Tag Archive for: light meter

Tip for light meters and ambient light

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Often I get messages from people that their light meter is not reliable outside, inside no problem but outside…..
Do always remember that outside there is also ambient light.

Let’s say you have a small flash system (the system flashes like Canon/Nikon/Sony) and your shooting full manual and get a reading of F5.6 inside, now when you go outside a day later and you get F11 don’t expect that the strobe is actually on F11, it could very well be that the strobe is outputting only F8 or lower.

8 Juni 2014 Marie 0066 1

The meter works very simple
When you press the button to meter in strobe mode (the lighting bolt) it will actually wait for a pulse and start metering, now the pulse from the strobe is registered of course and the meter does it’s work BUT if the ambient light (on the giving shutter speed) is higher than the strobe the meter will of course give you the F stop for the ambient light (since it overpowers the strobe).
So the next time you’re outside and want to check if your strobe is registering, or if you suspect a problem…. first set the strobe on the lowest setting and meter, now start raising the strobe and if the meter value doesn’t change you know you’re metering ambient (or in other words, ambient is overpowering the strobe).

 

So don’t bash the meter, understand how it works 😀

now let’s look at some solutions….

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Many different looks from one setup

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Often I’m asked what kind of setups I use and what kind of modifiers.
What people often don’t realize is that with only one modifier you can chance a lot just by playing with the angles and controlling the contrast/lightfall off. In fact placing a light closer or further away also makes a huge impact on the image look, add to this the option to feather a light source (using the sides of the light) and you know that there is a lot possible with one modifier and light.

 

It gets even more interesting when you are combining two strobes and for example add a gel to one of them.
During the workshop this weekend I made a setup like this with our model Lennaa and decided it would be a cool thing to share on the blog.

 

I started out with one strobe with a red gel.

Lenaa Juli 25 20142025

To get a bit more “punch” in the image I added another strobe without gel under the same angle to mix the two.

Lenaa Juli 25 20142035 Read more

The BIG white one

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I’ve talked about this technique before on the blog, but today a few more images shot with this technique (just because it’s a cool technique).

 

How to set it up?
The setup is really simple and everyone can do it at home or in their studio.
Find a large white wall (and if you want to shoot full body you also need a white floor, for example white seamless), add two (or one) strobe aimed towards the background and make sure the model is not hit by the light from these strobes.

 

Start on full power and meter towards the front of the model, in this case probably towards the camera.
The value you see on your light meter is the value you put into your camera and the base is there, the image you will get will often be nice but if you add maybe between 1-2 stops extra (open up the aperture) you are into the creative zone 😀

 

The next images are shot with 1 stop extra (metering for example F8 and shooting on F5.6).
BTW there are a lot of questions about “where to aim the light meter”, normally you will hear me tell you to meter towards the light source, and don’t worry that’s still true of course. However you have to realize the way the meter works. It will actually meter the light hitting the subject on the area you want correct. In this case that’s the front of the model, so we point the meter forward. In most setups in the studio you will place your light in such a position that it hits the part of the model you want to be rendered correctly so you point towards the light source. So don’t worry, I’m not telling you to meter towards the camera all of a sudden 😀

 

Nadine Februari 14 Eersel (72 of 99)-Edit

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Blowing out

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We all know the white backgrounds, but to be honest I think they have had their longest time.
Now a days for example I just love the light grey backgrounds a lot more… we still use a white background for this but we just don’t light it, creating a very nice modern look. However if you still want to play with white why not try the following.

 

Normally we meter the model incident and add 2.5-3 stops to the background (metered reflective) to create a really nice white background without blowing out details like hair.
In the following shots I did something else, and I really like this technique. Instead of using a strobe as main light I just use the strobes on the white background and meter towards the camera (incident) to get a “correct” exposure on the face of the model. The main light source in this case is in fact the whole studio, or in other words all the light that scattered around the studio and reaches the model from the front. This will result in a very blown out background really wrapping around our model as you can see here :

Manon November 22 2013-92-EditNow if the effect is a bit too strong you can always lower the exposure a bit on the the model or move the model further away from the background.

 

This technique also works very nice for portraits, but watch out with models with really light blond hair 🙂

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