Studio lighting: the basics

EdinburghGary

EdinburghGary

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Hi Guys,

First of all, I am aware that I have DVD's belonging to a few of you on this very subject, can I apologise for not having returned them yet, STILL to watch them properly.

Basically, before watching, and reading as much as I can about my problem and whatever solutions, I will see if anyone else has it sussed here!

I am using the Lastolite Superwhite Vinyl 10ft (W), and it trails an additional 10 ft (ish) and is 12ft high. The room itself is approx 14ft x 14ft, and I can shoot INTO the room from a distance of 4ft or so.

My problem is as follows. Basically, I can blow the background and have NO light wrap IF I use barn doors, however, the floor is then in mostly shade.

I can remove the barn doors on the background lights, and the sides of the subjects are burned off with insane light wrapping...

So, what's the solution? Zack Arias says on his site that the material on the floor if the right stuff will reflect the background light perfectly. The Lastolite is NOT doing this.

It feels like I need to light the floor seperately, has anyone any advice?

Gary.
 
Yes, 1 major suggestion. Learn from people who illustrate their theories with good photos.

The answer, as every practicioner knows, is that the floor must be lit separately in this situation. It can be lit with background reflectors that throw the light both on the floor and the background and this works reasonably well, because although the floor is much nearer to the light(s) cos law means that the acute angle at which it hits the floor has less effect on the material than you might expect, and when the light reaches the vertical backdrop is reflects more or less square on, so the effect is greater.

But, if you're not using background reflectors then the floor will need to be lit separately.

Everyone knows (should know) that reflected light is ALWAYS at a much lower level than the surface from which it is reflected - firstly because the light has MUCH further to travel and loses power considerably over distance, secondly because no surface other than a mirror can reflect all of the light that strikes it, and thirdly because of the cosine effect. The only way to 'hide' this loss is to so grossly overexpose the background that enough light reaches the floor for it to be white - which of course will create the awrul effects you see on certain websites that claim to teach you how to light a white background:)

My advice is to forget about what other people 'teach' - just learn basic physics and experiment.
 
A highly reflective floor material (like I now use) will help, but even Zack has a post about how best to lighten the shadow areas as unless you're underfloor lighting you're not going to get a proper white without loads of problems for the subject too - even then it'll wrap on their feet!

Personally, I think a totally white background & floor just looks bizarre anyway, so I use my new surface's reflections to add 3D, and on paper I always leave some grey as shadow too to again add depth

DD
 
Garry Edwards said:
Yes, 1 major suggestion. Learn from people who illustrate their theories with good photos.

The answer, as every practicioner knows, is that the floor must be lit separately in this situation. It can be lit with background reflectors that throw the light both on the floor and the background and this works reasonably well, because although the floor is much nearer to the light(s) cos law means that the acute angle at which it hits the floor has less effect on the material than you might expect, and when the light reaches the vertical backdrop is reflects more or less square on, so the effect is greater.

But, if you're not using background reflectors then the floor will need to be lit separately.

Everyone knows (should know) that reflected light is ALWAYS at a much lower level than the surface from which it is reflected - firstly because the light has MUCH further to travel and loses power considerably over distance, secondly because no surface other than a mirror can reflect all of the light that strikes it, and thirdly because of the cosine effect. The only way to 'hide' this loss is to so grossly overexpose the background that enough light reaches the floor for it to be white - which of course will create the awrul effects you see on certain websites that claim to teach you how to light a white background:)

My advice is to forget about what other people 'teach' - just learn basic physics and experiment.
Click to expand...

DiddyDave said:
A highly reflective floor material (like I now use) will help, but even Zack has a post about how best to lighten the shadow areas as unless you're underfloor lighting you're not going to get a proper white without loads of problems for the subject too - even then it'll wrap on their feet!

Personally, I think a totally white background & floor just looks bizarre anyway, so I use my new surface's reflections to add 3D, and on paper I always leave some grey as shadow too to again add depth

DD
Click to expand...

Guys,

Thanks for your time and ideas. Dave, have you an example of what you would consider a shot that ticks all the boxes? Just so I can get my head aroudn the various aspects. Does not have to be one of yours, just a good all round example...

Gary.
 
Hi EG

Soz for the links rather than insertions - but these are from one of my nursery shoots and I'm pretty happy with them, I think this was the 29 kids & 1,500 images in 3 1/2 hours shoot in a very similar set-up to yours. Only batch processed and then individually Grey Mopped to leave enough shadow to stop them 'floating'

http://www.dg-photography.co.uk/photo857250.html

http://www.dg-photography.co.uk/photo857243.html

I've chosen these (old images now) as they were done on paper with a 3-light set-up as yours, and also as yours the background is about 4-5ft away

HTH

DD
 
DiddyDave said:
Hi EG

Soz for the links rather than insertions - but these are from one of my nursery shoots and I'm pretty happy with them, I think this was the 29 kids & 1,500 images in 3 1/2 hours shoot in a very similar set-up to yours. Only batch processed and then individually Grey Mopped to leave enough shadow to stop them 'floating'

http://www.dg-photography.co.uk/photo857250.html

http://www.dg-photography.co.uk/photo857243.html

I've chosen these (old images now) as they were done on paper with a 3-light set-up as yours, and also as yours the background is about 4-5ft away

HTH

DD
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Ta dude,

Gonna go find your grey mop tutorial too. With regards to the email you sent a while back, I will get on the case later. Claire has been through the worst of it now, and we are going to simply try again. Anyway, my reply will be with you shortly.

Gary.
 
EdinburghGary said:
With regards to the email you sent a while back, I will get on the case later.

Gary.
Click to expand...

Cheers Gary - getting ever closer to launching a new site, but still thinking of using the current one as a 'master' site to attract the punters - so it can be as 'garish' as needed :D

Re Claire - I have emailed you separately :(

Cheers

DD
 
Garry Edwards said:
Yes, 1 major suggestion. Learn from people who illustrate their theories with good photos...

...My advice is to forget about what other people 'teach' - just learn basic physics and experiment.
Click to expand...

Gary, these are the basic rules of physics I find most useful with lighting. Hope I'm not totally telling you how to suck eggs.

The bigger the light, the softer the shadows. Closer to the subject makes the light relatively bigger (softer), moving it away makes it smaller (harder).

Inverse square law - double the distance equals quarter the light (equally, half the distance equals four times the light). Studio light changes a lot across the set. Changing the subject-to-light distance a few inches can often mean half a stop; changing it a couple of feet can mean two stops. It can be a right pain (eg getting 9ft of even white background) but work with it and it can work for you, try to fight it and it's very frustrating.

Angle of incidence equals angle of reflectance. Light bounces off a reflective surface (or the subject) at the same angle it strikes it - like a snooker ball off the cushion. Vital when positioning lights and especially reflectors.

Shooting bright white, an efficient lens hood really adds contrast and saturation. Primes tend to be less prone to flare than zooms (less elements) and no zoom has an optimum hood at the long end. I use a black card mask over the front of my lens hood when everything is being nuked.

Not phyisics exactly, but pretty much a rule in classic portrait lighting - there should be only one main light, from above. Other lights for fill, effect, background whatever, should not be allowed to cast conflicting shadows. Creating a nice bright highlight in the eyes is very important, usually one big round/square in the top half of the eye looks best.

HTH :)

DiddyDave said:
Hi EG

Soz for the links rather than insertions - but these are from one of my nursery shoots and I'm pretty happy with them, I think this was the 29 kids & 1,500 images in 3 1/2 hours shoot in a very similar set-up to yours. Only batch processed and then individually Grey Mopped to leave enough shadow to stop them 'floating'

http://www.dg-photography.co.uk/photo857250.html

http://www.dg-photography.co.uk/photo857243.html

I've chosen these (old images now) as they were done on paper with a 3-light set-up as yours, and also as yours the background is about 4-5ft away

HTH

DD
Click to expand...

Lovely examples Dave :thumbs: That's a heck of a firing rate - one every 8.4 secs :eek:

Reading between the lines of your post, I wonder that, even if you had the biggest and best studio in the world, you would still get better light by accepting a little grey on the white floor sometimes and mopping it up in post, rather than trying to white-wash it all in-camera?

I'm finding this, and although I can get pure white everywhere if I stick lights all over the place, there are side effects particularly with more than one model. It just seems so much easier, and actually better, to clean it up in post? What do you think?
 
It was faster than m8 as most need a few seconds to settle down and then there's the swap over & payment for the next ones

And all this on 'non-Pro' studio lights as others keep telling me (3x D-Lite 2s) - just how 'Pro' do they need to be eh? :lol:

DD
 
DiddyDave said:
It was faster than m8 as most need a few seconds to settle down and then there's the swap over & payment for the next ones

And all this on 'non-Pro' studio lights as others keep telling me (3x D-Lite 2s) - just how 'Pro' do they need to be eh? :lol:

DD
Click to expand...

LOL yeah. I have D-Lites too. I am a little bemused by exactly what you get with professional heads costing three times as much. Remote control and a thermostatic fan... :thinking:

Back to the question, those super pics you posted were done with just three lights and some mopping up of grey patches in post, if I'm right?

What I would like to know is, if you have ten lights at your disposal do you think you would get better results, or would you still prefer to work with less lights and clean things up in post? I'm not talking a complete cut-out of the subject, far from it, just a cleaning up of the background in one or two areas where blowing it to clean white in camera has undesirable knock-on effects on other areas of the subject?
 
HoppyUK said:
Back to the question, those super pics you posted were done with just three lights and some mopping up of grey patches in post, if I'm right?

What I would like to know is, if you have ten lights at your disposal do you think you would get better results, or would you still prefer to work with less lights and clean things up in post? I'm not talking a complete cut-out of the subject, far from it, just a cleaning up of the background in one or two areas where blowing it to clean white in camera has undesirable knock-on effects on other areas of the subject?
Click to expand...

Yep you are right :)

1 - For me the main factor is to light the subject - period. And for me that's one Key light on a large enough softbox close enough to give shape too

2 - Then there's what to do with the background - in this scenario it's about lighting it to white without it acting too much (if at all) as a backlight for the subject

3 - Lastly is the floor - which because of 1 - is not practicable (without underfloor lighting!) and so some grey mopping is inevitable

If I had 10 lights at my disposal for the above sort of set-up - I'd have 7 back-ups for the 3 I need :D

DD
 
DiddyDave said:
Yep you are right :)

1 - For me the main factor is to light the subject - period. And for me that's one Key light on a large enough softbox close enough to give shape too

2 - Then there's what to do with the background - in this scenario it's about lighting it to white without it acting too much (if at all) as a backlight for the subject

3 - Lastly is the floor - which because of 1 - is not practicable (without underfloor lighting!) and so some grey mopping is inevitable

If I had 10 lights at my disposal for the above sort of set-up - I'd have 7 back-ups for the 3 I need :D

DD
Click to expand...
Yes, that's my approach too. use only the equipment you need and, if doing this stylised kind of lighting, work to a proven formulae and KISS
 
Thanks Dave and Garry :thumbs: I also like to KISS :)
 
OT Sorry!

HoppyUK said:
and no zoom has an optimum hood at the long end.
Click to expand...

The 24-70L does as it works in revese to other lenses, the lens is longest at its shortest focal length and at its shortest at its longest focal length, this allows the hood to be designed to work optimally at both ends of the zoom.

Also has a great zoom range on a 1.6x crop for studio work (AOV 38-112 on FF)
 
DiddyDave said:
7 divorces, 29 kids by 22 women & 4 spells at Her Maj's convenience :( what do you think :lol::lol::lol:












Kidding on the above btw for those gullible types :D

DD
Click to expand...

:D:D:D

As others have said Gary, Keep it simple *****.........start with one light, work it until you understand it and then add others. Within a day you will understand how each light works and how they compliment each other. If you go plonking 6 lights all over the place you will spend forever working out which is crossing which and how to work out the exposure.

I did this when we had to process the film between tests, its so much easier today

stew
 
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