Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

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Making a snoot A snoot does exactly the same job as a grid. It’s much less effective than a grid, but we can make one in a few seconds with black paper and tape. (We should try to Learn what’s available. Try a homemade version first. Use it a lot? Then consider professional versions. Don’t shoot madly. Study your images while shooting. Ask, “What would make this better?” always have black paper handy. It is so often useful for needs we might not have anticipated.) Basically it is a small opening through which light will pass, thereby restricting the spread of light. In Chapter 3, we have an image made using a homemade snoot constructed from a cereal box. Isn’t creativity great? People see beautiful photos and wonder why they can’t get the same result with their own camera. Often it’s not the camera’s fault. It’s because we need a tool or two to amend the light. We each need to find those that work best for us. We don’t need everything! Tools: Now We Have Light, but How Do We Get It under Control? 57
Lens filters Most lens filters change the color of the scene, many of them dramatically so. In a black-and-white picture, a yellow, orange, or red filter could dramatically darken a too-bright sky; a green one could greatly increase detail in leaves. Today these “strong” filters have little use. We usually shoot color, and if we do want black-andwhite, we can usually get the effect of colored filters by discarding some or all of any two of our red, green, or blue channels with photographic software after the picture has been shot. Still, there are two lens filters we all need to consider: Polarizing filter. Putting this as simply as possible, light vibrates in two directions—up and down and side to side. Depending on the angle of the light, one of those vibrations may convey all of the color while the other conveys nothing but glare (or, in Light— Science & Magic,“polarized direct reflection”). Do we want better color or more glare? The answer first seems to be color, but glare can be good, too. Think of seeing the ripples in the water (glare) or the fish 58 <strong>Focus</strong> <strong>On</strong> <strong>Lighting</strong> <strong>Photos</strong> beneath the surface (no surface glare interference). Either can make a good picture. Depending on its rotation, a polarizing filter can block either of these reflections. Do we want the fish or the water? We don’t know which you want, but we’d like for you to have the choice. UV or haze filter. Ultraviolet is a color human eyes cannot see or can barely see. Our cameras see it though, and as it reflects from air molecules and dust over a great distance, it dulls the visible color and can turn our colorful autumnleaved mountain into a dingy beige photograph. This filter blocks UV to increase color saturation. Whether we like this is another judgment call; if we have enough foreground color, the haze may emphasize the distance and size of the mountain in a way that we like. There is another advantage, even if we are not interested in landscapes: a UV filter at close distances has essentially no effect on the color, but this relatively cheap piece of glass can protect an expensive lens from damage. Filter size. If we have more than one lens or expect to buy Focal Press has other books that discuss how to adjust channels in more detail. more, we’d like to have one filter to fit our largest lens and then buy step-down rings to make the same filter fit the other lenses. This is usually the most economical tactic, but still, it’s not always affordable. Fil’s largest lens polarizing filter cost more than many very good cameras do. It paid back handsomely however, because of the type of work he was doing at the time. Judge your own situation carefully. The “best” is not always the best for you.
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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
Page 22 and 23: Modifier 1: A mirror Having the fla
Page 24 and 25: Modifier 2: A big white reflector I
Page 26 and 27: Other modifiers: Fill light, hair l
Page 28 and 29: Same principle: We can control the
Page 30 and 31: how many pictures shouLd i shoot? G
Page 32 and 33: Later, turn on all the automation y
Page 34 and 35: can also get anything in between: a
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Page 39 and 40: 24 Focus O
Page 41 and 42: We all want the most intelligent ca
Page 43 and 44: 28 the sake of rapid, accurate move
Page 45 and 46: 30 can be to buy one expensive trig
Page 47 and 48: The size of the light The size of t
Page 49 and 50: We need to know about this defect t
Page 53 and 54: needs to consider buying one of wha
Page 55 and 56: Softbox Softboxes are boxes with di
Page 57 and 58: Diffusion The other way to make a l
Page 59 and 60: For this book, the translucent whit
Page 61 and 62: gobo to block some of that light. (
Page 65 and 66: A commercially produced wooden cook
Page 67 and 68: any glue—all of which we already
Page 69 and 70: 54 We can use the grid for many pur
Page 71: 56 A grid solves the problem: We ha
Page 76 and 77: in Our daily lives, we go through v
Page 78 and 79: The colors of sunrise and sunset ca
Page 80 and 81: Early evening. The sun is lower in
Page 82 and 83: space. The sunlit side will be both
Page 84 and 85: What happens when we go in the oppo
Page 86 and 87: setting in this open shade lighting
Page 88 and 89: Using gels for dramatic color In th
Page 90 and 91: The photo above was done by placing
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Page 95 and 96: Small lights make hard shadows. Fur
Page 97 and 98: Compare the gourd on page 81 with t
Page 99 and 100: We could solve the exposure problem
Page 101 and 102: Why does the same light look so dif
Page 103 and 104: We had to shoot the cover shot of t
Page 106 and 107: sunlight is great, and not just bec
Page 108 and 109: looks like a painting. We were too
Page 110 and 111: convert the image to black and whit
Page 112 and 113: Amending or mixing light So what do
Page 114 and 115: penetrate.) But what if we don’t
Page 116 and 117: The sky was gray. In this case, the
Page 118 and 119: Distance and haze Haze happens for
Page 120: 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
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Rim lighting/kicker Rim lighting is
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Butterfly/Beauty lighting Butterfly
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Low key versus high key lighting Bo
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We blocked the popup flash so none
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124 Focus
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126 Light meters Do we need light m
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Eyeglasses and lighting: Can they g
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In the photo on page 128, we’ve g
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132 Focus
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When photographing large groups, wh
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way they can get an image of the da
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est-behaved pets rarely sit as stil
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140 Focus
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Direct reflection means that the li
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Flat metal The image below was lit
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we went ahead and put back the refl
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148 Focus
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glass is generally considered hard
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Position the camera so the viewfind
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we could have hung them with string
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A glass half full Interesting thing
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Bottle lit with off-camera flash th
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it reflected in the bottle. In this
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166 Focus
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A homemade flash trigger. We make o
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These photos are of a pianist known
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This picture uses two external flas
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the principles Of light remain the
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it is silly to spend hours to perfe
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all likelihood do some selective re
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Glossary this is an introductory bo
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photographer’s perspective from b
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Dodge: To lighten a portion of an i
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Had we had camera histogram display
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mirror reflector, often attached to
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minds, return to the original file,
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Index Page numbers followed by f in
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Lens hood, 99 Light amending or mix
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Sun light, (Continued) sunrise and
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