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Softbox vs. Shower Curtain (Claudine)

Lesson 7 from: Lighting Essentials Workshop

Don Giannatti

Softbox vs. Shower Curtain (Claudine)

Lesson 7 from: Lighting Essentials Workshop

Don Giannatti

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Lesson Info

7. Softbox vs. Shower Curtain (Claudine)

Next Lesson: Technical Q&A

Lesson Info

Softbox vs. Shower Curtain (Claudine)

we can go over to claudine if you're okay and we have a soft box here and the reason we're gonna start with the soft boxes like we're jumping out of sequence but we've already got it set up and then we're gonna move to the speed lightning and show you how we use that speed light to make some shots but I want to show you how to use a soft box because it works the same way when you use the shower curtain scrim okay um yeah let's bring this out of here just for a second on dh okay guys back plenty we're gonna bring you right in here now we all went to school right we all went to public school where they teach us to always be in the middle right if I don't grab your shoulders right here we're always have she's right in the middle of this soft box where's place to be a worse place to bai why why do you think that is why is right where she is in the middle of softworks wise at the worst place because you're not getting the full effect the like yeah this is wasting this's going back here I'm ...

gonna pull you back and come right back here I'm gonna put her actually behind the soft box not this much in missouri this is yea much about you and wisconsin it's a skosh okay so we're gonna pull her right back here full effect of this light is now here in front of her if I come from behind her here and I looked behind her I cannot see this light on this side of her that means this light is totally splitting her I'm standing back behind her and I'm looking forward it's splitting her it's absolutely lighting up one half any other half because I can't see any light on this side of her I can cheat this soft box however just a little bit bring it in right to my camera out there and I'm gonna come back over here shoulders again now if I stand right here and I like straightforward I can see a little bit of this part of them box which means if I can see a little bit of part of the box she her face khun see it I'm gonna take this tripod up here just a little bit what power we have on there john quarter power what size what uh what's that it's twelve hundred actually a split from b and down linus and stops a really belt sixteenth of the bucks sixteenth do you think john um I'm guessing between five six and eight push it gives out the meter hip I always try to guess first always try to guess first by six five six for you four point o nine on my maiden that's essentially five point six okay so claudia I'm turning in this way towards this light a little bit with her all the way back here we're letting this light be our only light the light from up here is f too right I think we may have to at a thirtieth of a second we're shooting an f five point six at one hundredth of a second so this light up here is really not affecting this photograph much at all and actually waiting for the actually gonna go to five okay it's actually five is that five yeah because I'm gonna overexpose always move attorney this way just a little bit good single soft box lights one of my favorite lights for people I like to use it because it works well on everyone should I shoot these horizontal would it make more sense I mean it'll be larger on the screen okay but we can all right okay now we talk about subject centric lighting and we look at clotting look at the beautiful highlights we have created with this large box in close he's how close she is really have her in is about as close as we can get her so that that soft box we creates a full highlight on her face it has a transition right here where transitions from the highlight to the true tone right here and then back here is the shadow we wrap it around her face and attorney this way just a little bit more that's it I smile you get chin up a little bit right there that's good complete towards we just look right there good like that you talk to your models I don't care who they are real estate sales people boxers models it doesn't matter you've got to talk to him you just can't stand there and not say anything it's frightening frightening for them because they don't know if you're doing something right or wrong yeah so now we have a very nice even light all the way through we do have a little bit of a dark area under her chin hair to see this you see the little bit of light right at the edge what do you think that is turns it goes dark then right at the edge what you think that is her color it's her car when I did weddings back pre brain surgery days the the assistant that I use would wear a white tuxedo shirt when I had her where she's my phil card if nothing else I could get her right up close to the bride of brides looking out the window I might my assistant could come right up like this stand like this and the white card the white shirt would be the phil card this is actually filling her in right here this is very nice all the way through so we've got a nice exposure but we can bring a little bit more out of the hare by giving this hair here something to reflect right now her black hair is reflecting often to space they're probably getting a little bit off the big light set it is reflecting into space yeah right we'll bring that right over our floors developed a wrinkle and we're going to bring that very very in close to her real claustrophobic a little bit more a little more okay now turn it towards me a bit good reason I'm turning it towards me as I wanted to be a cz bright as I possibly can get it because I'm not bouncing light in my brain small is it maybe in my brain I am not bouncing like I'm providing that side of her something very bright to reflect okay so it's in front of her that looks great oh yeah now I'm gonna have to bring this up here how much more definition in the hair look at the it's gone the shadow is gone now we've given this side of her face something to reflect so really what we have including we have ah highlight a speculator and true value all the way through the true value of her all the way through now the little white card doesn't seem to give us that all white collar doesn't give us that funky look that we had before where we had a little dark going down in that light stripe everything's opened up look at how pretty the hair is uh john doesn't push that card back so it's coming about half splitting her about halfway there whitmore right about there and twisted back towards me a little bit yeah right there good right through good you beautiful girl my goodness lovely now he took the card back I don't know if you can see this on your screen we took the card back which we created more of an angle of incident angle of reflection so if you look between these two pictures you'll see this hair his brighter could we go back my shot oh thank you to the difference in the hair right in here we're providing mohr reflection mohr of that of the hair because hairs round every follicle is round so at some point on that follicle what's it going to do at some infinite point on that round follicle is going to find that angle of incidents and push it right back to the camera so one tiny point on that hair that individual hair it's going to give me a shot of that white card which were lit lighting up there so everything that I do I'm thinking of what's my subject going to do with the light see what I call it subject centric lighting what's my subject going to do with it I don't exactly I don't want it to be a I'm gonna put my phil card over here on the side because I watched a tv show once and the guy said put a full card to the side because if I take this phil card and I put it to the side like this to the side but it may not be what we want remember the remember the uh yeah watch the olympics winter olympics say I put it to the side but look what we're back to reflection from here but but I put it to the side but I didn't put it to the side deliberately just set it there everything we do has to be delivered because we own that photograph we own every bit of it when I taught for a long time I taught for a while a long time ago in a school where we had was regular school you know the students came is post secondary school and we give assignments and the students and come back in and my favorite was when the student would say I didn't see that in the picture I didn't see that in the picture what else did you have to do when you put the camera to your eye what we thinking off I didn't see it in the picture doesn't work that was your only job who was it one thousand percent of your concentration should been what's in the picture all right we can set that that card up after just a few seconds here if you guys indulge me just for a moment or two I'd like to take some pictures of this lovely young lady just give me about a half a minute let's put it back where it wass okay ready I'll bring it over this way just live it you're right about there is too much come back alone but that's too much come back sorry way and this up here it's like this anybody ask me why I'm using a tripod all right we got a good comeback to me little compact this way right there good good good good give me shoulders a bit more right there until I have that back that's nice chin down a little bit right there good good you go here you go tilt back sweat here yeah towards towards the light yeah come back a little bit no this way right there she's a little bit right there good I like that felt a little more beautiful yeah that's good turn the shoulders all the way good right there right there you know you pull drop the shoulder down good come up to me right there you go good there you go thank you all right um I'm gonna have a model and take pictures over it's best way to do it thank you let's set up the year you're not done we're gonna set up shop recruit way ask you some questions and then you can make uh could use quickly explain it to us again if you could define the angle of incidence again angle of incidence angle reflection okay it's just like a mirror if you look in a mirror and you see let's say I'm going to see you in a mirror the mirrors here if I can see you can you see me absolutely because the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection if I can see you in the mirror you can see me so the same thing with light if the light hits the bounce card could say here stuart this way and I'm lighting from up here like it's the card becomes very bright and sees the subject okay angle of incidence angle of reflection so this is coming off here thirty seven degree angle it's gonna come back to me in thirty seven degree angle so I'm going to be able to see it if I turn it this way angle of reflect since is this now so even though I'm lighting it up it's giving the face something to reflect it is so that guy over there but not to me over there so I'm always thinking like it's like playing pool you know you hit the ball off the bumper here is going to come off the bumper at the same angle the other side that's the whole idea of playing pools tto learn how to knock them at the same angles to be able to shoot it this way at thirty two degrees and have come off in thirty degrees and not the other ball in the hole that's point of it so the shiny er the subject the more the angle of incidence really shows can we pop back over to the bowling ball real quick sure thing okay remember the shot of the bowling ball the angle of incidence was this white wall back here like you john white wall back here being lit up hitting the bowling ball here and at some point on the roundness of this curve is going to catch an angle is going to come right back to the light at some point on this angle it's going to be the same angle as my camera is coming this way and so everything we do is based on these specific physical laws of light and our job is course to twist him around make something cool adam with the heck out of it as I say and sang her photo says teta dondi anymore of those things that I could hang my glasses here because I'm gonna I'm gonna drop him step on him or something look at this string meteor stream yes uh my assistance would laugh at this because they know anything on the floor I'm guaranteed to trip on it so I'm gonna be extra careful okay so we have our little string meter light here then I'm going to do the same type of shot with claudine we just did with him very expensive lighting tool using my shower curtain here actually want guys I won't use the string leader I want to use the string leader to do this so we can show everyone how to do it what we're gonna do is we're gonna wait move this out of the way all right and our light is I'm gonna be back just about here giles would get a nice full coverage of that so we bring in a white out our string leader out here we find that well that's something a movie over this way just a little bit okay we find that she's at the five point six mark in our meter at ia so one hundred at one eighth power we know that shower curtain is going to kill about two stops so five six two four two two eight right five six to four to eight she's now two point eight at this notch on the meter because that's killing two stops one eighth power we're going to stay one eighth power we're going to see if we can do something at at that one eighth power here would just stay there one eighth power and then we'll zoom it up to full power and we'll get a different reading okay so it says two point eight now right that's whatthe string said so here we go twist you this way just a little bit and you know what we're gonna go ahead and bring this in right let's go ahead and take that into the two if they're good they go just like that that's nice thank you wayne hockett wizards and canada way go on we're waiting for it to churn through all the little pixel magic and look at that oh my it worked he's a cake you know why because the string their allies and the flash always does the same thing every time if you have it on one eighth power assumed it fifty it will give you the same exposure over and over and over again think of what would photography would be like if it didn't think about playing the piano and having the note sound different every time you press that we were pretty sure then when we go push middle c we get middle see if we get middle c and then we could have sharp and then we get b flat and e we can't play a single piece of music that that's written same thing with photography if this was stuff that moved around all the time we couldn't do anything because nothing would be consistent well it's very consistent and you can see she looks lovely lovely shot you can just you know it's an end basically it's a shower curtain in a speed light I don't know if you guys noticed but over in the corner we've got a set of home depot light stay tuned we're going to take a thirty dollars home depot light we're going to make something really cool out of it but this is a great shot of claudine it's a little bit poppy as you can see right in here it's a little bit poppy but that's ok we're gonna turn you all the way towards that just like that put the hands just like right there that's it just like that come back to me right this way no flash oh of course that's how about now and now here we go two out of three and twist back this week is that right there good no flash harry go and again this recycling in it it is yeah yeah alright now he did you good all right so we're gonna we're gonna investigate the the pocket wizard problem here have that fixed but look how pretty it looks this is the lighting could you tell now talking about deconstruction snarking this can you tell what the light source wass let's look at it we're gonna be constructed real quick what's the light source well let's look at it it's large who here look at it on the lip nice and large we know right away by looking at the size of the light source being reflected back to us that it's a big light source it's a diffused light source because the edges are diffused their soft the transition between the speculator and her skin tells us that she's shiny and we see the speculator because she's darker right so we see all of this in here and we see the fall here and we know it's soft light because the transition from her true value of her to the shadow is extremely soft it's a big light source in close and it's defused we know that by looking at it do we know if it's a premiere a soft box or another brand soft box or no but we don't need to because it doesn't really matter we just know that it's a big diffuse light you could go through my favorite magazine is w I like w so much I like it because it's full of extremely skinny girls wearing possibly expensive dresses that's fashion okay um and the photography and there is just amazing what I like to do is I'd like to go through me and deconstruct the pictures why did they what are they doing in this picture to make it look this way and the first thing I look at is mole was first thing you look at the lips lips the loops I always look at the eye look at the eye close the eyes glossy it's going to show me the light source it's going to show me exactly what the light sources of its round okay it's probably gonna be an umbrella or beauty dish or something if it's squared off like it is in here it's going to be some sort of diffused thing soft box scrims called scream lighting but it's going to be something of that nature we know it's not hard light because of which transition if it was hard like with this transition change here fromthe speculative the true tone a little bit right but where would the huge change may tru tone to shadow let's lift that up go down to stop slice six q right there and it fired on so you get one more good right there it's nice yeah two in a row all right you ready because it's a little way different without the shower curtain in the drama and look at the shadow transition from true value of clotting this is her that's the shadow and it's a sharp edge look at the speculator speculates changed a little bit because it's very small but the transition from the speculum tru tone hasn't really changed very much he's still kind of smooth that's because claudine is claudine that's her her skin it did not change because of the light she remained the same what changed was how the light presents it back itself back in the shadows so when we talk about hard light what are we really talking about we're talking about the transition from the true value of the skin to the shadow if it's soft we say oh that's soft light if it's hard we sail that's hard light you know those little diffuser is that you that you can buy and stick on there do they make soft light no they change that line right there so it's just about this much whiter they taken absolute sharp shadow line and make it a quarter of an inch of a trans of a transition so our I says oh that's softer it's really not it's just the edge of that it's softer it's because you've spread the light into the shadow a little bit

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Lighting Essentials Ebook v1.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

Don Slides - Why Light Matters.pdf
Don Slides - What Is Good Light.pdf
Don Slides - Light Does the Same Thing.pdf
Don Slides - Subject Centric Light.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Cheryl
 

I just finished watching this course, and with teary eyes can say, without reserve, this class has been fantastic! Don's last session would be great to watch in the beginning and the end because it helps to understand his thoughts on being a photographer. The rest of the class is full of great information on lighting and Don is able to explain his thoughts and his processes with ease. I hope I will always think ahead and plan how I want my final results and how I want my subject to reflect light. Learning this was one of my "aha" moments during this class. I own over 30 Creative Live photography courses and this class is one of the top classes I own. I already plan on rewatching the whole class. Well worth the investment! I feel it is not a beginner course, but a intermediate to advanced one. Don has set a high standard in lighting...a goal to reach for...a goal that is possible for each person willing to take the time to learn and practice. Thanks Don and thanks CreativeLive!

Ryan Redmond
 

I am so glad I took this course. I'll be honest, it took a few lessons for me to warm up to this series but I'm glad I stuck with it. I have had a couple cheap speedlights, softboxes/umbrellas, and reflectors for many months now and was too intimidated to start using them. After going through this I am not only downright excited to use them, and confident that I can have spectacular outcomes, I'm also confident about shooting in natural light indoors and outdoors. It's also given me the tools and confidence to start shooting in manual vs aperture priority and to nail the general calculations in my head. I appreciate that Don used mostly budget or unorthodox equipment like speedlights, foam core, work lights, curtains, etc. because that's what I can afford and have been using to try to replicate expensive gear. Other classes use thousands of dollars in lighting and Don proves you don't need that for excellent shots. I also appreciate his advice for directing your "models" and insights into his overall process. This class was invaluable to me as a novice. Thank you!

Joanna
 

I thank very much CL that I could see the wonderful material on the light in photography, in fact everything became clearer, Don you are the great teacher, great stuff, very interesting and fantastic lecture, very helpful ! Thank you one more time !!!

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