Studio Lights

You can create interesting lighting for photographs using a range of sources. Sometimes a small torch or a candle will provide the right sort of illumination. At other times, you will need bigger lights to set up the effects you are seeking.

The photograph below shows a soft box (the square light) and a beauty dish (the round light). The lights can be combined or used separately. 

The soft box works like a flash and contains silver foil reflectors which diffuse the light to soften it. Boxes come in different sizes; a smaller box is good for portrait photography, while a smaller one alongside a larger box is used for full body portraits.

The beauty dish is used for hair lighting (lighting a model from the top) or for split lighting (keeping half the model's face in the light while the other half is shaded.) The beauty dish uses a parabolic reflector to direct light towards a focal point.

The lighting set up below uses a red head light (on the left) with an umbrella to diffuse the light. Red head lights use tungsten light (a type of incandescent light) which creates a lighting effect similar to daylight. A beauty dish is used on the other side of the model to create a split light effect on the model's face. 

The combination of these lights ensures that both sides of the face are lit, one side more so than the other. 

The red head has created catch lights in the model's eyes and a soft light on one side of her face, while the beauty dish is illuminating the other side of her face. 

Using very low light can create quite moody pictures like the one below.

This picture used a soft box to throw some light onto the model and to create a shadow behind him. I also set the shutter speed to 1/45 second to compensate for the lack of light. 

As well as concentrating on the light set up, it is important not to neglect the camera set up. Manual is often the best mode for studio shots so that you can adjust the shutter speed and the aperture. The picture below is too dark because I had shutter priority selected which meant the aperture was out of my control. The aperture for this photograph was f/22 which is too high, it hasn't let enough light into the shot.

You can see some of the detail but some of the colour is hidden and it's not the picture I was hoping for.

The photograph below was shot in manual mode so I was able to adjust shutter speed and aperture to create a better balance to the shot. I still wanted the darker feel but not at the expense of losing all the colour in the picture.

That's all for now. Have fun taking your photographs.

Quote from an unknown source

"If you want to know what someone fears losing, look at what they photograph."

An interesting quote which I can relate to. My top three are family, pets, and nature.

Raw images

A Raw image holds a lot of data. A HUGE amount of data in fact. The data contained in a Raw image is referred to as metadata. Put simply, this means that taking a photograph in Raw format leads to a resultant picture which contains much more information than your standard JPEG file. This abundance of detail will require around 20 MB of memory space as opposed to perhaps 3-4 MB in a Jpeg.

So what though? Why take Raw photos and use up all that memory space? The benefit of shooting Raw images is that at the processing stage, you will be able to draw out much more image definition than from a standard JPEG. The Raw image file is packed with details which cannot be seen until processed.

Take the following example of a sunrise. The first picture is the Raw image with no processing. 

You can see the colours coming through nicely with no processing. There was much more detail in the sky though and I wanted to draw out the dramatic impact of the fiery colours.

The next image is the same image but with a bit of processing to highlight some of the detail.

You can see the greater contrast in the sky colours and the vibrancy of the sun on the clouds. The foliage in the second image is also slightly sharper than in the first. Both images display the colours well but the second is probably more eye-catching.

The good news is that you don't need expensive processing software to develop Raw files. Most cameras will come with a photo editing CD which will allow Raw development. If you don't have the disc, a web search should take you to places where you can download an editing package for free. You may find that some packages will not download unless you have already installed the basic software from disc. In this case, beg or borrow a disc compatible with your make of camera and install that. It doesn't matter if it is for an earlier model of camera, the free online downloads should update the package. 

The Raw images I have shot so far include landscapes with a range of colours and textures and colourful skies with deep colour detail. I have also taken a few images of people with the sun behind them creating a halo effect. On a normal setting, this results in a dark image of the person contrasted against the bright sun. If the original image is in Raw though, you can draw out much more detail of the figure while retaining the halo effect created by the sun behind them. 

As always, the important thing is to get out and have fun taking photos. 

Creating silhouettes

Create silhouettes by shooting into the sun. This may seem counter intuitive but the effect can be striking. 

For this image I used the shutter priority mode (TV) and set the speed to 1/750 of a second. The aperture was f/4 which means that the background was softened (remember, a higher aperture number means a greater depth of field and more of the background will be in focus.) I also dropped the exposure compensation by a couple of points to avoid the brightness from the Sun saturating the rest of the sky.