CharleyL
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 p.1 #4 · Lighting ratios with one strobe | |
When you want that one light to also fill in some of the shadows in the shot, this is where reflectors can be a great help. Just one light, but then some of it bounced to fill some of the darkest shadows using light from some of the same light source. These reflectors can be the 5-way version and available in many sizes, or just pieces of white foam core, positioned out of sight of the camera lens, but reflecting light from the one source to provide some light from one or more additional directions.
This "learning about how light behaves" doesn't need to be done on a large scale. It can be learned indoors on a small table, where the cost of learning and size of the classroom can be much less. One of the best teachers of this has a Youtube Channel and he posts a new video every Wednesday. "Camera Club Live" is the name of his channel. He has been posting new videos for several years, so there are plenty to watch. Look through his videos and watch the ones of interest.
Don't get the idea that you need his expensive gear and cameras for doing this. I have Godox/Flashpoint lights and Canon DSLR cameras, and I can repeat most of his demonstrations right here in my small home studio, on a table about the size of a card table. It actually isn't really a table at all, just a high wooden stool and what might have been a table top, but it was never finished and has no legs. With a piece of toolbox tray liner foam between the stool and this top to keep the top from sliding around, it works for me. I'm now 84, so I don't bend over easily for taking low shots, so recently I have raised the stool up about 10" higher using four of the "plastic bed risers", one under each leg of the stool. I had once considered adding legs to this table top, but stacking like this lets me disassemble and store these pieces much more easily than if it had attached legs.
Many of the shoots on "Camera Club Live" make use of just one light source (sometimes only a single speedlite), and then small pieces of White Foam Core or White Matte Board to work as reflectors that are A-Clamped to small pieces of wood to make them stand up by themselves on the tabletop (as he shows in his videos). This makes them easy to move around for achieving the "perfect position", found by taking multiple "Test" shots. He follows the same teaching format for each show, first a view of the final shot and then he takes you through the complete setup one step at a time, explaining everything as he does it, right up to the final shot and editing.
Learning how light behaves, the Inverse Square Law of Light (not the math, but the effect), and making use of reflectors to get the image result desired, while using only one actual light source in most cases, will help you to scale it all up easily for portrait and outdoor shoots, even when using the Sun as your main or only light source.
When my children were growing up, my available home photo studio space was the center of my living room with all of the furniture pushed aside. You don't really need much space for table top photography, and a lot can be learned from doing it, with only the very basics of additional gear or DIY alternatives, so little to no new photo gear is needed to buy.
Back then, my light stands were crude and made from wood, just a pole with flat bases, and they didn't fold. The lights were spring clamped to these at the height needed. Light level adjustments were by changing the bulb wattage and/or distance from the subject. Very crude by todays gear standards, but it all worked for me when taking B/W film shots, both "portrait", and "still life" on a table. "Making do" like this will teach you a lot, until you can afford better. You will still learn a lot from doing it. Any digital camera with manual adjustments will work fine for this, and you will learn how to use the camera and lights very quickly. Keep all of the shots taken until you review them, then discard the "Test Shots" and anything else not worth keeping, but only after you review and learn what wasn't right in each.
Camera Club Live has several videos where he uses only one or two speedlites and some reflectors to get the shot desired, but he has made many other shows where he uses very small studio lights and a speedlite or two would have done the job just as well. Start with these very basics, learn as you go, and add better gear as the budget allows.
Charley
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