Beginner's lighting. What do you want to know?

[Village Idiot]

Does anyone have any examples with the use of gels? Village i know you said you use them.

I've got a few where I use gels for effect. The problem with using gels in a normal environment is that unless there's gel and no gel pictures to compare, you really can't tell. That's the point though. If you're shooting inside with your flash and still aiming to get some ambient and the interior lights are standard light bulbs, you're going to have a good WB for whatever the flash hits and orange for whatever you're ambient is exposing. If you set your WB to tungsten to compensate for the interior lights, your flash will be blue and everything else will be normal. That's when you would put a CTO (Color Temperature Orange) gel on the flash so it changes the color temp to match the interior lights. With your WB set to tungsten, everything would appear as normal as you're chaning the flash to match the interior lights.

Below is a four light setup. Two about 45 degrees to the rear with shoot through umbrellas on either side of the model, one with a beauty dish above the model and infront of, one behind for back light.

All the flashes had no gels. We weren't exposing for ambient at all in these photos.

Click on any to go to the flickr page with a larger photo.
No gel on the back light WB set to 5600k:


I wanted to warm up the back light as it was really white, so I put the CTO gel on it. See the difference?

CTO gel on the back light WB set to 5600k:


This was a three light setup. Two to the sides of the bike and slightly infront with shoot through umbrellas and one low backlight. The sides were gelled with CTO orange as I wanted to start out with a blue back light. If you look at the first picture, you can see if matches the example of setting your WB to match the interior lights (sides, CTO gelled) but having and un-gelled flash which turns out blue.

CTO gels on the side lights none on the back. WB set to tungsten:


New effect, new gel. Bright red.

CTO gels on the side lights red gel on the back. WB set to tungsten:


Any guess as to what happened here? It even surprised me at first.

CTO gels on the side melted red gel on the back. WB set to tungsten:


In the last photo, the 580EX II I was using on full power to blow out the backlight and give it an huge powerful light ended up melting a hole in the gel. The blue of the flash coming through the hole mixed with the melting red to produce this cool purple color. Don't try this at home. :mrgreen:

 

[Big Mike]

Good examples.

I broke out my gels for the first time last weekend. I was shooting on white seamless for a background so I experimented with using gels to change the color of the background. It worked great.
I also used a gel on a back light to give some color accents to the model's hair.
I can't show the examples though, the images are under wraps until the client uses them for competition.

 

[andrew99]

Any thoughts on using CTO's to warm up skin tones on a person? I haven't had time to experiment with this yet, but I've heard of using a 1/4 CTO to warm up skin (I mean warming above and beyond correcting for WB). Also I'm curious about doing this on different skin types (Caucasian vs Latin skin). I'm usually in desperate need of a tan, so I'll try it on myself later!

 

[Village Idiot]

Good examples.

I broke out my gels for the first time last weekend. I was shooting on white seamless for a background so I experimented with using gels to change the color of the background. It worked great.
I also used a gel on a back light to give some color accents to the model's hair.
I can't show the examples though, the images are under wraps until the client uses them for competition.

20 different AB filters used at 1/4, 1/2, and full on white and black backgrounds.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=162431

 

[milavidal]

Would it be possible to speculate what this photographer uses for lighting?

http://www.linimbergphotography.com/

 

[Big Mike]

Would it be possible to speculate what this photographer uses for lighting?

http://www.linimbergphotography.com/

You will have to single out an image...there must be hundreds of shots on that site.

 

[milavidal]

just most of his weddings, specially the photos he has taken indoors. Basically, looks like he bounces the light off something but I dont think lugging around something bigger than himself would be something he does. So I was wondering what makes his indoor lighting so soft. I dont think i can link his photos but if you click on weddings, then Paula and Mathew's album is the 25th, the 27th picture in their album is an example

 

[Big Mike]

From the few shots that I looked at, I don't see anything too unordinary in terms of lighting. The light is sort of soft, but if you look at the shadows (when you can see them) the edges are clearly visible, meaning that the light isn't that soft. You can also see catch lights in the eyes and the ones I saw, looked to be in the middle of the eye, maybe up a little.

My guess, from the images I looked at, would be that he's using flash on a bracket. He might be using something to diffuse the flash and/or bouncing it off the ceiling.

More than that, the shots are sharp and the exposure is good.

 

[milavidal]

thank you

 

[medic001918]

Hi, spot reading is the same as spot metering right? Yeah, that would do but it might take some time for it to auto-set the exposure where we might lose a few shots during the calibration time (especially when the spot light is not constantly aiming at one target).

And yes, I'm learning something here. Thanks for the advice Mike!

This might be a little bit off topic, but what exactly is the difference between the different metering modes? I think my camera has three different modes, but I'm not sure exactly how they differ.

Thanks again,
Shane

 

[Big Mike]

This might be a little bit off topic, but what exactly is the difference between the different metering modes? I think my camera has three different modes, but I'm not sure exactly how they differ.

The three metering mode that you have are probably Matrix, Center wighted and center only. Check your manual, I'm sure it's in there.

Basically, those refer to the shape/size of the area in the view finder that the camera's meter uses to make a reading. Matrix will basically consider the whole scene, probably with a slight bias to the centre. This would be good for a landscape shot or something that has several different spots with contrasting tone...and you want to balance the exposure.
Center weighted will put more importance on the center area of the scene and center only will disregard the outer areas and only use the center. This would be good if you were shooting a single person and you wanted to expose for the person and disregard the rest of the scene. For example, if you were shooting somebody indoors and they had bright windows behind them. If you use the whole scene for metering, you will end up with a silhouette of the person. But if you meter for only the person, you can expose for them. In this scenario, you would choose center only and then get close to take your reading, lock the exposure and then back up and take the shot.

 

[asfixiate]

bump

 

[rein]

ok, do i need direct power to be able to use strobe lights and other kinds of light, or does it use battery like toe flashes

 

[rein]

basically i need something mobile, because i found myself taking pictures outdoors for cars and models, and i dont have a studio

 

[AndrewG]

Here's a good book on portrait lighting which I found very useful showing both the photograph and a technical diagram of the lighting set up for each subject. Available light portraiture is also covered as well as a section of pro tips for wedding, business, children etc.
'50 Portrait Lighting Techniques', John Hart, Amphoto, 1995, ISBN 0-8174-3860-2