Lighting help

[jp787]

Hello.
I am looking for help to learn more about lighting and especially off camera lighting. Does anyone know hoe resources that teach lighting more visually?
Like diagrams/photos of setups?

 

[tirediron]

Read this.

Buy this.

 

[jp787]

Thanks!

 

[Derrel]

You might find this book helpful: Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography: Kirk Tuck: 9781584282303: Amazon.com: Books

The world wide web and YouTube have a lot of information.

creativeLIVE: Free live workshops taught by world-class experts have free 1,2,and 3-day "webinars" that deal with lighting quite often, as well as other techniques and fields. This past week there were some good webinars. Roberto Valenzuela's speedlight webinar was probably exactly what a beginner would find of huge help.

 

[Mike_E]

Adorama has a learning section which is usually helpful -if you dig long enough- try here.. strobist from Adorama Learning Center

 

[kundalini]

Lastolite has some good product use tutorials. There's plenty about lighting too, you'll just need to look for softboxes, relectors, etc.

Manfrotto Lighting Ltd

 

[jp787]

Thanks for all the links!

I took a pic a while back, not finding it, but it was of a friends face and I held my flash arms length to the left of her head, facing her I think. Anyways the pic turned out really cool, like her face was all lit up and the background was all black. Does anyone know what I did and how to repeat it? I have been playing with no luck.

 

[Derrel]

Thanks for all the links!

I took a pic a while back, not finding it, but it was of a friends face and I held my flash arms length to the left of her head, facing her I think. Anyways the pic turned out really cool, like her face was all lit up and the background was all black. Does anyone know what I did and how to repeat it? I have been playing with no luck.

WITH the flash fairly close to the subject, and the background 3,4,or 5 times or more distant than the light-to-subject distance, there will be pretty steep fall-off in the intensity of the light on the background. That is one way to get dark backgrounds: position the flash close to the subject, and have the background be somewhat far away. With the lens at f/8 or so, the light fall-off at 20 feet will render many backgrounds quite dark.

 

[Mike_E]

The flash has an angle of spread. If you are pointing it so that the subject will be illuminated but the wide side of the beam (behind them) meets the background out of the 'view' of the lens then you'll get what you described.

Visualize the flash as a torch (regular- on continuously- flashlight) and put the beam where you want light and keep it away from where you don't. This also helps to get the hang of adding shadow detail.

 

[Derrel]

The flash has an angle of spread. If you are pointing it so that the subject will be illuminated but the wide side of the beam (behind them) meets the background out of the 'view' of the lens then you'll get what you described.

Visualize the flash as a torch (regular- on continuously- flashlight) and put the beam where you want light and keep it away from where you don't. This also helps to get the hang of adding shadow detail.

In keeping with Mike's advice above: a TTL flash remote cord, basically a 3-foot long pigtail cord that attached to the flash at one end,m and then has a block-like connector that slides into the hotshoe on the camera, and allows TTL flash communication between the camera and flash, is really,really handy for what he is describing. You can holds the flash in the left hand, which is extended and up pretty high, and your left hand aims the flash downward and to the right a bit, but the main beam of the flash is aimed at a nearby person; the right hand holds and fires the camera, and the AF system focuses. THIS is an old-school way to shoot flash0lighted shots of people, while keeping most of the light and shadows off of the background.

Flashzebra.com sells these cords affordably.