How To Mimic Natural Light

I am not a photographer, but my girlfriend is, and she is in the market for a studio.

Should studio's contain a window for natural light? She is very adamant that it must, but this limits the choices quite a bit.

She is very good with using natural light and prefers her photos to look a certain way which she feels can only be done using natural light.

Is it possible to mimic natural light with man made light? If it is possible, please provide a link to your photos.

Thanks!

 

Natural light can be mimiced with studio lights, strobes, speedlights and reflectors.

Top pros always use lights, reflectors, and other light modifiers even when they shoot outside.

Don't let your girlfriend find out about this thread, unless you can take the heat.

 

Yup. Totally possible. If you want a "window" take some gaffer's tape and put it across your soft-box (in a cross pattern, like, um, a window) to make the specular highlights more window-like. Piece-of-cake. If we're talking about warming up the light, gold reflectors and CTO gels are your friend.

 

I'll just interject - my studio has a lot of natural light - windows - and I've found that depending on the shoot, I end up covering them anyway. Sometimes they cast really neat reflections and shadows, but a lot of times, my clients wants standard studio lighting, so up go the sheets. Natural light isn't as versatile as you'd think. You have more control over studio lighting - that is to say, if she's using natural light, she'll be chasing the sun or can only work during certain hours of the day.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone! Now I need some evidence, actual pictures taken without natural light that look like they were taken with natural light.

She is a big Nichole Van fan, and her studio has a window... if any of you have or know of someone who has a similar styles to hers, but shoots with man made light that looks natural that would be amazing.

Thanks!

 

When you use windows, nature is the one in control of the lighting. When there are no windows... it is the responsibility of the photogrpaher to understand what tools are needed and how to use them to take control of a particular situation so that it works to your advantage.

Personally, I feel that natural light is nice... but it is limiting. When I have control of the light, I can do things with it that are just not possible to do if you are limited to a single constantly varying light source like a window (ie: ask her to take a picture next to that window after 9:00PM or when clouds constantly come and go causing conditions to change every few seconds )

I've used this example in the past... but:

When you meter for the light outside, the results are thus:


When you meter for the light inside, the results are thus:


When *I* take control of the light, my results are thus:


Ability to control the light is what it is all about in a studio. To have the option of natural light is nice to have... but I'd not want to run my business depending on if the sun would be very accommodating all the time.

 

Without being rude I would say your girlfriend could use a lesson or two in "how to light" instead of a studio.

 

+1

 

Simulating shadows cast by a single light source through various mediums (what natural light is) is relatively easy. It's rather limiting creatively if you do every shot simulating this single light source. But the funny thing is, even when using real natural light, most pro photogs bring along strobes, diffusion panels, and reflectors to modify the natural light to give that truly "professional" look to their images.

 

Requiring a studio is a business decision.

I know pros use man made light when shooting outside, but that's not the question.

I don't want this thread to change topics, I am looking for hard evidence here, meaning a picture that was known to be taken with only man made light but looks like natural light (or a mixture) was used.

Can anyone help me out?

 

Sincerely, that is a very beginner-ish question. Why limit yourself to *just* making flashes look like natural light (which is ridiculously easy)? I mean, you are a flash and softbox away from having perpetual "sunlight through a window" effects 24 hours a day!

At this point, I think it is better that your girlfriend post here... there is a definite lack of the basic lighting knowledge to be able to understand what is happening and I am *sure* something is getting lost in the translation at this point.

To give you an idea... your question is equivalent in difficulty to asking "are you sure if I put the car into D, it will drive forward and not backward?". Seriously!

There are some things that are extremely obvious to anyone who has picked up a camera and used an off camera flash for even a single day... and searching to make a flash merely look like sunlight... wow, why? Thats all I will say about that.

I'll tell you what... go to THIS link, and start looking (better yet, have your girlfriend start looking!!), as there are THOUSANDS of pictures there that all look as if in enhanced natural light... and 100% of them are taken using off camera flash... NO exceptions.