Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

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Lots of motion Sometimes we actually want a lot of motion. In the photo below, we wanted a photograph that conveyed activity. To accomplish this, we need a continuous light source—could be sunlight, quartz-halogen, or a house lamp with a tungsten bulb. You’ll have to set your camera to a longer exposure. How long? That depends on the brightness of the light source and the speed of the tungsten As we write this, we have little prediction of the future of tungsten lighting. Existing laws will prohibit manufacture within a few years in the United States, but the definition of “few years” could be modified. Other countries have laws that don’t specifically prohibit tungsten but prescribe energyefficiency standards. Can tungsten lighting be improved to meet those standards? We don’t know. Whatever happens, there are good alternatives to tungsten, but they may be more expensive or may offer inferior color. When we say “tungsten,” adapt your thinking to whatever is available when and where you read this. motion. For a ballroom dancer, we may decide that 1 ⁄30 second is too short; for a bullet emerging from a pistol barrel, 1 ⁄1000 of a second is way too long. The trick is to get your timing down for when you fire your flash. (Note: If you’re using a house lamp, you’ll probably need several for a shot encompassing this much space.) The room had very little ambient light. We set up a hot light at camera left. Our off-camera flash was placed behind the loom pretty much directly in front of the camera. The flash was high enough and angled so it lit the foreground. Our in-camera flash was covered with a bit of neutral density material. We attached a cable release to the camera and a homemade trigger to the off-camera flash (long enough to reach from the flash to the photographer). We locked open the shutter with the cable release, letting the motion be recorded, and triggered the flash when we thought the hands were in the right place; then we unlocked the cable release to end the exposure. Motion 167
A homemade flash trigger. We make one from whatever connector fits the flash; the other end is a piece of plastic tubing (from a hardware store) fitted with any sort of push button switch that fits (from an electronics supply store or maybe a hardware store). This allows us to manually trigger the flash at any point during the overall exposure, which is especially good if we’re musicians or video gamers with quick hands! 168 <strong>Focus</strong> <strong>On</strong> <strong>Lighting</strong> <strong>Photos</strong>
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Focus On</
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Focus On</
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Dedication To Polly Frye, who tirel
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Contents 127 The wrinkle 128 Eyegla
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oating publications including Chesa
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Robin Reid: Trained as a classical
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learn to work with simple, dumb lig
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Chapter 1: There’s More Than <str
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Built-in flash Shot with built-in f
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Modifier 1: A mirror Having the fla
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Modifier 2: A big white reflector I
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Other modifiers: Fill light, hair l
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Same principle: We can control the
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how many pictures shouLd i shoot? G
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Later, turn on all the automation y
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can also get anything in between: a
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24 Focus O
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We all want the most intelligent ca
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28 the sake of rapid, accurate move
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30 can be to buy one expensive trig
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The size of the light The size of t
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We need to know about this defect t
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36 Focus O
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needs to consider buying one of wha
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Softbox Softboxes are boxes with di
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Diffusion The other way to make a l
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For this book, the translucent whit
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gobo to block some of that light. (
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48 Focus O
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A commercially produced wooden cook
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any glue—all of which we already
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54 We can use the grid for many pur
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56 A grid solves the problem: We ha
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Lens filters Most lens filters chan
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in Our daily lives, we go through v
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The colors of sunrise and sunset ca
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Early evening. The sun is lower in
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space. The sunlit side will be both
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What happens when we go in the oppo
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setting in this open shade lighting
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Using gels for dramatic color In th
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The photo above was done by placing
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Small lights make hard shadows. Fur
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Compare the gourd on page 81 with t
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We could solve the exposure problem
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Why does the same light look so dif
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We had to shoot the cover shot of t
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sunlight is great, and not just bec
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looks like a painting. We were too
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convert the image to black and whit
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Amending or mixing light So what do
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penetrate.) But what if we don’t
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The sky was gray. In this case, the
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Distance and haze Haze happens for
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The photo above was taken in early
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Regardless of which lighting style
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postproduction work to deepen the s
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Broad lighting Broad lighting is pr
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like to place it so that it lights
Page 131 and 132: Rim lighting/kicker Rim lighting is
Page 133 and 134: Butterfly/Beauty lighting Butterfly
Page 135 and 136: Low key versus high key lighting Bo
Page 137 and 138: We blocked the popup flash so none
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Page 141 and 142: 126 Light meters Do we need light m
Page 143 and 144: Eyeglasses and lighting: Can they g
Page 145 and 146: In the photo on page 128, we’ve g
Page 149 and 150: When photographing large groups, wh
Page 151 and 152: way they can get an image of the da
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Page 157 and 158: Direct reflection means that the li
Page 159 and 160: Flat metal The image below was lit
Page 161 and 162: we went ahead and put back the refl
Page 166 and 167: glass is generally considered hard
Page 168 and 169: Position the camera so the viewfind
Page 170 and 171: we could have hung them with string
Page 172 and 173: A glass half full Interesting thing
Page 174 and 175: Bottle lit with off-camera flash th
Page 176 and 177: it reflected in the bottle. In this
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Page 185 and 186: These photos are of a pianist known
Page 187 and 188: This picture uses two external flas
Page 190 and 191: the principles Of light remain the
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Page 194 and 195: all likelihood do some selective re
Page 199 and 200: Glossary this is an introductory bo
Page 201 and 202: photographer’s perspective from b
Page 203 and 204: Dodge: To lighten a portion of an i
Page 205 and 206: Had we had camera histogram display
Page 207 and 208: mirror reflector, often attached to
Page 209 and 210: minds, return to the original file,
Page 211 and 212: Index Page numbers followed by f in
Page 213 and 214: Lens hood, 99 Light amending or mix
Page 215 and 216: Sun light, (Continued) sunrise and
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