cover and, um, one jury jury shoe, because what I did is I had a shot where it was a model she had cool jewelry on, and so we did that really kind of blown out lens flare look, and then we went back in and darker down the jewelry, so everything else was late in areas. You didn't look at all that because it was overexposed, but then you're I went straight to the jewelry. So it has its purposes kind of for me for fashion but for you guys for portrait I mean I could also see a beautiful bridal shot because it's so high key if you could take a bribe maybe not actually during the wedding may take her a different day she can still wear a dress but do her hair in a different way you know on the day a lot of times it's you hair spray the crap out of it so it's crunchy and it's tight but what you could do is you could do something much more romantic a lot softer maybe stick a couple of flowers in the hair on do that shot of the bride so it's hi key lens flare floral romantic hair and so now that is a different shot that still represents her on her wedding but it doesn't have to be exactly as it was on the actual wedding day it's it's the whole idea of fantasy again so whatever I'm teaching these things it's not meant to be okay do this for an album cover you look at this and say okay how does that fit what I'm doing could you do it maternity sure absolutely I think it would be a beautiful maturity is I mean if you want to go very symbolic it's you know source of light in life you know you could kinda go that direction and have fabric flowing all around and hair flowing or you could do it. I could see photographing a little girl like that kind of fantasy fairytale she's a little princess I could see bridal um so for me kind of take it out of the fashion realm and bring it back into how you can use it. So the film you are for me, I could see ah, high school senior, if you wanted to do something just dramatic and knew our play dress up um or you could do if you wanted to you could also do it as a model portfolio if that's something you wanted to dio simply to build your book and show. Okay, I have the ability to do this or you could do an engagement session and kind of have, you know, a shot where the guy he's kind of leaning in and holding her and she has her hand on her lip, you know, make it about that interaction. And so if you keep going back for all these different shots, how can you apply it to the type of work that you d'oh? I'm not fashion photography film new or with the senior who like a theater major? Sure. So it's really more of a theater major yet there's lots of things I did film noir, um as an engagement session um before and it was really fun it was really cool. I didn't include. I actually don't know what the rules on this, but we had, like, you know, I'm one of those long, long cigarettes, so, you know, it's curling up, then we photoshopped it so that the it made a heart out of the smoke, you know, like stuff like that, um, it's. Just getting creative, because where else would they get that type of engagement shot?