Studio lighting what is it for?

Studio Lighting More...

This month we start an in depth look at studio lighting, or more precisely using artificial lighting in photography. I had a wonderful response to my request for questions and over the next few months will tackle every question we have been asked.

This first article of the series begins with using lights at home, in a small space and how best to deal with the problems of shadow. Next month I will be showing you how to tackle a small studio with pro flash kit and the final article of this studio series will deal with the big studio set up and multiple lights. After that I will deal with Tungsten, florrie and other light forms.

So at home obviously I cannot tell you what lights to use, but the actual set up I am demonstrating here works with what I think is the cheapest option, for this type of shoot. 2 heads, one with a white umbrella to kill shadows and the other working with a reflector brolly. I have chosen gold as it has warming tones.

There are many ways this could be done, but the point of all my articles is to show you how it can be done simply and yet still achieve good quality results.

So the question is what are we trying to achieve with this shoot? Well simply, a well lit picture that has a main light source and a second light source without annoying shadows on the wall behind our subject.

So what is required?

2 X Light heads

2 X Stands

2 X Brolly's

1 X Flash Meter

Surely that's not all that's needed? Well that's what I had here and you can see the results for yourself.

Here you can see the small area we have to work and and how the lights look from the models point of view. When working in such a small area it is important that you meter for the models skin. So let's talk about metering. As you can see the curtains were open so firstly I metered the model with my camera to see what the natural light was like. It was below any worthwhile operating scale so could be ignored. (If it had given me a shutter speed equal to my sync speed and a decent fstop then it would have added to the light source of the picture)

First I metered for the single main light, holding the flash meter against the models cheek on the main light side and then fired this flash. Next I held the meter on her far cheek and fired again. The main side gave a reading of f5.6. (Remember this is low cost home studio lighting) The reading from the side away from the light didn't register. Next I repeated this process for only the secondary light. It's main side produced f.4 and again the farthest side from the light didn't register. I was using 200 asa. So my camera was set to f5.6 as I wanted the main light to be as natural as possible and the shadow area to be shadow.

Here is a diagram of the first set up. As you can see the main light is set up to the right of the model from the photographers perspective. This has a white brolly which the light has to travel through. It's an old fashioned and much cheaper soft box. The light is diffused and softened by this and kills the shadows behind the model. Sadly when working in small spaces shadows really are a problem as you cannot get the model far enough away from the background, or the lights far enough away from the model. The second light is firing away from the subject into a reflector brolly which again diffuses the light and cuts down the amount of light reaching the subject. The grey area shows you the area that will be lit for acceptable results and it's quite large for a confined space. This cheap home studio set up has no options for increasing, or decreasing power of the lights.

Here is the first picture taken with this set up. As you can see the main light is obviously coming from the right although the shadow is being created from the light on the left. Remember our second light is not diffused. So this shows how well our first lights brolly is working at cutting down shadow. Overall not a badly lit picture such a shame about the shadow which of course looks so unnatural.

All pictures from here click to see full size.

The metering was achieved by actually metering the models face. Although not great, there is shadow and form and presents an interesting composition. A second picture was produced using this set up, a tighter head shot which shows this lighting works OK for portrait too. Especially when the photographer works from the main light side.

Now with this second set up I have moved the main light back as far as it will go and moved the second light not nearer, but changed the angle slightly. Here the shot will balance the two light sources and produce a more evenly lit picture, but moodier. I kept my f-stop at f5.6

The area you have to work in also does not change too much although it is best to sit the model in the centre of the lit area. That shadows still there though.

So there is only one thing left to do. Move the main light closer to the model to hopefully kill the shadow created by the second light, but also keep the second light where it is as it will be necessary to increase by one fstop and if I move this light back it will be become ineffective.

Sure enough, when I metered I had f6 from the main light and still f4 from the second. It would have created a bit more shadow than I really wanted. Yet I took the shot anyway and produced a very pleasing result as you can see here. The shadow on the wall behind the model is gone. What shadows there are look natural from the main light source so I knew this is the set up I would be able to use.

For the last picture I used set up 3, but added a small flash on the camera with two thickness of Hankie = 1 stop to cut the light, but as you can see compared with the picture above it's a bit washed out and lacks form and depth.

A well lit picture that has a main light source and a second light source without annoying shadows on the wall behind our subject. Have we achieved this. Well looking at these two pictures I think we have. Although I prefer the top one of these two.

I would like to thank Mandy and her husband Simon for allowing me to use their living room, Mandie who is the model in these pictures and also Tyler Web for allowing them to be used in this article.

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