Hair light and fill light

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Jake400D

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Jake
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Do there have to be a flash unit or can they be constant lighting, or will the flash just over power constant lighting?
 
Can be either. Flash will only overpower constant lighting if you allow it too and vica versa. It's all about the balance between ambient and flash exposure.
 
watch the continuous lights for hairlight though (or any position for that matter)...can pretty warm under there
 
karfeef said:
watch the continuous lights for hairlight though (or any position for that matter)...can pretty warm under there
Click to expand...

That's true. You might give your subject permanent highlights!
 
karfeef said:
watch the continuous lights for hairlight though (or any position for that matter)...can pretty warm under there
Click to expand...

But jolly handy in this weather!

Jake, Its worthwhile watching out for colour temperature difference between the continuous and the flash. I normally have a few correction gels to hand to sort it out if needed.

Have fun
Sam-D
 
What kind of light can you recommend? Ive got some deep 50w spotlights with a good beam on them? But they are quite yellow?
 
Jake400D said:
What kind of light can you recommend? Ive got some deep 50w spotlights with a good beam on them? But they are quite yellow?
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Hi Jake

Your domestic 50w spotlights will not give you very much light and yes they will be yellow, especially if they are tungsten filament lamps.

To combat their ‘warm’ colour temperature you can do 1 of 2 things.

1. You can ‘gel-up’ the lamps with blue correction gels to match your cooler flash lighting.
2. Warm up your flash with orange gels to match the domestic spots.

The problem with option 1 is that the gels will decrease further the already low light output of the spots, so the better option for you is probably no. 2.

Lots of togs on a budget use domestic lights, like halogen worksite lights (that get very hot) and fluorescent lights (not very controllable), so they all have their own particular drawbacks for photography. A quick google should flag up some interesting lighting ideas that demonstrate the success, or otherwise, of some intrepid photographers.

Interestingly, and possibly good news to you, I quite often find that backlights and lighting used to illuminate background details can actually work better if they are a tad warmer than the key or predominant lighting. Photographers like Jerry Ghionis often augment their flash lighting with continuous lights for backlighting and picking out background features. OK, yes they do use expensive battery powered video lamps like the compact Lowel id, but the point is they also often shoot with them deliberately on the warm side.

Have fun and let us know how you get on.
Sam-D
 
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