Tag Archive for: lighting

Results from the Landschaftspark workshop with Nadine

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This weekend it was time for an awesome workshop.
The location: Landschaftspark Germany (Duisburg Nord). For Photo + Aventure festival 
An awesome location where I taught a workshop a few years ago. The plan was to come back the year after but Corona had other ideas. So after a few years… this weekend it was finally time to visit this amazing location again.

For a location like this we of course want some fabulous styling and a great model, so we brought Nadine with us 😀
With Nadine, we always know we get some kick-a$$ styling and great poses.

Gear is also essential when working on location. In Landschafstpark we can expect some locations that will be very bright but also some very dark areas. Luckily the Hensel Porty system has no problems with any location you throw at it.

The first set in this workshop is shot with our fiberglass Rogue umbrella.

The nice thing about this umbrella is that it’s very sturdy due to the fiberglass. And on location, an umbrella is easy to bring and has loads of options for lighting your model. And on the Porty we can even shoot in the bright sunlight without any problem.

The first set we did outside with one of the buildings in the back.

For the next set, we move “inside”.

I’m using the 14″ reflector and a slightly smaller reflector to really focus the light on Nadine.
By adding a blue gel I added a touch of color and mood to the set.

We still had a few minutes left before lunch so I quickly set up another option by using the nice structured wall and one strobe under an extreme angle. By moving around the model you can get some cool results very quickly.

 

After lunch, we decided to take some shots in a beautiful part of the park where you can really work with some nice angles.
I started with the light straight at Nadine as a sort of fill-in flash.

There is nothing wrong with this setup but I really wanted some more drama and “oompf” in my shot, so we moved the strobe to the side and got these results.

When we saw these shots we knew we still had more than enough time to add at least one more set. But how do you improve this I thought?

We decided to go for a location where we could let Nadine interact with the building and use the sky a bit more prominent with some strong shadows and leading lines.

The next shots were done with one strobe with the 14″ reflector and grid.

Sometimes we have these amazing shots and we are happy and stop.

But …..
Over the years I’ve learned that you should always also try different angles. And believe it or not, in most cases those images are at least as good. But often a lot better. The reason is that we as photographers often chose an angle that feels “natural” and it can create breathtaking shots. But when we start to experiment with stranger angles or simply move to the other side….. it often is a lot more interesting.

 

I absolutely love teaching workshops so I never stop exactly at the time the organization sets 😀

 

That meant that we decided to not go back to the meeting room but add another strobe with a red gel, move the whole set a few meters to the right, and ended up with maybe my favorite shots of the day.

 

Many thanks to Nadine for the awesome styling and posing.
Annewiek for filming the whole day (video will be uploaded tomorrow)
And of course the Photo+Adventure organization for inviting me over.
But not to forget the awesome group of students, we had a blast 😀

If you also want to visit a workshop visit www.fotografie-workshops.nl for the agenda.

Choose your angles with care

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Walking around your model or chosing different angles can have a huge impact on your final results.

When using a striplight with a grid like I do in the examples, you can make your model jump out from the background, even when using a more busy background. And you don’t need to add a vignette later in post processing.

By moving around the model you have a great control over the contrast and look of the image. You can go from relative flat to very high contrast. It’s a technique I always use to get the most out of a setup or give my client more choice

When you also add lower and higher angles you can see that with only one lightsetup you can get a lot of different looks.


In the following examples I’m using the #clickpropsbackdrops antique navy wall. The wall is blue and by using red in the clothing and accent light you can get a really cool effect.

How to meter light on location, outside

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. PIn today’s blog post, we look at a topic that is super easy when you “get” it. But can be super confusing when you start out. Do you know how to meter light on location outside? Continue reading if this is a problem for you.

Metering outside to kill the sun

Ok, it sounds a bit harsh we don’t really kill the sun. But when using strobes outside the right way you can make it day-to-night without any problem.

See my previous article about Combining/mixing light sources

Now with the day-to-night technique, there is no real problem. So let’s start there.

When you don’t have a modern camera with an EVF you can use a light meter and spot meter for the area you want to be totally in shadow but just show a slight amount of detail. And now set the aperture for the strobe app 4-4.5 stops higher. Or meter the clouds and open up the aperture max 2.5-3 stops to keep detail in the whites.

With a modern camera, we can use the EVF (Electronic Viewfinder). Just make sure it’s set up to show you the results of the settings in the camera. I always call this the WYSIWYG method. From here on it becomes super simple. I mostly lock my shutter speed at 1/125 (Xsync) and ISO at 50/100 I will then use the aperture dial to dial in the look I like when I get the look I want that’s the aperture I will meter the strobes on.

Xsync is the max shutter speed that can be used without HSS, when you use HSS you do need an HSS-capable light meter like the Sekonic 858, everything else I discuss stays the same.

So if I love the F16 ISO50 1/125
The only thing I have to do is set the light meter to ISO50 and meter the strobe till it hits F16.

The nice thing about using the EVF is that you can already see the end result before you take the shot. Although a light meter is a very accurate tool it’s very hard to “imagine” how the end result will be by just metering. I can predict it for about 75% but using the EVF is 100% and much more accurate. The only thing you have to be aware of is that you have to “imagine” the model to be lit in the image while in essence you probably see him/her as a dark outline.

How to meter light on location, outside. in this article I explain.

The problem area

I sometimes call it the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. In essence, it’s not far from the truth, and it’s an easy way to remember what the problem actually is. So what do I mean?

When we meter for day-to-night photography it’s standard that you start with the strobe on the highest setting. Let me be honest, you know you’re going to need it right?
So when you meter the strobe it will probably register as F22. And you lower it one stop and it will meter F16 and you’re there. But even when you lower the strobe another stop it will probably read F11. And probably also F8 after another stop…… Do you feel where I’m going?

There is a point where you MIGHT think you are influencing the strobe. But in essence, you are metering the clouds in front of the sun… So what’s going on, and why doesn’t it happen with day-to-night?

Fill in flash

When we shoot day-to-night we start from a high power output. And because we are overpowering the sun/ambient light we have loads of headroom to go down even more before we hit the Twilight Zone.

When we use fill-in flash, we are in essence adding a little bit of flash to the ambient light. Just to open up some shadows, or maybe just give an essence of extra mood, or mimic a lamp in the room, fill-in flash is subtle and most of the time not even visible (until you don’t use it).

So how do we set up the lights in this situation?
Indeed… where from day-to-night we went from the highest setting slowly down. We are now probably starting on the lowest setting and this is where the problems arise which I call the Twilight Zone.

It’s the light meter’s fault

When we look at how the light meter works it’s very easy to say that the light meter is the cause of this problem.
The light meter has a photosensitive cell and meters the light hitting that cell within the values you setup in your meter.

So let’s say I’m in a situation where my ambient light is: F4 ISO400 1/125
Now when I set up my light meter for ISO400 1/125, the meter will literally give me the value for the aperture with those settings. So where is this a problem? well, it also does that in flash mode, not just in the “sun” mode.

Let’s say I’m using a strobe with softbox at 1mtr from my model. I set my strobe up for the lowest setting, walking up to the model and meter the light… and wow what a piece of luck it’s F4…. That was easy. I walk back and take the shot…. And to my surprise, there is no strobe. Of course,  check the connection, and I see the strobe firing, so I re-meter and the same thing happens. I raise the output of the strobe and the meter keeps saying F4…..

Does this mean the light meter is useless on location?

No not at all, in fact, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do 😀
On some meters you will actually see a percentage, this is actually the number of strobes vs continuous light. So in my situation, the strobe is probably not outputting F4 but more likely F2.8 or even lower. The meter does respond to the strobe but meters F4 on 1/125 ISO400 which is actually the ambient light as we had determined before.

So how do we solve this?

When I set up for fill-in light I will always put my strobes a bit higher than what I think I need.
I’ll first meter the ambient light via the EVF or light meter (depending on the subject). And then I’ll meter the strobes.
If my ambient light meters F4 I will make sure I first meter F5.6 on the strobes. And from there I will go down 0.5 stops if the meter also drops 0.5. I know that I’m in sync with the meter and the strobe vs the ambient light. From there I will go down 0.1 stops just as long as the meter also drops 0.1. As soon as the meter doesn’t drop anymore just add 1/10th and you have the perfect balance between ambient light and strobe. Now in all honestly I never use this technique, but it’s important to understand it, in theory, to see that there is a zone where the ambient light simply overpowers the strobe.

In most cases, I want a little bit more on our subject. So in most cases when my ambient is F4 I will set the strobes up for F8 and lower the strobes a full stop. If the meter also drops a full stop I know I’m fine and get the effect I want.

How to meter light on location, outside for a good exposure. You will read it in this blog post.

Why not just adjust and shoot….?

I get it.
Why use light meters, calculations, etc. to get something perfect when you can also just shoot, adjust and shoot.
First of all, when you adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot it takes up more time. Plus you waste a lot of battery power. When working for a client it doesn’t really give confidence if you as a photographer can’t nail your lighting with the first shot. And if you work with a model she won’t be your best friend if you have to do that every time something changes.

When using a light meter in all setups (except the 100% balanced fill-in flash) you only need to meter twice. Once for the current output, adjust the strobes and meter again to check, and if you trust your strobes…. Well, you don’t even have to do the second one.

When you understand the concept and get some speed in balancing your lights you can very quickly change the total mood of a setup. Like these images I shot during a workshop in Sweden in the meeting room. We go from fill-in flash to more extreme settings.

If you have questions, feel free to leave them here or on our social media.

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