PART 2: BASIC ONE-LIGHT SETUP In Studio Lighting 101: Part 1 we discussed gear. Presumably you've got enough gear to get started. At a minimum, you should have a speedlight, pair of Pocket Wizards, lightstand, and at least an umbrella for this tutorial. This tutorial isn't about creating fine art - it's about how to set up and execute a standard one-light studio setup. We'll talk about different creative lighting effects in future episodes. But before we begin, you need to understand 2 basic laws of physics: (1) the bigger the light source the softer the light Take a look at this - it's a scale drawing of the surface area of my Canon 580EX speedlight against the surface of my 30x60 softbox:
The bigger size of the softbox significantly softens the light, as the larger surface area enables the light to wrap around your subject, diffusing the shadows. I'm not saying soft=good and hard=bad - there are certain situations where you'll want hard light vs. soft light. But you have to understand the principle in order to achieve different looks to your photography. (2) The closer the light source the softer the light What could be a bigger light source than the Sun? As huge as the Sun is, it's also 93 million miles away. That's why direct sunlight is harsh light - because at that distance it becomes a pinpoint light source. The takeaway: bring your lights closer if you want softer light - pull them further back if you want harder light. Okay, let's get started setting up our basic one-light studio portrait: CAMERA SETTINGS
Remember when I told you that studio lighting was easier than shooting with natural/ambient light? Well, if you didn't believe me then you might believe me now. For studio lighting, I pretty much always use the same camera settings. No thinking required. Here are my setttings: - Mode: Set your camera to Manual mode. Never anything else. Any automatic setting (P, Av, Tv) won't work, because the camera won't know that you're using manual flash. - ISO: 100. No reason to use anything else. Set your camera to its lowest ISO setting for the cleanest results. - Aperture: Set your aperture to f8. Why f8? It's a good base aperture to work with - remember that for a basic studio lighting setup we want clean results and decent depth of field. Sure, you can break the rules and experiment with other apertures, but first you have to learn what the rules are and why they work. F8 will give you just about the sharpest, cleanest images you can get. I'll bet that 90% of the images you see in Vogue magazine are shot at apertures of f8 or smaller. I might vary the aperture slightly if my strobes are high up on stands and I'm too lazy to adjust the power, but we'll get into that later. Trust me and start with f8. - Shutter: Set your shutter speed to the maximum sync speed according to your camera's manual. Some sync speeds of popular cameras: - Canon 20/30/40D: 1/250
- Canon 5D: 1/200
- Canon Digital Rebel: 1/200
- Canon 1Ds MkIII: 1/250
- Nikon D300: 1/250
- Nikon D3: 1/250
- Olympus E3: 1/250
- Pentax K10D: 1/180
- Sony A700: 1/250 (1/200 with image stabilization on)
The shutter speed for studio shoots isn't too critical, since it's the flash duration that freezes the motion, not the shutter speed. Just set it to the max sync speed and forget it. SUBJECT POSITIONING Start by positioning your subject maybe 5-6 feet from a wall or seamless paper. The distance to the background - as well as the color of the background - determines the brightness. I'm going to assume you're shooting in front of a white wall. You'll notice that the further from the wall your subject is, the darker the background. If you have enough room, you're white wall will go completely black! POSITION YOUR FLASH For this tutorial we're going to start with a basic 45 degree positioning. This is not to say that 45 degrees is the "correct" position. It's neither bad nor good - it's a tried and true standard lighting position. When in doubt, or if you're just starting out, start with 45 degrees and then adjust as you gain experience understanding how different positions create different lighting effects. Just stick your flash on a stand at a 45 degree angle, a few feet above and slightly angled down towards your subject. The setup should look something like this:
How far away should your softbox be positioned from your subject? It depends, but for our purposes start by putting the softbox as close as you can get to the subject without being visible in the frame. This creates the softest possible look (diffused shadows). You should aim your softbox so it skims across the front of the face. This does two things: it minimizes light spill onto your background, and it also creates more fill on the shadow side of your subject's face, as the light skims across and wraps around the subject.
ADJUST YOUR FLASH POWER Okay, now to set the exposure you simply adjust the power of your flash unit. Just take a test shot and then look at your camera's histogram. Then keep on adjusting the power of the flash up or down until the shape of the histogram bumps all the way to the right without clipping the highlights. It should only take a few test shots to do this. In the old days photographers used to test with Polaroids - what a pia that must have been! You want your histogram to go all the way to the right edge like this:
(note: the big hump you see in the mid tones is from the gray seamless background paper) Once you've done this, your exposure is perfect and you can fire away without changing any camera or flash settings until you change to a new setup. The results? Here is what a properly exposed, 45 degree single light studio shot will look like:
(image note: this image is pretty much straight from the camera - no Photoshop work. Canon 5D, 85mm f1.8 lens, ISO100, f8, 1/200) You've seen this lighting setup millions of times - the current Gap campaign features this lighting. It's quick, easy, and saleable. (I also happen to think it's kinda boring, but we'll talk about that later) Get the basics nailed before you start experimenting. Enjoy!
Next article: creating different lighting effects using just one light. |
