Sarah23
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OK...so I have been reading and re-reading Strobists Lighting 101 section, trying to get it down..and I am stuck. Maybe I just missed since my brain has turned to mush from all the info I am taking in.
I am just going to paste the paragraph that is confusing me, so I dont screw it up. Here he is talking about hard light, and soft light:
Say you had an environmental portrait in an office. You might bounce one small strobe off of the ceiling, softly bringing the room up to, say, f/4. Then you put your other strobe on a stand, point it directly at your subject's face, and dial it down until it gives you an exposure of about f/5.6. You may wish to limit the area the hard light will hit by moving the flash up close and zooming the head to an 85mm coverage angle. Or use a quickie snoot made out of a piece of cardboard.
So, you'd be shooting at f/5.6, with the shadows lit to f/4. The effect will be crisp light on the face of your subject, with nice shadow detail everywhere. Brownie points for thinking to cool the bounced strobe down a little (with a cooling gel) and warming up the harder accent light. (You'd then have contrast in color, direction and hard/soft quality of the two lights.)
I am SO confused about the f/4 and f/5.6....what the crap is he talking about??? What does all that mean when it comes to lighting??? I'm assuming its NOT the cameras aperture in this instance??? I think my head is going to explode! :meh:
Here is the link:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-hard-light.html
I am just going to paste the paragraph that is confusing me, so I dont screw it up. Here he is talking about hard light, and soft light:
Say you had an environmental portrait in an office. You might bounce one small strobe off of the ceiling, softly bringing the room up to, say, f/4. Then you put your other strobe on a stand, point it directly at your subject's face, and dial it down until it gives you an exposure of about f/5.6. You may wish to limit the area the hard light will hit by moving the flash up close and zooming the head to an 85mm coverage angle. Or use a quickie snoot made out of a piece of cardboard.
So, you'd be shooting at f/5.6, with the shadows lit to f/4. The effect will be crisp light on the face of your subject, with nice shadow detail everywhere. Brownie points for thinking to cool the bounced strobe down a little (with a cooling gel) and warming up the harder accent light. (You'd then have contrast in color, direction and hard/soft quality of the two lights.)
I am SO confused about the f/4 and f/5.6....what the crap is he talking about??? What does all that mean when it comes to lighting??? I'm assuming its NOT the cameras aperture in this instance??? I think my head is going to explode! :meh:
Here is the link:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-hard-light.html