Trade-offs between Planned Shoots and "Winging It"
Hard vs. Soft Light
Direct Light - relative size of light source
Softening Light by Bouncing - reflectors, white walls
Softening Light by Diffusing- scrims
Manipulating Natural Light
Reflectors, scrims, and using the environment to bounce light
Very brief introduction to the Inverse Square Property of light and its impact on natural & light photography (becomes more important with studio lighting)
Using the environment to add interest
foreground & background elements
How affected by depth of field
Work Session 1: Natural / Found Lighting
Demonstration
Communicating clearly with the model
Demonstration of ways to get very different images without changing model/pose/framing/location
Using DOF
Shutter Speed / dragging the shutter
Demonstration of common natural light gotchas (blown out sky / underexposed subject, hard shadows, poor communication)
Remembering the model (how to avoid focusing too much on technical aspects of photography)
Student Shooting
Show and Tell and (Gentle) Critique for first session images
Introduction to Continuous Lighting
Different technologies - Incandescent vs. CFL, vs. LED panels vs. LED lamps vs. "hot" fresnel vs. "cold" (LED) fresnel
Light modifiers - softboxes, umbrellas, beauty dishes, etc.
Same basic exposure rules as natural light - exposure triangle, etc.
Problems with continuous lighting
Generally underpowered compared to studio strobes require bumping ISO, opening aperture wide, and/or using slow shutter.
Technology has improved a lot, and LED continuous lights have gotten very bright, but even high power continuous lights are less powerful than most studio strobes because continuous light that bright would be unpleasant for the model
SLOW DOWN. Contiuous lighting allows you to shoot as fast as you camera can close the shutter. Outdoors, that can be valuable, especially for capturing movement, but inside or in the studio, if you shoot too fast, you're usually just creating multiple nearly identical images.
Introduction to Photographic Lighting (stuff that applies to both continuous and strobe lighting)
Terminology & Basics
Light Name by Job
Key Light
Fill Light
Accent Light
Separation Light (kicker/hairlight/rimlight)
Background Light
Light Control
Snoot
Barndoors
Zoom/Long Throw reflectors
Grids & Honeycombs
Beauty Dishes (with and without blocker or diffuser)
Umbrellas
Softboxes, Octoboxes, and Strip Lights
Reflectors as additional "light sources"
Flags and V-Flats
Gels
Hard vs. Soft Light (redux)
"Hard Light is Hard Mode"
Broad vs. Short
High Key and Low Key
Stock Lighting Setups (starting points)
Rembrandt
Paramount & Butterfly
Clamshell
Loop
Split (with and without fill)
Badger
Flat
Shatner
Effect of light angle and elevation
Importance of Color Temperature
Breaking out of the Basics
Experimenting with light positions
Trust your eye - every person and environment is different. Stock setups are starting points, adjust to get result you want
Flash & Shutter Speed
Freezing movement
Shutter dragging
light trails
Work Session 2: Indoor Continuous Lighting
Demonstration
Briefly talk about set decoration, using indoor environment
Incorporating continuous lighting with natural light (usually? DON'T)
Student Shooting
Show and Tell and (Gentle) Critique for second session images
Prosumer (Paul C. Buff Einstein, Godox AD series, Flashpoint XPLOR/EVOLV )
Professional (Elinchrom, ProFoto, Speed-o-tron)
Triggers
Recycle Time
Advanced Features
TTL
HSS
Breaking the Exposure Triangle
Most of the time, shutter speed doesn't matter (as long as fast enough to freeze motion and slower than camera sync speed)
studio lighting exposure triangle is ISO, Aperture, Light Intensity
In rare situations (studio light trails and shutter dragging, combining natural & studio lighting) end up with exposure quadrangle (ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed, Light Intensity)
Work Session 3: Classic Studio Lighting
Demonstration
Show turning individual lights on and off to see what each is contributing
Demonstrate basic loop/clamshell/rembrandt
Student Shooting
Show and Tell and (Gentle) Critique for third session images
Mixing Natural and Artifical Light
Decide which is dominant
If sun is dominant light source, strobes fill in where needed
If a strobe is dominant light source, make sure ratio between strobe power and brightness of sun is correct. Fill can be either sunlight or strobes or both
The Sync Speed Problem
On a bright day, required shutter speed even at low ISO might be higher than camera sync speed
Neutral Density Filters
High Speed Sync
To TTL or not to TTL
Session 4: Natural + Studio Light
Demonstration
Student Shooting
Show and Tell and (Gentle) Critique for third session images
Session 5: Free for All Practice
Student Shooting
Challenges of Shooting Multiple Models / Groups
Session 6: Multi-Model Opportunity (if there are multiple models, should give students a chance to shoot with multiples)
Demonstration?
Student shooting with multiple models
Wrap up and farewells
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