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Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos

02 Aug

The post Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Street photographers often love the type of light many others seek to avoid. High contrast lighting is favored by many because of the drama it adds to the action, or lack of it, in the streets.

Making the most of high contrast lighting is a matter of being able to see it more as your camera does. It also helps to have a good knowledge of how you can manipulate your photos during post-processing.

Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos Young Market Vendor

Seeing like your camera

Your eyes can see a wider range of tone than your camera can. This is changing as camera technology advances. Soon cameras will be able to record more details in the highlights and shadows over a broader range. For now, your eyes are more capable.

What you see on your camera’s monitor when you review a photo is different than what you’ll see on your computer. On your camera, you will not see so much depth or detail. Learning to discern what your photos will look like after some post-processing will help you take better photos.

Taking photos knowing how you will process them later helps you make better decisions while you’re taking photos. The choices you make about exposure and composition can depend on what treatment you will give a RAW image on your computer.

When you look at a high contrast scene, your eyes will see more detail than your camera is able to record. Because the difference between the light value of the highlights and shadows is so vast, your camera cannot record it all. But your eyes will still be able to see it.

Understanding this when you are in high contrast light will help you make better photos.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos- Cycle Shadows

Expose with intent

Photographing in hard light means you must make careful exposure choices. Do you want to see details in the highlights? Do you want to see details in the shadow areas? You must choose if you want to make the most of the dramatic lighting.

Exposing for the highlights and letting the shadows fall into black is one of the most popular methods. This adds drama and mystery to your street photos.

I prefer to set my exposure manually. This way I know it will not alter until I change the settings myself. I will choose a light area to make a meter reading from. Then I will underexpose it a little to make the effect a little more dramatic.

This will make the shadow areas appear even darker. It also means I am less likely to have bright areas with no detail.

Setting my exposure in this way, I know I’ll be able to push the contrast effect even further during post-production.

If you set your camera to expose for the shadows, the highlight areas will be even brighter. You will lose detail in the lightest parts of your composition. Sometimes you will want this and to keep the details in the shadows. You must make a conscious choice when you are setting your exposure. If you get this wrong, you will find you cannot manipulate your photos so much during post-processing. This is more so if you are taking .jpegs rather than RAWs.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos Happy Man with contrast

Make use of the shadows

You can hide things in the shadows. You can conceal people or unwanted distracting elements in the darkness of a shadow.

Careful use of shadows can isolate your main subject and draw the viewer’s eye to it.

Use graphic lines of shadows created by architecture, trees or other strong forms. The shadows themselves become graphic elements in your photographs. You can combine them with the solid forms in your composition to create tension or harmony.

Look for how static and moving shadows appear in your compositions. What do the shadows of people look like on the pavements or walls as they walk by? Are there shadows created by trucks, buses or cars passing by? Can you see light reflected off windows back into the shadows?

While you’re out with your camera, think about how the shadows might look when you add more contrast during post-processing.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos

Find a location and choose your time

Observe how the daylight looks at the places you like to photograph. It will be different at various times of the day and during different seasons.

Look at how the shadows fall on the ground and surrounding buildings. Are people walking in the sunshine or in the shade? At which points to they emerge from the shadows? Is the light in front of them or behind?

Pick a good place to work from and stay awhile. If you can visit the same location on many different occasions, you’ll build up a more diverse set of photographs. Doing this, you’ll be able to compare the photos you take. This can help you learn your favorite time to photograph at that place. Then plan to do it again and take even better photos.

Find a place where the light is how you like it and the background is interesting. Make sure the background will support the style of photograph you are wanting to take. Is the background in full sun or in the shadows? Is the light falling on it pleasing to you?

Move around and look at the space from different angles. Where you photograph from will look different depending on where the sun is. You might prefer the sun behind you or to one side. Some scenes may look better when your subjects are backlit. These should be carefully made and not left to chance.

If you are including people or traffic in your photos, be observant of how it is moving. Anticipate where it looks best. How does the light look on a person as they walk through your composition? Does the traffic moving in one direction look more interesting than traffic moving the other way?

Once you have decided on a place to work from, stay there. Being patient is one of the most important things to do as a photographer. Wait and watch. Look for patterns of movement and also when these patterns are interrupted or broken. These can be some of the most interesting times to take street photographs.

Conclusion

Look at the sunlight and think about how you can post-process to enhance the look you want.

With street photography, you are reliant on the available light. You must look at it and figure out the best place to stand. Then you must make the right choice of exposure settings to take advantage of the high contrast.

Once you have found a good location and made a few exposures hang around. Give yourself time and space to really work a scene. Try going back to the same location at different times of the day and in different seasons. You may be surprised at how different your photographs will look.

We’d love it if you would go out and try some of these techniques and share your photos with us in the comments below.

The post Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

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Your Guide to Studio Lighting Equipment

07 Jun

The post Your Guide to Studio Lighting Equipment appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

There’s a lot of studio equipment to get familiar with and with it, a lot of terms to learn.

If you’re new to studio lighting, it is easy to get intimidated by the amount of stuff you have to learn. The jargon alone is enough to make your head spin. Fortunately, none of the things you need to be successful in the studio are particularly complicated, there is just a lot of it. The purpose of this article is to serve as a primer to introduce you to some of the most basic studio lighting equipment, and terms you will need to navigate a photography studio.

This is not a comprehensive list, and with new tools and techniques being invented all the time, it could never be.

A little warning: Some of these terms are used differently by different photographers. Others get interchanged with one another. While it can be confusing at times, it’s not necessarily wrong. However, it is useful to know about when you hear someone refer to a flag as a gobo or refer to ambient light as continuous light.

Types of light

Strobe – A studio strobe is a dedicated flash unit. They can sometimes be referred to as a monobloc or monolight. Usually mains powered, more battery-powered offerings are being brought onto the market all the time. Power output between models can vary greatly, with cheaper strobes offering as much power as a cheap third-party flashgun.

Strobes are powerful flash units that pretty much dominate studio photography.

Continuous light/Hotlight – Continuous lights serve the same lighting functions as strobes, but they don’t flash. Instead, they are high-powered lamps that can usually be fitted with modifiers in the same way as strobes. While mostly associated with video, continuous lights still have their place in stills photography. There are a lot of LED lights coming onto the market at the moment, and many of them are viable options.

The hotlight moniker comes from the fact that they tend to get very hot. Be careful with modifiers that sit close to the bulb as they present a fire hazard. This does not apply to LED lights.

Flashgun/speedlight – Flashguns are any small light with a hot shoe mount for placing on top of your camera. They are highly portable, and some come with reasonably high power outputs. Although their versatility is ultimately limited to their size and power output, they are still an extremely useful tool for any photographer interested in off-camera lighting.

Flashguns are small but competent light sources that are invaluable for portable studios.

Light functions

Key light – Your key light is the main light with which you are shaping your subject. This will usually be the brightest and most prominent light in your scene.

Fill Light – A fill light reduces the intensity of shadows created by your key light, thereby decreasing the overall contrast in your scene.

Rim light/backlight – Rim lights light your subject from behind to help separate them from the background. Often, rim lights are positioned so that only a sliver of light is visible on the sides of your subject.

Background light – As it says on the tin: background lights light the background.

Hair light – Hair lights are used to add emphasis to your subject’s hair. They can also be used to help bring up the exposure of your subject’s head if it is blending into the background.

Ambient light – This is any light that is present before the addition of any other lighting sources. This could be from lights in the room or daylight from a window or outside.

Modifiers

Umbrellas – Umbrellas usually come in silver or white and can be attached to your strobe via a mount. By firing the strobe into the umbrella (which reflects the light back to your subject), you are creating a much larger light source which creates a softer light. Although mostly directional, umbrellas can have a lot of spill, and they aren’t the easiest modifier to control.

Umbrellas are your most basic modifier. They are good for soft, diffused light, but they are hard to control.

Translucent Umbrellas/Shoot-thru Umbrellas – Translucent umbrellas don’t reflect light, but are instead made of diffusion material which you aim the light through. This softens the light, much in the way of other modifiers, but without the benefit of directionality.

Translucent umbrellas also provide soft light, but they aren’t as directional as softboxes.

Softboxes – Softboxes come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Once attached to your light, a softbox acts to shape and soften the light so that it is more flattering. Softboxes also tend to be quite directional, and they are easy to control and further modify.

Softboxes are the workhorse of the photographic studio, and they come in all shapes and sizes.

Strip boxes – Strip boxes are softboxes, but they are long narrow rectangles that produce a much narrower beam of light. These are great for lighting a subject from behind for a rim lighting effect.

Striplights are a useful type of softbox that offer very directional light.

Octaboxes – Also a type of softbox, an octabox is octagonal in shape. The rounder light source is useful for shaping the light for portraits. Octaboxes also tend to be quite large, making them an ideal modifier for portraits.

Reflectors (the modifier kind) – The reflector is a modifier that goes directly on your strobe. They channel the light in a specific angle for very directional light. They are also a very hard light source. Most are designed to take a variety of grids.

Reflectors, like this 110-degree reflector, provide a very directional and very hard light source.

Snoots – Snoots are modifiers that are designed to focus your light in a very narrow beam. They are great for both hair lights and background lights.

Snoots direct your light into a very tight and controlled beam.

Barn doors – Barn doors are fitted with two to four flaps for you to manually adjust the aperture the light is let through. These flaps can help you narrow the focus of your light on a specific aspect of your subject (such as their hair), or they can be used to flag the light from hitting a spot that you don’t want it to.

Beauty dish – Beauty dishes are directional modifiers that are somewhere in between soft and hard light. They are great for beauty photography (hence the name) as well as fashion and portraiture altogether. They often come with grids and diffusion socks to give you even more options in how to use them.

Beauty dishes offer a contrasty light somewhere between hard and soft.

Grids/Honeycombs – Grids are modifiers for your modifiers. Placed on a reflector, or softbox, or beauty dish, they narrow the beam of light further and help to ensure that the light is only falling on your subject (or where you want it to).

Grids help you to further modify the directionality of your light.

Gobo – A gobo is placed in front of a light source to change the shape of the light. This can be as simple as narrowing the beam and be as complicated as creating complex patterns. The easiest way to explain this is to imagine a Venetian blind with light streaming through. Now imagine the pattern on the wall. The blind is acting as an effective gobo and shaping the light.

CTO Gels – Color correction gels are used when you need to correct the color temperature of a given light. For example, if you have a gridded beauty dish that is particularly warm (like mine), and you want to use another light as a hair light, that second light might be very cool compared to your key light. By placing an orange CTO gel on your hair light, you can match and balance the color output of both lights.

Color Gels – You can also use gels towards a creative end. You can gel your lights to produce just about any color that you want to.

Reflectors (the reflective kind) – Reflectors are an important part of any studio kit. These allow you to reflect light from your key light back onto your subject. They are a means of creating a fill light without using a second dedicated light source. Reflectors come in many shapes and sizes, from the ubiquitous 5-in-1 reflectors to fancy tri-flectors sometimes used in beauty portraits.

Reflectors and diffusers are two vital tools when it comes to shaping and controlling your light in the studio. Also shown here is a reflector stand.

Diffuser/Scrim – A diffuser is a piece of translucent material that you place in front of a light source to alter the shape of the light or to reduce the intensity of the light. Some diffusers do both.

Flags – Flags are used to block (or flag) light from falling in your scene where you don’t want it to. You can use them to stop excess light falling on your background, or you can use them to reduce the exposure on the parts of your subject that aren’t the focal point. For example, sometimes, I like to use flags to help underexpose everything from the neck down in close portraits. This helps to ensure that the face is the main focus of the image.

Studio accessories

Light stands – Simply a stand to hold your light source. Ensure you have one that can hold the weight of your light. A high-powered, dedicated strobe requires a lot more support than a speedlight.

This image shows a boom arm attached to a lighting stand on a dolly. It’s a fantastic and versatile bit of kit.

Dolly – A light stand with wheels. Most useful.

Boom arm – A boom arm is a light stand that you can position at any angle between completely vertical and completely horizontal. These are useful to get your lights high up and also to place your light at angles a traditional light stand wouldn’t be able to manage. You can mount different varieties of boom arms to other light stands as well as permanent fixtures like walls.

Reflector Stand – A dedicated stand designed to hold a reflector in place.

Background/backdrop – A backdrop is any surface that you place your subject in front of. These range from paper and vinyl rolls to bare or decorated walls to pieces of painted canvas.

This image shows a painted canvas background. At the top of the frame, you can just see grey and white vinyl rolls on a motorized support system.

Background stand/support – Any support system designed to hold a backdrop in place. These can be free standing or wall mounted.

Clamps – Clamps and other fastening devices come in all shapes. You can (and should) use these to hold all manner of things in place. Backgrounds, flags, reflectors, gels, and many, many other things need to be held in place. For example, bulldog clips are indispensable for holding canvas backdrops up, whilst double-headed clamps can affix to a table and hold a flag or reflector.

This image shows a selection of clamps and clips that will you always find a use for in the studio. The double-headed clamp is holding up a piece of black foam core for use as a flag.

Rails – In bigger studios, you might see lights fixed to fittings on the walls and ceiling. These rails allow you to move your light relatively freely around a space without the hassle of a light stand.

They also help to keep cords out of the way of you and your subjects.

Other

Quality of Light – Quality in this instance refers to the physical characteristics of light. These include shape, intensity, and color.

Lighting pattern – A lighting pattern is a specific technique in which a light is placed in a prescribed manner for predictable and established results. Examples of these include butterfly lighting, Rembrandt lighting, and split lighting.

PC Sync Socket/Cable – The PC sync is a means to connect your camera to a flash with a cable. You can use this option in lieu of triggers.

Triggers – Triggers are devices that allow a camera to communicate with your lights and ensure that your flashes fire while the shutter is open. These range from very basic models with just one function, to complex devices that allow for full control over the settings of multiple lights.

Triggers allow your camera to communicate with your flash so that they work in sync with one another.

Slave mode – In slave mode, a flash will detect the light from another flash via a sensor and fire. This is great in situations where you have multiple lights, but only one basic trigger.

Mount – A mount is the means in which a modifier is attached to a strobe. A lot of lighting manufacturers have their own proprietary mounts associated with their systems (Bowens, Profoto, Elinchrom, etc.) So you will need to ensure that any modifier that you buy will fit the system that you own.

This is the shape of the commonplace Bowens S-mount.

Modeling light – Many strobes come fitted with two bulbs. One is a flashbulb, where your strobe light comes from, and the other is a modeling bulb that is on whenever the strobe is not flashing. This makes it easy for you to see what the light is doing to your subject. As a bonus, if you’ve cut out all ambient light (like you should in a studio environment), modeling lights give you the ability to see.

That’s a start

While this list is not, and can never be, a complete list of studio lighting equipment, it should serve as a decent primer to get you started in the world of studio photography. If you feel that I’ve missed something important, please add it in the comments below.

The post Your Guide to Studio Lighting Equipment appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

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Understanding Broad and Short Lighting in Photography

24 May

The post Understanding Broad and Short Lighting in Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

There are a lot of lighting patterns for you to use in your portrait photography. Some of these are covered quite well. Rembrandt and butterfly lighting are two that are both easy to set up and yield great results a lot of the time. Of course, you can use just one lighting pattern all of the time and build a fantastic portfolio; however, if you want to have a full skillset with a variety of techniques to use in your portraits at any time, you will want to learn and understand as many of these lighting patterns as possible.

Broad and short lighting are often clumped together because of the similarities in how they are implemented and described, but they couldn’t be more different in how they affect your images.

This article will introduce you to the broad and short lighting patterns and explain when and why you might want to use them and what you can expect to achieve while using them. These are two very easy lighting patterns that can seem confusing at first, but once you get your head around them, they give you powerful tools to help shape the light and your subjects in your photos.

What is a lighting pattern?

First, let’s start with the very basics. A lighting pattern is any named lighting setup that gives you specific results. There is a fair list of these established lighting patterns for you to learn outside of the broad and short patterns discussed here. These include Rembrandt, Butterfly, split, cross, clamshell and more. Learning and understanding these lighting patterns can act as a shortcut to helping you get great results in your portraits. These lighting patterns apply to both natural light and artificial light, so it does not matter which you prefer.

Broad and short

The names of the broad and short lighting patterns refer to which side of the subject’s face is being lit first.

Sometimes, understanding what broad and short mean in terms of lighting can be confusing. To make it as simple as possible, imagine a face turned slightly away from you. That face now has two sides divided by the nose. The side of the face that is closest to you is the broad side because you see more of it than the other. The other side, the one that’s furthest from you, is the short side.

With broad lighting, your light is going to hit the broad side (or the side that’s closest to you) of the face first.

With short lighting, your light is going to hit the short side (or the side that’s furthest from you) of the face first.

Broad lighting

Broad lighting can be used to great effect to help widen faces or give you more contrast than some other lighting patterns.

When you choose to light the broad side of the face, it has several effects on your image. These include:

Broad lighting widens the face.
Broad lighting usually throws the short side of the face in shadow (dependent on light placement).
Broad lighting provides more contrast than some lighting patterns like butterfly lighting.

When you want to use it

Because broad lighting tends to broaden (go figure) the face, you’ll want to use broad lighting when you’re photographing subjects with a narrow face. Using it on subjects with a wider face can exaggerate that shape and you’ll want to avoid it there.

If there’s a feature on one side of your subjects face that you want to take the emphasis away from, you can pose your subject so that feature is on the short side of their face and use broad lighting to ensure that it’s in shadow, taking the emphasis away.

How to set it up

Setting up for broad lighting couldn’t be easier. Just have your subject turn away from the key light until you have the desired effect.

While there is no one way to set up broad lighting, here is a basic method to get you started.

As in the diagram above, place your light forty-five degrees from your subject. Ensure that you have your subject’s face posed away from the light source.

It really is as easy as that. Just remember that you can control the transition from highlight to shadow by changing the distance of the light from your subject and by using different modifiers.

Next steps

Adding fill to your broad lighting can help with extreme contrast while still retaining shadows for depth.

Lighting patterns are a starting point. This isn’t a zero-sum game. To take your broad lighting setups further, feel free to experiment with fill light. You can use reflectors or a second light to lift up the shadows and reduce the contrast in your images for more flattering portraits. Conversely, you can also choose to emphasize the shadows and the contrast for darker, bolder portraits. The best advice here is to know what result you are after before you start.

With a reflector as fill, you can now control the overall contrast in the image.

Short Lighting

Short lighting (depending on variables like your modifiers) tends to lend itself to dark, shadow-heavy imagery. This makes it the perfect lighting pattern when creating low-key images.

When you choose to light the short side of the face first, it also has several effects on your portraits:

Short lighting narrows the face.
Short lighting will throw the broad side of the face in shadow.
Short lighting provides heavy contrast and is ideal for low-key images. It is also useful when you are trying to create images with a lot of depth.
Short lighting can be used to hide imperfections.

How to set it up

Again, there is no one way to go about a short lighting setup.

Short lighting is trickier to set up than broad, but take your time and be deliberate in where the light is hitting your subject.

For this example, start with your light source forty-five degrees to your subject just like you did for the broad lighting setup. This time, have your subject face towards the light. If you have a modeling light, or you’re using natural light, watch the highlights on your subjects face carefully. Either move the light or your subject until the brightest part of your subject’s face is the short side.

Tip: If you’re having trouble seeing the contrast with your eyes, you can squint. I can’t even begin to tell you why this works, but it does. Squinting makes it far easier to see the contrast in a scene with your eyes.

That’s it. While short lighting is slightly trickier than broad lighting, it is still easy to accomplish. Once you have it figured out, it will become second nature.

Next steps

Because short lighting tends to be heavy on the shadows, you can use as much fill as you want to control them. Use a reflector for a gentle lift, or a second light to bring them close to the other tones in your images.

Since short lighting is so shadow-centric, you will almost certainly want to use fill light to control the contrast in normal situations. You can use a reflector, but if your shadows are quite deep, you may want to opt for fill light. Try exposing your fill light three stops less than your key (your main light) to retain your shadows while ensuring that all of the details are still there.

Using a reflector lifts the shadows in this example, but retains enough contrast for depth.

End matter

There you have it; two basic, but powerful lighting patterns that you can use to create bold dynamic portraits. I encourage you to go out and practice with each of these set-ups. Experiment liberally with your distances between your light and subject and try as many different fill lighting techniques that you can come up with. Once you have the basics down; if you want a real challenge: use the short lighting pattern to create a high key image.

The post Understanding Broad and Short Lighting in Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

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Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

30 Apr

The post Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jackie Lamas.

Ever want to create interesting photographs without having to spend so much on equipment? Chances are that you already own ordinary household items that can give your photos that creative lighting twist to make them pop! Read and try these creative light tips using things that are already in your home.

In almost all of the tips, I use my smartphone to light my subject, which is also another item you can use that is already in your home!

1 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

1. Shadows and patterns

To create shadows and patterns in your photos, try some of the following items that you have in your home already. Create a dot pattern with a colander. Hold it under the light – it can be a flashlight or natural light over your subject and you’ll see how the shadows form.

Experiment with different items with similar holes like a spatula, cheese grater, or laundry basket. Hold the items close and far away from your subject until you get the look that you want! Another easy way to create shadows is with the blinds on your windows. You can place your subject next to the blinds and angle them so that you get the desired pattern on your subject.

2 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

Using one small light like the flash on my phone and a colander works for making patterns.

You can also cut out patterns on paper, cardboard, or other similar materials to get the patterns you want. Hold them over your subject, and under your light source, and you’ll have shadows and patterns for your photos.

2. Color filters

Using translucent paper like cellophane or even document protectors that are translucent can help you add color casts to your photos. Cut them into squares or circles the diameter of your lens and hold each one up as you take a photo. You can also use tape to keep them on the lens while you’re photographing your subject.

3 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

I used cut up CD color cases. Document protectors would also work. Anything translucent.

Layer the colors or place them at the edges of the lens to create different color casts in the same photo. Another way is to put the colored paper in front of your light source, like a flashlight or sunlight, in order to achieve the color cast. This way you don’t have to have the paper over your lens and you can mix in different colors in the scene.

4 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

You can also use a tablet, laptop, or phone to create color casts as well. Try and aim to photograph your subject in a bit of a darker place so that the color cast shows up a little more. Place your device close to the subject and see how the colors show up onto your subject. Make sure your camera is steady as less light will cause more camera shake if you’re using slow shutter speed. Use a fast lens so that you don’t have blurry photos.

5 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

Use the color filter to the side of the lens.

3. Making rainbows

Using an old CD can create a rainbow light when it’s being reflected. Use this to create interesting rainbows on your subject or background. You can tilt it to get different effects.

6 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

Another way you can use a CD to create interesting light is to cut it up and glue it to poster board or cardboard and hold it up to the light that way. See what kind of creative light you can get onto your subject!

Try moving it around so that you can angle the rainbow just how you want it in your photo. Get creative with placing the rainbow to highlight different parts of your scene.

4. Fairy or string lights

String lights can give your photos a creative twist all while lighting your subject as well. Place the lights close to the lens to get the blurry orbs of light or place them on your actual subject to get that warm and inviting color on your subject.

7 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

Tape the lights to the wall so you can have free hands to photograph your subject.

String lights work best in a darker scene but you can experiment with different lighting situations to see what works best. Christmas lights also work for this but they are bulkier.

8 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

Use the fairy light close up to your lens to get the orb effect.

5. Spray bottle

Water refracts light, this means that when the light hits the water, it bends and can give you a unique way of lighting a photograph! Grab a spray bottle and give the lens a little spray. You might have to point your camera toward the light source, like a backlight or the sun in order to get the light refracting.

9 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

Using distilled water in a spray bottle gives some really interesting effects too. You could even go another step and use a colored filter over the light or lens to get a mixture of the effects.

In conclusion

10 - Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items

Create interesting images by combining all of the tips together. This image has the rainbow from the CD, twinkle lights, water droplets all lit by my smartphone flash.

All of these cool lighting effects will give you more creative lighting to your images all using household items that you already have or can create under a budget. Which one will you try?

Share some of the images you take using these techniques with us in the comments below.

The post Creative Lighting Tips Using Household Items appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jackie Lamas.

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So You Have No Model? Here are Ways to Practice Your Portrait Lighting With Toys

01 Apr

The post So You Have No Model? Here are Ways to Practice Your Portrait Lighting With Toys appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

Portrait lighting can be tricky to learn.

After reading articles and watching tutorials about light, you’ll excitedly look for a person to practice on. Although, once you finally have a person in front of your camera your mind goes blank and nothing is as easy as those tutorials made it seem. You forget all that information you’ve been overloaded with and feel foolish in front of your ‘model.’ Worst case scenario, you’ll become discouraged and give up.

Superman was always my favorite.

But there is a way to practice basic portrait lighting techniques and build your confidence before photographing people. You can practice portrait lighting with toys until you feel comfortable enough to experiment with people.

You’ll learn how to position your subject and light source without the stress of working with a real person.

Once you understand the basic principles of portrait lighting your confidence will grow and you can keep learning new techniques and refining your skills.

Also, who doesn’t want an excuse to play with toys again?

Choosing the right toy

Choose a toy with a human figure so that what you learn can transfer easily when you photograph real people. Try to find one with pronounced facial features so that there will be realistic shadows created.

Your toy should have some texture too. This is important because it helps you to see how the light affects your subject. As light skims across a textured surface, it will create highlights and shadows, which will help your portrait to pop. Everybody who sits in front of your camera will be textured (hair, skin, and clothes).

This Superman toy has lots of texture and muscular looking features. His face has pronounced features that mimic a real person’s face.

Using a flashlight (hard light source)

Quality of light refers to the hardness or softness of the light.

A general rule is that the smaller the light source, the harder the light will be. This means that there will be deep, crisp shadows. The larger the light source, the softer the light will be. The difference between the shadows and highlights will be much less intense.

I’ll begin by using a flashlight as a hard light source. The basic lighting patterns will be easier to see with hard light.

In each of these sample photos, we’ll focus on the direction of light and what happens as we move the light around.

Front
Rembrandt
Side/split
Edge
Back/silhouette
Uplighting

I kept my Superman figure in one place and simply moved the light around it.

The first image is the lighting set up and the second image is the portrait.

Front light

The light is placed directly in front of your subject. It’s a little higher than his eye level.

You can see that he is evenly lit with a crisp shadow under his neck created by his jawline.

Rembrandt light

This is a classic lighting pattern named after the painter, Rembrandt. Reposition the light so that it hits your subject on a 45-degree angle. It’s still a little above eye level.

The left side of his face becomes shadowy, but there is a triangle of light under his eye.

Side light/Split light

The light has now been positioned directly beside him.

The light now only illuminates one side of him. His face is split between shadow and highlight.

Edge light

Swing the light around so that it shines over his shoulder.

The only light that we can see now is the edge of his face, shoulder, and arm.

Backlight

Put the light right behind your subject.

This is similar to the edge light effect except that the light is directly behind him now. If the light source were larger (perhaps a sunset sky) there would be more of a silhouette effect. But the dark background has created a very mysterious look for this low key portrait.

This is the exact same lighting situation except that I increased my ISO to make a brighter exposure.

Uplight

To achieve this dramatic looking portrait I placed the light at his feet and shone it up toward his face. Uplighting is sometimes referred to as ‘monster lighting.’

Using a window (soft light source)

Now that we’ve seen how light can be used with a harsh source, let’s look at the same techniques with more subtle soft lighting.

In this case, we can’t move our light source, so we’ll have to move the subject in relation to the window.

We’ll cover:

Front
Rembrandt
Side/split
Edge
Back/silhouette

Front light

The window is right behind me, shining directly on Superman.

Rembrandt light

The window is beside him, but notice that I place him back from the window a bit.

The right side of his face becomes shadowy except for that triangular patch of light under his eye.

Side light

I’ve now moved him forward so that the window is directly beside him.

The light splits his face and body into a highlight on one side and shadow on the other.

Edge light

You can see the window behind him on the left side of the photo. It’s behind him but off to the side so that it illuminates the edge of his head, shoulder, and arm.

Backlight/silhouette

The window is directly behind him. Because it is such a large, bright light source the portrait has become a silhouette.

Creative

Because I wasn’t working with a real person, I felt comfortable experimenting with some creative lighting. The more I relaxed and the longer I practiced, the more I began to notice interesting lighting situations.

The glare on the table acted as a backlight source, creating a silhouette. The light from the window became an edge light source, tracing his upper body and making it stand out from the dark background.

This is the window edge light photo from above. I cropped the window out and used a radial filter in Lightroom to make that subtle burst of warm light in the top left corner of the photo.

Two light sources

Let’s look at a three-step progression from one light to two.

The glare on the desk is from a window in the background. It’s a backlight source that has created a silhouette.

I decided to set up my flashlight again to add some light on his face.

Finally, I turned his body more toward the flashlight to illuminate his chest but turned his face back toward the camera to create a split light effect across his face.

More advanced

The leap from practicing with toys to photographing real people may still be a little uncomfortable, but at least you’ll have some success behind you. Just focus on one thing at a time. Use a window to make a soft Rembrandt light portrait of a friend. Or try a dramatic split light photo using off-camera flash.

Once you feel comfortable with the basic lighting techniques we’ve covered you can practice these more advanced techniques using real people:

Clamshell
Butterfly, loop, Rembrandt
1, 2, 3, or 4 lights

And when you’re seriously ready to go pro with your lighting you’ll need to read, How to Create Awesome Portrait Lighting with a Paper Bag an Elastic Band and a Chocolate Donut.

The post So You Have No Model? Here are Ways to Practice Your Portrait Lighting With Toys appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

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A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 2 – Lighting and Posing

23 Mar

The post A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 2 – Lighting and Posing appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Clinton Moore.

Welcome to part two in our series on photographing older clients. In part one, we looked at rapport building and the practical aspects of preparing for your shoot. In this article, you’ll learn about lighting and posing techniques to enhance your photos of elderly subjects.

Lighting older clients utilizes most of the same lighting principles that you apply to younger clients, but there are a few extra tricks that will ensure a stress-free and flattering shoot.

Lighting practicalities

For this article, we’re going to assume that you are shooting at the subject’s home – often a requirement when shooting older clients. This means that you won’t have access to a full studio setup and will have to improvise based on space.

Lost in space

If you’re lucky, your older client may still be in the old family home with beautiful high ceilings so you can set up and bounce light to your heart’s content. Unfortunately, many will have downsized and are often in smaller apartments. Others may be in nursing homes with less space than your average bathroom and have everything they own crammed within this space.

In tight spaces, the best bet is to try and get outside. However, this is not always possible for less mobile clients.

Also remember, if you’re doing a shoot in a nursing or retirement home, you’ll possibly need to gain permission from the village manager. There’s a lot of protection around older residents (and rightfully so), which means the home is not likely to take kindly to a stranger turning up unannounced and taking photos of vulnerable people.

This is not one of those situations where it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission first!

Flash versus continuous lighting

As a photographer, flash is probably your go-to for artificial lighting when outside the studio, but take a moment to consider continuous lighting. While a strobe is more portable and powerful than most affordable continuous lights, they can be quite disorienting for older clients – particularly those with dementia. The last thing you want is to distress the person you’re hoping to make a smile.

With the affordable price of LED lighting these days, continuous lighting is now incredibly accessible and has the added benefit of remaining cool for your client as opposed to older lights. Advances in chip-on-board LED technology also means you don’t have to worry about heavy and expensive HMI lights when you want that classic Fresnel look.

Soft versus hard light

The aim of the shoot will determine your lighting style.

It’s going to be rare to hear an older person say “please make me look old and grizzled,” so your aim is likely to create a flattering image of your subject by leaning towards soft, highly-diffused light. You can achieve this by using light from large light sources such as softboxes and umbrellas. The bigger the source, the better! You want that light to wrap around their face.

Unless it’s the desired look, contrast is your enemy when photographing elderly people as it accentuates their wrinkles and any other parts that are sagging. This might be great for gritty street photography, but it’s unlikely an older person wants you to portray them like that in a paid portrait.

Think less George Hurrell, more Anne Geddes (but leave the flower pot at home).

Of course, the final decision should always come from a mixture of trying to convey your client’s personality and meeting the brief agreed upon in your pre-shoot consultation.

Lighting setups

We’ll look at two classic lighting setups which aim to create a flattering portrait. While there are limitless portrait lighting options, not all will work with older clients due to wrinkles, sagging, and posture issues.

3-point lighting

The classic three-point lighting setup provides you with a huge amount of flexibility to sculpt the subject’s face in a flattering light.

For older clients, aim to have your key light only a little stronger than your fill light. This reduces contrast and provide a more flattering light that wraps around the face. Fill light is your friend when it comes to older clients.

Short lighting (left) generally provides a more flattering photo for an elderly subject than broad lighting (right).

Although you’ll be using more fill than normal, it’s still important to be aware of the effects of short and broad lighting, as aging isn’t always kind to the face shape. You can use short lighting to make a wide face appear more slender. This is usually the more flattering option for older faces.

Broad lighting can add some width to a skinnier face, but it tends also add more emphasis on wrinkles.

For older clients, it can also pay to lower your lights a little more than you might with a young client. The shadows cast by higher lights emphasize wrinkles and sagging skin.

Placing the lights higher as you might do with a younger client can create shadows that highlight features such as wrinkles and crow’s feet.

By lowering the lights, the face softens, and you can fill in the eyes which tend to sink with age. It never hurts to throw a reflector under the subject’s chin to lift the shadows.

Dropping your key light by just a small amount can have a dramatic difference to the final image.

You will then get a final shot that creates a warm and inviting portrait.

Combining all the changes and tossing in a reflector under the subject’s chin creates a final image that presents them in favorable light.

Clamshell lighting

Clamshell lighting can create a very dramatic look, but with large diffused light sources it can also light an older face in a flattering way while still providing a dynamic effect.

In this setup, we have a large softbox angled at 45-degrees acting as the key and an umbrella as the fill. You may also want to experiment with a beauty dish as the key light for a more striking look.

The clamshell is a simple setup and can be achieved with just one key light and a reflector to act as fill if need be.

While exposing correctly is a no-brainer no matter how you’re lighting, it goes double for a clamshell setup as excessive underlighting creates a ghoulish look like something out of a horror movie. A safe way to avoid this can be to use a simple reflector or bounce board as your fill if you’re not comfortable with setting exposure on artificial lights.

Failing to set your fill light correctly will result in underlighting that creates a scary look unlikely to be desired by your client.

As you can see, by reducing the fill light to a little more than half the exposure of the key light, you get a more balanced look.

Ensuring that you have your fill light set lower than your key light will create the classic clamshell look.

Combined with good posing, this lighting setup can provide a great option for taking a square-on image of an older person. The resulting shot can convey an introspective, but intimate feel.

By exposing correctly and positioning your client beautifully you will get a final shot that has a great introspective feel.

Elderly portrait idiosyncrasies

Although having a couple of basic lighting setups will get you 80% of the way to photographing elderly clients, there are still a few little hurdles to be aware of that may otherwise cause chaos on your shoot.

Glasses and reflections

Glasses are the bane of your existence when working with elderly clients. A pair of spectacles loves nothing more than to capture the reflection of your lights. And God help you if you’re dealing with bifocals!

Glasses! Guaranteed to destroy any portrait without some planning.

You can always ask your subject to remove their glasses completely, but many will feel that they look wrong without their glasses after having worn them for so many years.

Managing glasses always requires a bit of compromise to bring your client’s eyes back into the image, but three of the best options are:

1. Tilt Down – Ask you subject to tilt their glasses down just a little. This can be combined with tilting their head down as well. Don’t go overboard with this unless you want them to look like Santa or a librarian.

You will largely remove the reflections by asking your subject to lower their chin and tilt their glasses down. However, be careful not to overdo it!

2. Raise Your Lights – Raising your lights a little higher reduces the chance of picking up a reflection. Of course, the trade-off here is that you will get more shadows. It can help to balance the change with a reflector.

Raising the lights resolves the reflections issue, but creates a new dilemma due to the heavy shadows that now appear.

3. Lensless Glasses – Possibly the best solution. Bring along a pair of glasses with the lenses removed. Hey presto, no more reflections to worry about. The issue here, of course, is that they may not be the style of glasses that work with your subject’s face.

Managing baldness

Sure it happens to younger folks as well, but if you’re photographing older clients, you’re going to encounter a lot of bald heads. The issue here is that a bald head will act like a big reflective surface and create a hot spot.

To resolve this:

1. Lower Your Lights – by lowering the height of your lights you reduce the reflections on their head. Of course, the problem here becomes the balancing act that has to take place if your subject also happens to be wearing glasses!

2. Remove Rim Lights – When dealing with baldness it’s worth considering doing away with your rim light entirely. Find alternate ways to separate your subject from the background.

3. Powder – Having some neutral powder on hand is always handy to reduce the shine of a bald head. If you’ve got a particularly proud male that won’t wear “makeup,” take a photo without any powder applied and show them the attention drawn to their head.

Exposing hair

Jumping back to the 3-point lighting setup, this all comes down to the rim light. As mentioned above, the rim light is the enemy of the bald head. However, it also wreaks havoc with grey hair. Be extra careful not to overexpose with grey hair as you will quickly blow the highlights much more easily than you would with colored hair.

Posing older clients

Posing older clients is tricky because, as we discussed in part one, there is a range of what constitutes being “elderly.” People around 65 years of age will probably be able to do many of your standard poses with great results. However, significantly older clients may have restricted mobility and health issues that prevent them from standing for long periods.

Stools are for fools

Assuming you are working with a client over the age of 80, it’s best to consider basing your shoot around them sitting down. The first thing to do is turf that stool that you use with your younger clients.

Older clients need the back support of a chair and could fall off something as unstable as a stool. They also may not have the core strength to support themselves on a stool leading to some very bad slumping.

Clients over the age of 80 with mobility issues are also likely to have recliner style chairs that they can easily disappear into.

Shooting front-on with your client in a large chair or recliner will tend to make them look small and wider if they are allowed to sink back.

Shooting this image, particularly front-on, will make the client appear small and can have an unflattering effect on their thighs (which will spread when seated in this manner).

To remedy this issue prop your client up with some pillows to create a better posture. If the client is quite frail, ask a family member to do this so that you don’t cause any harm.

Place pillows behind the client or ask them to sit towards the edge of the chair to shift their posture.

By bringing the client forward and focusing on the head and shoulders framing, the resulting image is more flattering.

By moving the client forward they will be less likely to slump resulting in a more flattering image.

Safe and secured gear

One of the major causes of injury in elderly people is falling over. Often they will be very used to everything being set up in their home a particular way. As such, moving furniture around and bringing in big gear can pose problems.

Firstly, only move furniture with their permission and, of course, put it back when you’re done! Ensure that you’ve left a clear path to the front door and the toilet in case of emergencies.

Secondly, secure your gear! At the very least put sandbags on your light stands and tripod. If you’re using anything that has cords, pull out that gaffer tape and stick it down.

Sandbag those lights and gaffer those cords so that you don’t end up responsible for a trip to the E.R.

An uninjured client is a happy client, so take those extra few minutes to make sure the area is safe.

Flattering posing angles

Great, you’ve got everything setup safely, now it’s time to pose your client.

Again, assuming you are dealing with a client who is older than 75, posing is about compromises.

Few people look great square-on, so start by asking your client to turn their body slightly away from the camera. Next, ask the client to turn their head back to the camera with their body facing the key light.

It’s often best to avoid having older clients tilt their head as this can cause bunching of the skin under the neck. Instead, keep the head perpendicular to the body and focus on asking them to push their jaw slightly forward to stretch their neck.

If your client is really concerned about their neck wrinkles, it will be best to shoot from slightly above the client and ask them to angle their chin down. Similarly, if a male client is worried about baldness, shooting from slightly lower than eye level reduces the focus on their head.

For clients who are unable to shift their neck or body due to age, a front-on shot can still be flattering, but you will want to try and shift the weight forward.

Move your subject as close to the edge of the chair as is safe while supporting their back. Clients who struggle to support their weight may benefit from placing their hands on their thighs

Prop the client up with pillows behind their back and ask if they are able to place their hands on their knees to support their weight while leaning forward a tad. Experiment with placement on the knees and thighs to find the position that allows for the most natural shoulder alignment.

Conclusion

Photographing elderly clients is a great way to bring together all of your basic lighting and posing principles with a few extra challenges thrown in to boot!

Experimentation is always key as you will have to work with the physical restrictions of your client’s age and the practical limitations of their home. By having a clear idea of your client’s expectations, the two of you can find a way to achieve an image that makes everyone happy.

Moreover, remember that sometimes they’ve earned those wrinkles and are damn proud of it!

The post A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 2 – Lighting and Posing appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Clinton Moore.

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3 Tips for Photographing Mixed Lighting in Interiors

17 Jan

The post 3 Tips for Photographing Mixed Lighting in Interiors appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.

For many photographers, photographing mixed lighting scenarios can be painful. At weddings, for example, several lighting sources provide constantly changing colors such as DJ lighting, candles, fairy lights and up-lighters in the venue. It’s not too dissimilar in your home. Say you have your indoor tungsten and incandescent lights on in your lounge while the bright natural daylight streams through the windows. You get two different light sources with different color temperatures, which is a mixed lighting scenario.

dps-tips-mixed-lighting

Mixed lighting scenarios

This scenario is the reason why, for interiors, the general advice is to turn all artificial lights off and stick to one light source – natural light. I am aware that some photographers use flash for interiors, and in most of those cases, they make sure they are using daylight color temperature for their bulbs to match the ambient light.

Natural light, even if there is very little of it, can still be perfectly fine for interiors. As long as you can mitigate the amount of available light by using a slow shutter speed with your camera mounted on a tripod because nothing in the picture moves. It is more difficult to achieve when you are photographing portraits because you have subjects – people – who are living, breathing and cannot hold still for an extended length of time.

This is why artificial lighting such as strobes and electronics flashes get used as primary lighting for portraits to provide a light source with a color temperature you can control.

dps-tips-mixed-lighting

However, sometimes, you want to break the rules and photograph for fun or to capture what the eye sees regardless of the types of lighting in the scene. Sometimes, it is appropriate to embrace it all, just like what I have done in the photo above! When you decide to do this, here are my tips for you!

1. Ensure there is even lighting

My easy tip is matching light with light such as this photo on the below-left, where these fairy-light-lit Christmas tree with other string lights are all placed in a very bright space. The same could work with dark as in the photo on the right. A lot of dim lighting to even out the room lighting.

dps-tips-mixed-lighting

If you have a room that has a very dark corner and a very light corner, you will inadvertently overexpose the light section to expose the dark area correctly. Also, vice versa.

Photographers get around this problem by doing a composite where they put two properly exposed photographs of each corner together in Photoshop to create a perfect scene. This method is commonplace in a backlighting scenario where you are facing a very bright window and not using flash.

dps-tips-mixed-lighting

However, if you don’t have or want to use Photoshop, instead of putting your artificial lighting, such as a neon light or a lampshade, in a dark corner, put it in a light corner. Doing so evens out the lighting in a space.

For example, when placing neon in a dark corner, to correctly expose the darkness surrounding it, the neon lights are overexposed. Conversely, underexposing the neon light means losing the details of the dark area such as in the shot above. However, if you have to, ensure there are other lights to illuminate the dark area as well. That way, the neon is not acting as the sole illuminator in the dark area. Balancing the amount of light makes it easier to photograph a space.

2. Shoot deep using a small aperture and slower shutter speed

Use an aperture upwards of f/5.6. My preference is f/8 and if need be f/11. These apertures help you get all the details in focus. However, if you are aiming for background bokeh as shown in the photo below if using standard lenses, you need to use either a wide aperture. Moreover, if you are using macro/micro lenses both wide and small apertures should be applied. Play it safe by shooting with at least an f/5.6 opening. These shots below were taken with a 24-70mm lens at f/2.8.

dps-tips-mixed-lighting

Shooting with a small aperture helps alleviate the problem of overexposing a bright source in a very dark corner especially if it’s the only light source. You can see an example of this in the below-left photo, with the living room corner illuminated by the incandescent bulb lampshade. Just to the right of the image, you can see the daylight seeping through from a different room. It looks so much colder and whiter compared to the warm yellow light in the left corner.

dps-tips-mixed-lighting

3. Ditch the rules and embrace all the fun

The above kitchen photo contains all sorts of lighting: natural daylight from the windows, warm lamp lights on the floating shelves (the darkest part of the entire space), red fairy lights on the foreground left and more warm tungsten on the top-left. This scenario is what one sees in real life so why change it to conform to the rules? Why not embrace it instead and aim to take an excellent realistic photo rather than change reality to fit the other people’s expectations!

I hope you found this little article helpful, albeit it’s not what’s expected and out of the ordinary! As always, comments and options welcome below. After all, we are all entitled to have our own!

The post 3 Tips for Photographing Mixed Lighting in Interiors appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.

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How to Use 5 Different Lighting Scenarios to Create Expert Studio Portraits [video]

12 Jan

The post How to Use 5 Different Lighting Scenarios to Create Expert Studio Portraits appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this week’s video from COOPH Master Chrissie White, you’ll learn how to use five lighting scenarios to create expert studio portraits.

Here are the 5 tips:

1. Natural Light and Reflector

Place your model next to window and place reflector on the opposite side of the face to create balanced light. For even light, shoot when the light isn’t coming directly through the window.

2. Side lighting

Side lighting creates a moody atmosphere for your image.

Place one light on to one side of the model and black card on the opposite side. This casts a shadow on one side of your models face so the light is split down the middle. if you don’t want it too moody, place a white card on the opposite side instead. That way the models face won’t be in complete shadow.

3. Butterfly lighting

Butterfly Lighting is commonly used for beauty lighting. It is an even light on the model. Place the light in front of the model and above them. You can also use a reflector underneath their face to even out the light.

4. Split lighting

This lighting is dramatic and flashy. Great for shooting athletes and fashion models. Place 2 lights approx 45 degrees behind the model. To soften and make less dramatic, add a butterfly light to the front of the model.

5. Backlighting

Place your light source behind the model to create a hair or rim light. Place another light in front of model or a white card to add some fill to remove the shadow from the face.

Add colored gels to the light to add color and drama. Use cellophane or gels. Be careful of hot lights though.

TIP: Look in the eyes of models for ‘catch-lights’ to see what type of lighting a photographer used.

You may also find these articles helpful:

One Speedlight Portrait Lighting Tutorial

6 Portrait Lighting Patterns Evey Photographer Should Know

10 Ways to take Stunning Portraits

How to Pose and Angle the Body for Better Portraits

Create Beautiful Indoor Portraits Without Flash

How to Create Awesome Portrait Lighting with a Paper Bag an Elastic Band and a Chocolate Donut

The post How to Use 5 Different Lighting Scenarios to Create Expert Studio Portraits appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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5 Creative Portrait Lighting Tricks Using Only Phone Light

21 Dec

The post 5 Creative Portrait Lighting Tricks Using Only Phone Light appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video by Derrick Freske, you’ll learn 5 creative portrait lighting tricks using only phone light!

Using only a phone light and some handy reflective props, you can achieve some of the great portrait photography looks in Derrick’s video.

Derrick’s tricks include using:

A disco ball
Scrapbooking paper
Sequinned fabric
Lace fabric
Prism

Try these out and we’d love to see some in the comments section below.

Follow Derrick Freske on Instagram.

You may also find the following articles helpful:

How to use Colored Gels to Create Unique and Creative Portraits

How to Make a Dramatic Portrait with Light Painting Using Items Found in Your Home

Tips for Planning and Capturing a Creative Portrait

How to Make Unique Portraits Using Light Painting

One Speedlight Portrait Lighting Tutorial

The post 5 Creative Portrait Lighting Tricks Using Only Phone Light appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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The Lume Cube Air is an ultra-portable app-controlled lighting solution

14 Nov

Based on the original Lume Cube, the new Lume Cube Air is a small, lightweight and affordable portable light source aimed at vloggers, casual photographers and other content creators.

The Lume Cube AIR features LED lighting with a 5700K daylight balanced color temperature, 400 LUX at 1m output, and a 60-degree beam angle. The light is waterproof down to 30 feet and weighs only 2oz (57g). A built-in magnet allows for easy attachment to many metallic surfaces but the Lume Cube Air also comes with a conventional tripod mount.

The light is controlled from the Lume-X iOS or Android mobile app which lets you connect to and combine multiple Lume Cube AIRs and control brightness, light mode and strobe speeds. You can also check battery levels, all via a Bluetooth connection.

In the box you’ll find white and orange diffusers for color correction, a lanyard and a USB charging cable. The Lume Cube Air is available now from Lumecube.com and select retailers globally for $ 69.95.

Press Release:

LUME CUBE AIR FOR ON-THE-GO CONTENT CREATORS NOW AVAILABLE

Unique features, slimmed-down size and extra accessories provide an all-in-one lighting solution for every content-creation challenge

CARLSBAD, Calif. – November 14, 2018 – Known as the world’s most versatile light for content creators, Lume Cube announced today the launch of the all-new Lume Cube AIR. Derived from the original Lume Cube, the Lume Cube AIR is the smallest, lightest, and most portable lighting device designed to help content creators capture better photo & video. With newly designed features, improved LED output, and multiple accessories included in every box, the latest solution is an affordable, all-in-one light that allows anyone hitting the “record” button to produce professional quality content on any device, from a smartphone to a professional DSLR camera. It is available now from Lumecube.com and select retailers worldwide for $ 69.95.

“As an innovative brand in the imaging market, we are committed to delivering valuable tools to help the growing community of content creators around the world capture stunning photos and videos,” said Riley Stricklin, co-founder at Lume Cube. “When developing the Lume Cube AIR, we made listening to our customers a priority. We wanted to ensure we fully understood their needs so that we could craft a portable lighting solution that best enables them to create quality, on-the-go content, all while at an economical cost. Based on this feedback, Lume Cube AIR has been designed as small and as sleek as possible, has a built-in magnet for more versatile mounting options, and includes multiple accessories inside the box to ensure our customers have everything needed to capture professional quality content in any environment.”

From the digital influencer and YouTube star, to the at-home vlogger and casual photographer, the Lume Cube AIR offers the perfect combination of size, power, durability, and light quality needed to illuminate any scene, whether on or off camera. For the first time, users will receive two diffusers (white and orange) inside the box that provide both diffusion and color correction capability, which is essential for any broadcast or live streaming application.

The Lume Cube AIR features:

Unmatched Light Quality & Custom Lens – Packed with the best LED specs for its size, the Lume Cube AIR lighting has a CRI rating of +/- 90, a 5700K daylight balanced color temperature, 400 LUX at 1M power, and a 60-degree beam angle.
Compact, Waterproof & Durable Design – Weighing in at just 2oz with overall dimensions of 1.625” x 1.625” x 1.125”, the Lume Cube AIR is the smallest and most portable light of its kind, allowing content creators to uncover new creative opportunities whether in the rain or submerged under water up to 30 feet.
Bluetooth & App Control – From the Lume-X iOS or Android app, users can connect to multiple Lume Cube AIRs and control brightness, light mode, strobe speeds, battery levels, and more. The Bluetooth functionality allows for a seamless connection and fast adjustment of any lighting set-up, creating a truly smart mobile studio.
Built-In Magnet – In addition to a tripod mountable thread, a built-in magnet provides complete mounting versatility and allows for numerous lifestyle applications outside of content creation. The Lume Cube AIR can be mounted to a bike, attached to a car for maintenance, put in manual Strobe Mode for emergencies, and much more.
In-Box Accessories – Out of the box, the AIR is equipped with the accessories needed to tackle any content-creation challenge. The white diffusion, orange (warming) diffusion, lanyard and charging cable provides an all-in-one solution for anybody looking to enhance the level of their content creation.

For more information on Lume Cube and the all-new Lume Cube AIR, visitwww.lumecube.com.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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