cgardner
Offline
Upload & Sell: Off
|
 Re: new one light setup | |
Call me a contrarian but I really don\'t see the point of this exercise or the notion that using one light is a purer or simpler form of lighting.
The fact of life of photography since it was invented is that with the exception of B&W film no recording media can record all the detail of an outdoor scene. Thus if using any color emulsion or digital as a means to record an image you have two choices: 1) accept a loss of shadow detail, or 2) introduce a secondary fill source.
WIth the exception of shooting at night there are always two light sources in play: the sun and the sky. So all the outdoor \"one light shots\" with flash actually have three light sources. If there is a reflector and flash in play there are four light sources. Indoors if a single light is used there may be two if a reflector is added, but more likely three if spill off the walls and ceiling of the shooting environment are affecting the exposure.
Being smart and lazy I\'ve always looked for the simplest solution to any problem. Part of that is understanding the physical limitations of the process (i.e. sensor range less than scene contrast range), how the tools work and having a clear understanding of the goal. Then its just a matter finding the tools which are easiest to use.
This is the purest form of \"one light\" shot.. Single flash indoors, direct, with minimal bounce off ceilings and walls:
The lighting is flattering because there are no distracting shadow and enough downward modeling to create a natural 3D look with a subtle pattern of contrast. Raising the light source above the head puts highlights on the top of raised surfaces like forehead, nose, cheeks and chin, and shadows beneath them. Its that contrast difference and where the highlight wind up which cause the brain to think that photo presents a 3D face. The tool for that shot? A single flash on a bracket above the lens and a small diffuser. The lighting on the face would actually have been about the same without the diffuser.
Here\'s another single flash shot. Same exact tools but slightly different technique.
It was a quick shot taken in my 8\' wide office for an employee of the month poster. I only had the office Xti and a single flash on a bracket available Given the fact he was wearing a white shirt I posed him against the office wall. Since space was tight I had to put him very close the the wall I knew I needed maximum diffusion. I took a few sheets of white paper and quickly stapled together a diffuser like the foam ones I use. He was also a bit taller than me so I knew I needed to elevate the camera to get a more flattering angle (i.e. hide the nose holes) so I stood on the seat of a chair, which put the top of the diffuser right up against the 8\' ceiling. So in this instance even though there was only one light it got split two ways: directly forward from the bowl shaped diffuser and bounce off the ceiling. One light, two sources of light. Net effect? The full range of tonality captured by the sensor with natural modeling created by knowing how the highlights would fall on the different parts of the face to form the characteristically human \"mask\" pattern.
I use that photo to illustrate that the mask pattern is a universal thing on a perceptual level whether a face is light or dark or the clothing is light or dark by changing the clothes and background in Photoshop but leaving the face the same.
The lighting pattern is the same, but it attracts the eye more and more shadow detail is revealed because there isn\'t the bright background and white shirt overwhelming and competing with the tones in the face perceptually. That illustrates an important point about lighting in the holistic sense: clothing and background choices can affect perception of the face in a portrait as much or more than the lighting on the face.
Where I part company with the single-light proponents, especially when it comes to a beginner trying to grasp how the tools work, is that I feel using two flashes are easier, more effective and make the learning process simpler. Again its my nature to find the simplest solution to any problem and the quickest path to doing that is identifying all the variables and eliminating as many as possible, especially in the learning stages. As noted above, few if any of the examples of \"single light\" use are actually a single light source. In the case of the outdoor shots with flash and reflector there are four variables affecting the outcome. If you look at any of those photos its the fact there are so many variables which make it difficult for a beginner, or a seasoned pro to know exactly how it was lit.
Someone with experience will know that several different methods could work. We have those discussions all the time here. But a beginner will be stumped. Face reality here. It lighting was as simple as looking at a photo and knowing how it was lit, everyone would become a master of light immediately. The reality is that everyone needs to try lots of different stuff while climbing the learning curve to find out what works best. As each problem is understood and solved it becomes part of the subconscious problem solving process. But is the quickest way to learn in an experimental environment with two, three or four variables, or in a situation where there is only one?
It might seem counter-intuitive but parking a light over the camera as a starting baseline is the easiest way to learn lighting. As the two examples above illustrate that simple approach can produce very flattering results with a single light, either directly or with bounce off of other surfaces. Many never learn to create flattering results as in the first direct flash shot because they equate \"good\" lighting with \"off camera\" light sources either from experience with flat looking on-camera flash or by seeing others do it. But they quickly learn moving a flash off camera creates modeling, but also creates harsh unflattering shadows. The obvious solution? Add a reflector!
The problem with reflectors is that they get in the way if placed where the fill they create is really needed - the front of the face. The other problem indoors with a single flash is the fact that the position of the reflector is also dictated by the need to catch the light of the flash. As a result the reflector usually winds up on the shadow side of the face creating the same net effect as when two lights are put on opposite sides: crossed shadow lighting.
Eventually when budget allows purchasing that second light, the single light + reflector being lighting practitioner put it in the same place they are accustomed to putting the reflector; over on the shadow side. But the light allows more fill to be added and when it is the lighting is crossed, fill fights key light and the net result is a pattern of muddled flat highlights and dark unfilled crossed-shadow voids..
I\'ve been helping beginners learn lighting for nearly eight years on the web, starting with the photos they post and have seen that progression I just described repeated hundreds of times. The two biggest mistakes beginners make in lighting are: 1) crossing key and fill to the degree they cancel each other\'s modeling and their shadows cross, and 2) using modifiers which are so large and diffuse that key and fill can\'t be controlled independently due to coverage and spill off their livingroom ceiling and walls. The root cause of the problem? Trying to learn lighting with one light and a reflector.
The problem is the physical limits of a reflector used indoors. Its physically impossible to put a reflector in front of a short lit face. Even if you where to use a 4 x 8 sheet of foam core with a hole to stick the lens through the reflector can only reflect the light that hits it. Therein lies the rub. The fill needs to come from the direction of the camera, but the indoors with a single flash that source is pointing in the opposite direction. So with the exception of the butterfly / clamshell configuration when a reflector is placed where it will fill the face evenly it can\'t catch the light effectively. When the key light is moved off axis, for short or broad lighting its necessary to move the reflector to were it can catch the light, but that makes the position less effective for filling the face evenly resulting in crossed lighting to some degree and the development of bad habits.
Understand that outdoors a reflector is an entirely different tool because except at night there is natural light from 360 degrees to bounce. The most typical use of reflector fill outdoors is to keep the sun off the face by putting the subject\'s back to the direction of sunlight - either direct or diffused. That places the camera 180 degrees away from the source of light making it possible to place the reflector above or beside the camera, or even sticking the lens through a hole in the reflector mimicking the effect of a ring light but without the weird donut catchlights. But is also worth noting that in that backlight+fill situation the catchlights will be a result of the image of the fill source reflecting in the eyes and bigger isn\'t always better in that regard.
So how to control fill and catchlight size outdoors in that situation? Use fill flash over the camera and select the modifier based on how large and what shape you want the catchlights to appear:
The tool? Same as before. Single flash on a bracket with a 9 x 12 diffuser. The diffuser isn\'t needed to make the fill light soft because outdoors there\'s a huge amount of fill bouncing off the sky. The flash just needs to pull it up the the range the sensor can record it. The choice of diffuser is to control the size of the catchlights. When direct flash is used for fill the catchlights are pinpricks and less flattering.
Moving back indoors, if a beginner starts with a single light over the camera in a \"neutral\" fill position it mimics the flll from the sky. Power can be adjusted to obtain correct exposure in the highlights around f/5.6 as a starting baseline. It will be rather flat and boring lighting due to the lack of visible shadow, but that is exactly the quality fill must have to avoid the pitfall of crossed shadows. Once that point is reached there\'s no need a person first trying to learn lighting to move it or change its intensity. The fill light becomes a constant.
Next second the \"key\" or \"main\" light is placed 45 degrees from the nose and a foot or so higher than the eye line. Why 45 degrees from the nose? Because that angle will create the natural downward \"mask\" pattern when key, which now overlaps the even fill instead of fighting it, overpower the fill. Start with the off camera flash off and raise the power and observer the results. Notice how the learning experiment is constucted? First fill is make a constant position and intensity, then key light is placed and not moved relative to the face. The only variable is the key light intensity relative to the constant fill.
So in the context of learning lighting this is actually a simpler \"one light\" environment in the sense that only the variation of the key light will be the cause of any changes of the lighting pattern, ratio or overall exposure. There\'s no reflector to futz around with. Moving the key light around will demonstrate the cause and effect position of the key light relative to the nose and other facial contours. The shape of the shadow the nose creates the illusion of how big and what shape it is. A big part of creating flattering lighting is controlling the shape of the nose shadow and the direction it falls. When the only variable is the position of the key light that relationship is easier to grasp than when two or more variables all changing at the same time are affecting how the lighting looks. The same is true with respect to ratio and exposure. They are a chicken/egg situation.
Since digital most be exposed for the highlight detail (so as not to blow it) any change in key light intensity will affect both ratio and exposure. For a beginner trying to use their lights for the first time the best approach is to start with fill only producing a correctly exposed file in the highlights, bring up the key light and observe the resulting ratio PERCEPTIONALLY. The numerical ratio is irrelevant. What is more important is grasping which contrast of highlight to shadow is age / gender appropriate and flattering. In other word don\'t start with the goal of shooting at f/4 or f/8, just adjust key light relative to fill visually then readjust the aperture to correctly expose the highlights again, either via meter or camera over-exposure warning. f/5.6 is just a starting baseline. If after the first time you try that approach you find the the aperture and DOF winds up not to your liking the difference between f/5.6 and where it winds up will tell you exactly how much to adjust the starting baseline to wind up where you want to be. The point of the exercise isn\'t getting perfect results immediately but rather learning how the tools work.
Once a beginner gets to the point where a flattering short lighting pattern can be created at will in that manner, the next experiment should be to set up a perfectly short lit subject with well defined but detailed shadows with neutral fill and then changing nothing else simply rotate the fill light in an equidistant arc from over the camera around to the shadow side until it points directly at the ear, keeping it at the same distance from the bridge if the nose. Again its a one-variable exercise, the variable being fill position. In about 5 min. or less it will reveal visually how fill position affects modeling create by the key light.
Both exercises can be done in about and hour after unpacking that first set of lights. If you follow the suggestions its possible to learn in an hour what it might take days, weeks or years to grasp by trail and error. Sure it will not be as \"pure\" as a single light, but its easier to learn and execute. More importantly you\'ll learn to immediately recognize some of the technical pitfalls of the single light reflector approach such as crossed lighting and shaded fill and be able to avoid them.
The best approach I\'ve found is to use a neutral fill flash to do the \"behind the scenes\" heavy lifting of the shadows into the range the camera can record them at low ISO without noise, use a second flash to create the desired modeling, then add a reflector anywhere its needed to nuance both the highlights and the shadows. That way the reflector has a single task - nuancing the modeling - which is can do well instead of trying to do two jobs (the heavy lifting and the nuancing) and not doing either of them optimally.
Is one approach better or worse, easier or more difficult than another all things considered? That\'s really a value judgement best made by actually trying everything and sorting out what works best for you in terms of budget, logistics, and desired results. Worst case, trying what I suggest will only cost you an couple hours of time you\'d otherwise be wasting in front of your computer. 
Chuck
|
