Types of lighting position

There are different ways to position your main light. This section will explore the basic positioning of the light and some examples that each will achieve.

Frontlight
Basically frontlight means the light that will light up the subject in front of you. Frontlight has the ability to illuminate evenly your subject and it is considered one of the easiest kinds of lighting to work with. It can make your portraits flattering and enhance the beauty of the landscape and cityscape composition.

Image by robster16

Overhead lighting
Overhead light provides illumination almost directly above the objects. It can produce a clean and attractive tonal contrast between the subject (highlights above, shadows below) and the background (light below, dark above).


Image by leprechaun947


Sidelight /Rim lighting
If you want to add depth and shadow, you should use side light to help you to achieve it. Side light is place at the sides of the subject to create a three dimensional effects. When the side light is being moved back, it can be turned into rim light. This technique is quite effective if the edge or rim of the subject is shot against a dark background.


Image by picsynel


Image by Maggie's World
Backlight
Backlight means the light is at the back of the subject and hit the front of the photographer. When encountering this lighting, there are two ways where you can shoot: Either you can meter the underexposed area and get a overexposed background and properly exposed foreground (usually in portrait) or meter for the overexposed area to get a properly exposed background and underexposed foreground (silhouette).


Image by Enzo D. Read more!

Light meter

The function of a light meter is to measure the exposure of the scene and give accurate reading so as to get a properly exposed picture. There are two types of light metering: camera in-built light meter and handheld meter. The former allows you to meter the scene via through-the-len and does not always give you the most accurate reading due to following factors:

1. When there is a len filter (e.g neutral gradient and polariser) mounted on your len, it will reduce the amount of light entering the camera thus affecting the reading.
2. Because this type metering is based on reflected rays, the camera in built metering will be tricked into thinking that the scene has more exposure and will underexpose (i.e if the object has more white) the picture and vice versa (i.e if the object has more black).

The latter allows you to measure the scene in both ways and this makes it popular. You can choose to measure incident ray which is light coming from the light source or reflected ray which is light bounces off from the object. Measuring an incident ray will give you the most accurate reading as it does not be tricked by the object’s reflective qualities and is used by most photographers to get a proper exposed picture.

Some light meters will have the ability of taking multiple reading from different light source thereby enabling you to average out the reading. There is also this feature in some light meter which enables you to measure exposure from your studio strobe by pressing a button to trigger a studio strobe. However take note that the more features the light meter has, the more you will have to pay. There are some web links available that teach you how to use light meter and the pro and cons of camera in-built meter and handheld light meter.

Guide to using a hand-held light meter
Using a Light Meter
In-Camera vs. Handheld Light Meters Read more!

Light modifiers

There are two types of lighting: hard light and soft light. Hard light is generated by small light that will result in a harsh shadow. Soft light is generated by diffusing light using light modifiers to minimise shadow. There are many ways to diffuse light source. These will be discussed as below:

Umbrella
There are many different type of umbrella available in the market. Generally they can be used in two ways. They can be used to “shoot-thru” type which some part of the light is penetrated to the umbrella to the object while the rest is reflected. Or a reflecting type where a piece of cloth is covered on top of the umbrella to bounce most of the light source back to the object. The advantages of using umbrella are:

1. It allows light to be bounced over a large are due to their design but there will be light loss if you are using the “shoot-thru” type.
2. It is cheaper and it is recommended to photographers who want to start up small. You may want to get specially made umbrella that offers “shoot-thru” type or reflecting type.
3. Because of the near circular shape of the umbrella, it can create beautiful catchlight shown in the photo.

However, the only disadvantage of using it is, since it can bounce light over a large area, you will find it hard to control the light. If you want a specific area to be lit, then an umbrella is not recommended.

Softbox
Softbox as the name suggest is box with the interior covered in reflective surface and a piece of white cloth is attached to the front end of the box to soften the light. Softbox offers some advantages over umbrella:
1. You can control the lighting as the light is spread in one direction.
2. You can light up some specific area that you want.

The disadvantages of using softbox are:
1. It is expensive to purchase.
2. Because of the different components needed to assemble the softbox, you may need to handle them with care so as not to miss them.
3. Softbox can create catchlight that are square shape and this will look unnatural in the photo.

To see how the light falls off for both umbrella and softbox, you can refer to Zack Arias website on Umbrella VS Softbox. This will give you some ideas before you made your purchase.

Reflectors
Reflector is used to bounce part of the light to the object. They come in white, silver, gold, black and translucent with various sizes. Reflectors is useful when you want to soften some part of the shadow or you can use it as a fill light by reflecting some part of the main light. You can use reflector to create a catchlight.

Barndoor / Flags
Both flag and barndoor are used to reduce flare resulted from direct light or from large white area. They can be used as a subjective lighting (opposite of reflective lighting), adding shadows to certain part of the subject. Barn door is attached to the lighting such as tungsten, fluorescent and allows you to control the area of light while flag is a black paper attached to a frame which can position anywhere you want to block the light.

Snoots
These modifiers are a funnel like device that restricts the light down to a small focused area of the subject. Their main advantage is to focus light to a small area of the subject. They are mainly used for product photography, but in glamour-style photography they are used to highlight select portions of the body which would otherwise be shadowed without lighting other parts. One advantage to snoots over honeycomb grid is they can be placed closer to the subject from behind angles as the light does not tend to show as easily. One primary disadvantage (can be advantage instead) is the snoot will reduce the light by 2-4 stops.

Honeycomb Grids
These modifiers are a honeycomb like grid that fits in front of the studio lights and are used to restrict the fall of light to the desired subject only. They are not as focused as snoots and come in differing degrees of angle (such as 10, 20, 30 and 40 degree honeycombs) unlike snoots the honeycomb grid does not reduce f-stop (or at least by less then about 1/3 stop), but unlike a snoot can not get as small a spot (example on a particular 20 degree honeycomb will have a minimum of a 7" circle of light at the end of the reflector spreading out from there, while the snoot which also has a 20 degree spread will have about a 2" diameter light so can create a smaller point of light at the subject.

Gels
Gels are useful when you want to change the colour of light in order to create a special effects or mood in the pictures. You can use gels to change the colour temperature of the light if you only have one type of lighting equipment (i.e you have fluorescent and you want to use orange gel to stimulate daylight). Gels come in various colour and is placed on top of your lighting equipment. Read more!

Type of Lighting used in Studio Photography

The choice of lighting used in studio photography is very important as it will affect your overall pictures. No matter how good the camera and the len are used, the quality of picture will be good if the lighting is right. This section will introduce the two different lightings used in studio photography: continuous and flash.

Continuous light

Continuous light refers to tungsten, fluorescent and metal halide iodide which burns continuously. They are sometimes termed as hot light because of the amount of heat they produced continuously over a long period of time. Tungsten lighting produced warm colour that are in the range of 3200K – 3400K. They are useful if you want to imitate the effect of a sun shining to an object. Fluorescent and metal halide iodide are used if you want to have a daylight white balance. The advantages of using them are:

1. You do not need to take a shot unlike the flash to determine where the light falls. What you see is what you get.
2. You can get them at a relatively cheap price and it is good for those photographers who wish to start up at a small budget.

The disadvantages of using them are:

1. Tungsten especially produces more heat than light. They will make the model very uncomfortable if it is used directly to them.
2. Tungsten poses a high risk of fire due to the amount of heat produced.
3. Since the amount of light produced is limited, they are less ideal for using slow shutter speed or small aperture if depth of field are used.
4. It is difficult to mount light modifiers such as filter gels, softbox or umbrella as they may burn them. Even if they can be mounted due to the ability to withstand heat, care must be taken to dismount them as the tungsten lamp will still be hot after you switch off.

Flash light/strobe

Flash light are sometimes referred to as cold light because they do not generate as much heat as continuous light. Flash and strobe are used interchangeably and do not refer to any specific unit. Most will refer flash used in studio as strobe. Flash light can differentiated into two categories:

Hotshoe camera flash unit and built in camera flash: These are “intelligent” flash that enable communication between the flash and the camera such as firing pre-flashes to help camera to focus as well as determine the correct exposure which normally occurred in the poorly lit environment.

Studio flash unit: They do not possess the necessary intelligent as the above mention flash. They are more powerful than the normal flash. Studio flash needs light meter to determine the correct exposure.

Studio flash comes in two configurations: power pack and monolights.

Power pack

Power pack has all the adjustments compacted into a box and what is left is to attach the flash head to the box via cable. The flash head contains a flash bulb, modeling lamp and maybe a cooling fan. Some power pack allows power to be distributed evenly (i.e if you have a power pack of 2400 watts and if you attached two flash heads, the power will be distributed equally to them), while others allows power to be unevenly distributed (i.e you can have a flash head of 1800watts while the other to have 600 watts). The advantage of using power pack is that you need to make most adjustments in the box rather than on the flash head.

Monolight

Monolight has most of the adjustments contained in the flash head. This made them heavier as compared to the flash head used in the power pack. They are ideal for location work as they need less cables running around.Flash strobe has some advantages over continuous light:
1. They are termed as cold light as they do not generate too much heat. They are triggered either sync cord or radio trigger unlike continuous light where the light is on continuously. Thus they have a low risk of fire.
2. They can be used together with light modifiers such as softbox and umbrella because they do not produce as much heat.
3. They produced consistent lighting over continuous light as the light used in continuous lighting will degrade over time (i.e lamp used in continuous lighting is on over a long time and this affect the quality of light over time).

The disadvantages of using them are:

1. They are expensive to start with. This is due to the fact you need to purchase many accessories as well as flash heads in order to achieve good result.
2. You probably need a few shots to get the result you want as you do not know how the light falls. Some flash heads come with a modelling lamp which allows you to know where the light falls but they are often expensive.
3. They have a lot of cables running around and you will need to proceed with care as you may trip them. Read more!

Introduction to Studio Photography

You must have heard of this from your friends, through the Internet or photo magazines you have subscribed. You are quite impressed with the photo produced from lighting equipment used in studio photography and wanted to know how it is being achieved. There are many applications that involved studio photography. For example, you can use it to help you take portrait shots of your loved one, take a product so that you can sell it in some websites or take a picture of delicious dishes. You can also take pictures under natural lighting but, there are times when nature doesn’t provide us with enough light prevent you to have good images. That is where you might need to find more lights to properly expose your photo or use it creatively to get what you want.

Why Studio?

1. Studio photography allows you to have more control over light used in studio that nature does. How you want your lighting to be depend very much on your creativity. Lighting involved such as tungsten, fluorescent, strobe lighting will be explained later.

2. You can control the type of background you want in studio photography. You can do this type of controlling when you are in a studio room or you can do it even in your room. If you find that you need a different background for different objects, you can buy the background at the usual camera stores or book stores (if you need some fanciful background like colour paper for small objects).

In the next few sections, you will find out more about studio photography, the different lighting equipment used and the light setup used. Read more!