Lessons
Class Introduction
13:12 2Why Strobes & Film?
05:09 3Using Sync Speed
10:21 4How To Avoid Ghosting
05:45 5Equipment Overview
04:12 6How To Use Your Camera With Strobes?
06:27 7Triggers & Receivers
03:39 8How To Set Up A Light Meter & Strobe Unit
08:03Demo: Equipment Set Up
07:59 10Create A Natural Light Look
10:05 11Light Modifiers
09:39 12Catchlight In The Eyes
08:41 13Metering Overview
03:40 14Meter With Strobe For Color Film
22:44 15Meter With Strobe For Black & White Film
26:00 1645 Degree Light Placement
09:01 1790 Degree Light Placement
15:01 18Backlight Placement
04:13 19Feathering Light
08:07 20Lighting For Groups
25:44 21Speedlights with Film
08:42 22TTL Vs Manual Mode
09:21 23Gear For Location Film Photography
03:26 24Set Up On Location
04:08 25Know Your Film Lab
16:21 26How To Find The Right Lab
14:47Lesson Info
Set Up On Location
When you go into a client's home, how do you set it up? Well. This goes back to what we were talking about in that video I was showing, where I'm like, "Okay, this is what I do when I'm mixing it "with ambient light." So when I walk into a client's home, I first of all figure out where do I wanna shoot? Where am I going to be setting this up? What am I looking for? Most of the time it's in a bedroom or it's in a living room. I like working in bedrooms because it gives kids kind of a contained place where they can still crawl around but they're not running through the halls and I know that I don't have to chase them. They're gonna be right here. I kind of set up there. Now in this situation, I walked in these people, this amazing home. And they had these floor to ceiling north-facing windows. And north light is one of these things that photographers talk about all the time, because north light is just so pretty, it's so ideal. It has this kind of glowy quality to it. It's always the sam...
e, it doesn't change. It's not like south light where it will change throughout the day. North light is beautiful, but guess what? We live in Seattle. (laughs) And sometimes, even with beautiful floor to ceiling windows, north light, there's not enough light. So I walked into this house. They had this super fun wallpaper, this gorgeous room. And I went in there and metering was getting like a fifteenth of a second. That's not gonna work with two little kids. So I knew I was gonna have to bring in my lights. I did what I know that I need to do when I'm mixing studio light with ambient light. The first thing I do, is I look at my natural light because I'm always trying to mimic that natural light. I always want my images to look like that. And what direction is that light coming in? And then I put my strobe on the same side as the windows. Because I want people to look at this and have it just look like it's that natural light that's coming in from the windows. If I were to take it around the other side I'd kind of cancel that light out and get much flatter images. So I just wanna play on what's already there. I just wanna boost what's already there. And so I bring my strobes around this side. Bring them here. I have them at that 45 degree angle at the end of the bed that I talk about that I basically shoot everything in. And that's it, that's my setup. And then we ended up doing the entire session there. It was really fun. So baby. And baby on the bed and it looks like natural light. Pretty window. By the way I didn't bring in a reflector or anything, this was just that one light setup. Easy, easy. Got baby and brother. No problem. Got mom in on the action. And what is also fun about having the light there at that end of the bed. I didn't move anything the whole time. But I was able to move around the room. So that stays the same, again I always kind of treat my strobe like it's just a window. I'm not gonna be picking up my windows all the time and moving them. I'm gonna move my body and I'm gonna look until where I see the light. So it's great, so I can shoot here, at the end of the bed and get this pretty light and get these pretty shadows. Or I could come around to the other side and get mom and baby, where light's here, so it's kind of more coming at them and get more of the room. And if you look real hard you can see a reflection in that picture of the softbox. That doesn't bother me. Really, really easy to do. I want you to know that you do not have to have a studio to do this. You can go on location. You can go into people's homes. You can build a little studio easily. You can do it not too expensively. Expensively, is that a word? (laughs) It's totally doable. And this is how you would do it on location.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Wow! with a lot of online stuff out there one can become rather overcome with too much information, however, the way Sandra presents her courses is just perfect! Her honest and simple and easy to understand approach was just what I needed. Not once did I think she was just going through the motions, she really loves what she does and it shows. To be able to rewatch and rewatch was also a key for me. Since I have dyslexia I have to take things one half step at a. time. After completion of the class I had a new found confidence when using strobes. A must have.
Micah Hewett Images
Out of all the classes I own on Creative Live, Strobe Lighting with Sandra is my FAVORITE! She is an incredibly kind and gifted teacher. She explains everything on a simple level and then gradually build to more complex issues. I am 100% happy with this course. Thank you Sandra!!
Gabby de Janasz
Sandra Coan is a lighting genius! I loved watching her high-energy and super informative class. I learned way more about studio lighting than I ever thought was possible. I'd definitely recommend this class to literally any person in photography, not just studio photographers. Thanks Sandra!!
Student Work
Related Classes
Lighting