Tag Archive for: continuous light

A cool set with clickbackdrops

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Building a set can be easy

Using a set in your photoshoot adds a lot.
When I started out with modelphotography I mostly shot on seamless (paper) and although it was a lot of fun working with different colors at one point you get a bit bored with it and I started with using custom walls with paint, structure or wallpaper.

A few years ago we came into contact with clickbackdrops and loved their huge selection of prints and the materials vinyl and especially pro-fabric (which mimics the old vintage canvas backgrounds without all the disadvantages)

Today in the blog some images I shot during a workshop with Felisa.
During this workshop I used the “boho drapes” background which can be used without anything extra and gives a real sense of shooting on an old fashioned set.
But it becomes much more interesting when you start to add some props.

In this case I added a chair for the model but also some branches with faint lights and a nice lamp.
For the workshop this is was a great setup to experiment with mixing light sources, finding interesting angles and of course also shoot some images without the strobes.

By using props in front of a scenic backdrop and taking into to account the way the shadows fall on your backdrop you can quickly create something that looks like it was shot on a cool vintage location.

During the workshops I always try to include several “challenges” into the sets and mixing light sources is always one that is often requested.
In essence the technique is not that hard, but you need to realise some important facts.

The continuous lights are of course a lot less bright than the strobes.
The strobes however are just a pulse, and after the pulse they don’t emit light anymore, so when you shoot images like this it can be cool to leave the modelling lights on, but if you need longer shutter speeds it’s important to disable the modelling lights, if you use the longer shutter speeds the strobe will freeze the model, but the modelling lights will start to register on the model at one point, so if you don’t want this make sure you only use the pulse of the strobe.

Let’s set the shot up

For a quick setup I’m using a lightmeter.
The Geekotos I’m using can go really low in their output, which is a huge benefit for these kind of setups where you mix faint light sources with strobes.
With the Geekotos it actually often means that I don’t have to use them on the lowest setting, which gives me more headroom to correct the balance without having too much noise in my images. If you use strobes that are more powerful or can’t go lower on their output it can help to choose a different light shaper, for example a striplight with grid will eat light while a metal reflector will boost your output. If you tried everything and just can’t go low enough think about adding a ND filter to your strobe (not the lens).

But let’s continue with my setup.
First I will meter the strobe on the lowest setting, when I know my aperture I will raise the ISO on the lightmeter till I hit that aperture (the light meter will calculate the aperture in real time when you change the ISO values).

Now it’s important to put the camera in the “exposure compensation” mode when using an EVF.
Look at the EVF and change the shutterspeed till you like the output of the lights.
Longer shutter speeds means more light from the continuous lighting, and as long as you don’t change the output of the strobes and ISO the shutterspeed will have to influence on your strobe output (as long as you take into account the Xsync of your strobes, max shutterspeed).

As you can see it workshops great when you mix continuous lighting with strobes.
I love to keep the color of the continuous lighting warmer than the mainlight, but if you want to correct the strobe to mimic the color temperature of the continuous  lighting you can use so called Color Correction gels.

Workshops

During the workshops we always try to shoot at least 3 different setups with different challenges, if you want to visit one of the workshops visit fotografie-workshops.nl
The workshops are in Dutch but if you let us know a few weeks in advance we can switch to English.
We are also now offering online 1:1 workshops live from our studio, where you can ask questions, see all the light setups via 4 cameras and see the whole retouch process.

 

Mixing light sources in the studio flash vs continuous lighting

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Mixing lights can be awesome

And something we sometimes have to do! Because the location we are shooting in has some very strong lights, or maybe lights that cannot be taken out, or that just look interesting to include. There can be many reasons why to include lights that are in your set/location. So continue reading about mixing light sources.

Video about mixing light sources

In today’s video, I talk about how I included the studio lights in a photo with Claudia during one of the workshops.
I also explain the main lighting setup and show the results from that set.

If you have any questions feel free to drop us an email and who knows you will see your question answered in one of our next posts/videos.

Want to visit a workshop?
visit www.photography-workshops.eu for our Dutch workshops, but also for all our workshops abroad like the UK and Belgium.

 

Check out this blog about Claudia and the white background with just 3 umbrellas

 

How to mix light sources flash and continious

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There is a lot to say for powerful strobes.
But always remember that now a days cameras have no problem at all with ISO200-400-800 or even 1600. Alle are perfectly usable in a studio setting. So although a 1000W strobe with spotlight sounds awesome in the studio it’s unusable because even on the lowest setting you will break the X-sync which prevents most studio strobes to shoot above 1/125 of a second.

Mostly in modern studios you can get away with 100-200-400w strobes, and in most situations you don’t even have to raise your ISO above 100, a little bit depending on the light shaper of course because every light shaper will take away or add light output depending on the material.

A fresnel for example will give you a tremendous light output compared to a striplight with narrow grid.

So when we start to combine light sources we have to realise that we are mixing an often very faint light source, for example tungsten lightbulbs or Christmas lights with a very high powered light source like a strobe.

As you can probably guess the problem is not in the output, it’s actually in the lack of output.
This is why when you buy new strobes it’s very important to not only focus on output, but mostly on the amount of stops you have available. A 200W strobe with 3 stops of range is much less usable than a 400W strobe with 7 stops of range. So one might think to get the 200W strobe when mixing in very faint light sources, but in this case the 400W actually works better because you can put it a lot lower in output.

Also the modifier you chose will have a huge impact.
I love using my own Frank Doorhof flashbender for these kind of shots, I will use it in the striplight with grid setting for this. It will still spread enough for a 3/4 body shot from relatively close, but it’s also very narrow on the sides preventing spill light. It’s really perfect for these setups. But I also often use strip lights or even an umbrella feathered to the extreme edges for these kind of shots. During the workshops I always vary so it’s clear it can be done with almost everything, but the flashbender is the best solution in this case 😀

What I normally do is setup the mainlight source (strobe).
I will set the strobe on the lowest setting and meter the light. At that moment I don’t care if it’s f2.8 ISO3200.
When I know the strobe output I know that when shooting on f2.8 ISO3200 I will get a properly lit model on every shutter speed as long as it’s below 1/125 (x-sync)

Now I will turn on all the extra lights and take the first shot on 1/125.
In most cases it will be nice but a little but too dull for the continuous light.
The trick is now that by lowering your shutter speed you can let in more of the continuous light and “build” the perfect exposure.
As long as you don’t change the ISO or aperture your strobe will be constant and with the shutter speed you control the continuous lighting to the effect you like.

For me personally this is one of the things I love to do with the Geekoto strobes.
Seeing they have their heritage in the speedlight family they have a huge range going from 1/128 to 1/1 which is a huge range and often means that if you choose your lightshaper with some grids you probably not even have to shoot on the lowest setting 😀

I hope the next time you have to combine light sources you remember that the ISO/Aperture determine the strobe and the shutter speed the continuous light.

PS.
Remember that in most cases light sources can/will vary in colortemperature.
You can chose to do nothing and just mix them, which can be great.
Or (much better) make sure you have a so called color correction kit with gels you can place in front of your strobes to mimic the color temperature of the light source you mix with the strobes. A calibrite colorchecker, or white balance card is essential to get it all in sync.

Here you can find our color correction kits
For round strobes, speedlights and magnetic systems.

Combining/mixing light sources

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One of the questions I hear a lot during workshops is the problem of combining/mixing light sources
Now let’s first do the easy stuff.

Combining/mixing light sources: strobes and speedlights

This is one of the things that happens quite often, and in all honesty, it’s a bit of figuring out stuff but when you get it, it’s pretty easy.
There are some different solutions, so let’s quickly go through them.

  1. the first one is the easiest
    Use a system that uses the same trigger for their speedlights and strobes. And nowadays with brands like Geekoto and Godox the line between studio use and portable is getting smaller by the minute.
  2. Use a cable trigger
    Very old-fashioned but it still works, get a cold shoe with a cable connector and use the trigger for your studio strobes and the cable for the speedlights, or the other way around.
  3. Use a system that can learn the pre-flash
    Most speedlights have a small flash before the main flash and sometimes you can disable this, but often it’s not possible some strobes, like the Elinchrom system, have the option to learn the pre-flash, and now you can use your speedlights to trigger the studio strobes via the optical slave.

Of course, there are more solutions, like optical slaves, IR, etc. but today I want to talk about something that is a bit more tricky.

Combining/mixing light sources: continuous lighting with strobes

To get a proper understanding of what’s going on I always joke that this is as close to HDR (not Highly Destructive Retouching) as you can get with one exposure. So what’s going on.

When we look at the way continuous lighting is captured it’s a matter of the longer you keep the shutter open, the more light enters. But when we do the same thing for flash/strobes it doesn’t really matter how fast the shutter speed is, as long as it’s within the so-called X-sync (often 1/125) it will render properly.

So when we want to mix strobes with continuous lighting we actually already know what to do, but it’s still important to talk about some issues that can/will go wrong 🙂

another example of combining/mixing light sources. Christmas lights, lights in the branches and flash on the model

Output

The first thing is of course output.
Our Hensel studio strobes are much more powerful than a lightbulb.
So we have to make sure that we keep the output of our strobes as low as possible when we want to mix them with for example Christmas lights. But how do we do that ?

  1. Buy the right strobes
    When buying strobes it doesn’t make sense to get 1000W strobes with 3 stops of range. You will get a lot of light but 1000W is really a lot and 3 stops range is not that much. A much wiser investment is anything between 100 and 400W for studio use with loads of stops, for example a 400W strobe with 6 stops of adjustments will give you more than enough output but it also makes the lowest setting ideal for mixing it with continuous lighting.
  2. Use the right light shaper
    When you use a Hensel 14″ reflector you already know you can never mix this with continuous lighting (as is) simply put, because the 14″ reflector gives you so much light output it’s hardly usable in the studio (perfect for outside to kill the sun).
    But for example, a striplight with a middle diffuser and grid literally eats light so this is perfect for lowering your strobe.
  3. Be smart
    if you don’t have the options I just mentioned always remember that a white T-shirt also does wonders to tame your light output, do make sure you don’t create a fire hazard 😀

Now that we understand that we have to lower the strobe output the rest is easy.
What I always do…

I choose the lens with the fastest aperture and the DOF I like (in most cases just f2.8)
Now with the new EVF cameras, there is an awesome way to set up your lights.
In the past I would use the light meter and try to meter the output of the Christmas lights, which sounds easier than it actually is, because you don’t want the lights to blow out (not seeing the colours) but you also want a modest output, it’s a fine balance.

With the EVF you just choose the option WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and dial in the way you like the continuous lighting. I always keep my camera on Manual mode for this (using strobes) and set the aperture on a setting I like (often f2.8 or faster), lock the shutter speed to something I know I can keep steady (often 1/30) and now I use the ISO to dial in the effect I like. And because of the EVF you literally see the end result getting closer in front of your eyes in real-time. I can’t stress how much this setting on EVFs has changed how you can accurately set up complex lighting situations.

Now that we know for example that we need ISO400 f2.8 1/30 of a second to get the result I like, it’s a simple matter of grabbing the light meter and adjusting the strobe until it hits f2.8 at ISO400… and …. well that’s all folks 😀

Let’s take a look at some samples I shot during workshops.
But don’t stop reading, there is a whole part under the images.

see the YouTube short about this workshop

I do have to add one more thing about combining/mixing light sources.

If you want to wow your customer or have more options yourself and you don’t want to change anything in aperture or strobe output I always advise setting the shutter speed as fast as possible and the result to the darkest you like. So let’s say f2.8 ISO1600 1/125. The added benefit of this method is that if during the shoot you realize you want the lights to be brighter you don’t have to panic or change something. You simply grab the shutter speed dial and lower the shutter speed. The model will still be correctly lit (the flash is just a pulse) but the continuous lighting will become brighter.

Combining/mixing light sources: Day-to-night

This is also super handy when working outside with the day-to-night technique.
No more need to use spot metering outside.
Just take the EVF and dial in the look you like (as long as the shutter stays at your X-sync) and after that use the light meter to get the strobes to the settings for aperture and ISO you just saw in your EVF. If you keep it as dark as possible you can literally light the background by just changing the shutter speed. Customers really think you’re a magician 😀

Day to night. Combining/mixing light sources. The sun in the back and flash from the left

check out this video of a workshop outside

Some final thoughts

You hear me talking about the X-sync a lot during workshops, live streams, and in articles. Let me explain a bit why.
When we think about DSLR cameras when we take a photo the mirror flips up and the first shutter curtain opens followed by the second one, the faster the shutter speed, the faster these two follow each other. As you can imagine when you use strobes there is a pulse of light that is very fast (often 1/2000 and up) so when you want your image to be correctly lit you need to make sure BOTH shutter curtains are not covering the sensor, and in most cameras that are every shutter speed below 1/200 for their own speedlights and 1/125 for most strobe systems. If you shoot faster there is often a distinct black bar covering your image, that’s your second shutter curtain.

When we take into account the 1/125 rule all strobes can work in normal operation mode (later more) and you can use a normal flash meter to meter the light.

This is of course a limitation that has haunted us photographers for decades and there are solutions.

 

One of the most known solutions is HSS (High-Speed Sync) this makes it possible to shoot at shutter speeds up to 1/8000 without the horrible black bars. In simple words, the strobe fires several times a second covering the whole censor in different periods of time. It’s an amazing system with many drawbacks, but it does have more positives than negatives. One of the negatives is without a doubt you need a special flash meter that can meter HSS, for example, the Sekonic 858. If you use a system like this you still do the same thing as mentioned in the article but you can also make the scene darker very easily by raising the shutter speed.

BUT…. do beware that when you enter the realm of HSS the output of the strobe falls dramatically so personally I would be a bit careful with planning a shoot whether you are on the edge of HSS or not.

Other solutions to break the X-sync are :

Leaf shutter lenses
These lenses are pretty heavy in weight and price but they are awesome.
Most of all the quality is often perfect, but due to the design, you can often shoot at shutter speeds of 1/750-1500 and sometimes even higher.

Specific digital cameras
And not even the most expensive ones, my Point and Shoot Fuji camera from years ago was actually able to shoot with strobes on 1/2000 which at moment stunned me because I didn’t know this, imagine my surprise when I saw a cheap camera doing the same and even faster than my 20K+ medium format setup with leaf shutter lenses. (Don’t tell Annewiek).

Combining/Mixing light sources: in this case flash and the sun

Conclusion

Working with different light sources in one shot is great to really set a mood, or sometimes you just have to because it’s part of the area you are shooting in. So don’t panic and just remember that X-sync rule and that the strobe is always a pulse and the continuous lighting just builds up over time.

Next time we talk about light metering on location to fight the sun and how to combine/mixing light sources