On location lighting

[donkeymusic]

Hello, due to my photography being more noticed between friends and families and their friends i am having more requests for potential work, two requests have been about shooting a family at home, to get away from a plain background and also something that i would like to get into.

At the moment my three lights are being used with Hilite and as a keylight. This is portable but also setup so that i dont really want to move it much.

So a few questions i was thinking of are: would i get away with taking one light and softbox as well as a reflector? would i need more than one light? do i still meter the same way, aiming for my studio settings of 1/125th, F8 and iso 200.

Any advice that would help me a setting like this would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[JonathanRyan]

I'm really not sure I understand the question.

Are you asking if you can shoot a portrait with one light and a softbox? Sure Lots of my favourite pictures use only one light.

 

[donkeymusic]

would i meter the same as i am in the studio?

thanks

 

[V8burble]

I suggest you visit Zach Arias's site and see his One Light workshop. If you remember nothing else, remember that shutter speed controls/affects ambient and aperture controls/affects flash

 

[JonathanRyan]

would i meter the same as i am in the studio?

thanks

Y-e-e-e-e-e-s. But why do you ask?

If I've understood this right you are just taking one of your lights out of a room you call your studio into a room they call the telly room or something. Metering would be the same - it's just another room. But the fact that you're asking the question makes me think I'm missing something.

What's on your mind?

 

[V8burble]

I assumed you meant outside? In which case you have two lights, the sun and your flash. As to which is the key light is up to you... Or you can just have your flash as the only light if it is powerful enough. However if you meant in a house then it's no different to a studio as that is just a room anyway

 

[donkeymusic]

My only thought was that if i went to someones house and they wanted photos in a lounge, then i would use my one light to light the subjects, i was just wondering if the light would still be metered the same, i know its obvious but just wanted to check

 

[DekHog]

It really depends if you wanted the background/ambient in the picture and, if so, do you want it to look naturally lit (use the available ambient) or not. Dropping your shutter speed will let more of the ambient light in while the flash will light the subjects.... keep the shutter speed high and the background will probably be hugely underexposed and turn to darkness.... it all depends on the subject to background distance/framing, etc. You might find you want to shoot at 1/30th or 1/15th to use the ambient indoors....

Meter the flash for the subject as per normal, then use shutter speed to expose the ambient more/less.... the shutter speed doesn't have any effect on the flash exposure.

 

[Kris]

I suggest you visit Zach Arias's site and see his One Light workshop. If you remember nothing else, remember that shutter speed controls/affects ambient and aperture controls/affects flash

If we are talking only about your images comprising 100% flash exposure, then yes, he's right. Any ambient in the scene however, and a change in any given aperture will affect the ambient part of the exposure, obviously.

 

[JonathanRyan]

If we are talking only about your images comprising 100% flash exposure, then yes, he's right. Any ambient in the scene however, and a change in any given aperture will affect the ambient part of the exposure, obviously.

ETA: Ooops, just reread your post and saw that you were talking about changing the aperture. Ignore the next bit cos it's wrong....

Yeah, but it doesn't really, does it? Any more than adding a small amount of fill really affects exposure.

On paper and in some shots, yes. In general for most real shots, my money's with Zach.


ETA: the next bit's true

Back to the OP - yep should be the same. But I bet your studio doesn't have mirrors, a TV or orange flock wallpaper. All of those can make a difference to the light as it ricochets around.

 

[Kris]

The problem with the Arias statement is that he talks in absolutes. 'Shutter controls ambient, aperture controls flash'.

This is too simplistic, though is perhaps appropriate for beginners.

The easiest way to understand flash photography is to always remember (back to our absolutes here) that every photograph that you ever take with flash is effectively a double exposure. Every single one. There is one exposure for the flash, and there is one exposure for the ambient. They are very different and cannot be separated. They just happen at precisely the same moment, so they appear to all that it actually is one exposure when it isn't, it's two. One cannot be viewed in isolation of the other.

First exposure - flash. This is controlled by the aperture, not the shutter. We can only control the amount of light entering the lens, not for how long it enters because the flash duration effectively becomes our shutter speed. There is no difference in flash exposure between setting our shutters at 1/250th and 1/25th.

Second exposure - ambient. This is controlled by the shutter AND the aperture, obviously. Not just by the shutter, as the Arias statement would lead you to believe. Ambient and flash exposures can never be separated. There is a massive difference in ambient exposure between setting our shutters at 1/250th and 1/25th. Our backgrounds (or any non flash lit portion) will be far far brighter because we are letting three whole stops more light affect our ambient half of the exposure. Similarly, a change in aperture will affect the background but ALSO the flash at the same time. That is why fashion boys need to use very powerful guns like the Eli ranger to overpower the sunlight at F16/22.

As I said earlier, the Arias statement only appears to be true if your flash is contributing 100% of your exposure and there is no ambient whatsoever, but even then you are making a double exposure - its just the ambient is too low to affect your exposure.

It is our control and mastery of the balance between the two exposures that makes us better photographers.