How To Setup Flexible Portrait Lighting
Last time while visiting Beijing, I noticed that a new model joined our Chinese modelling online forum. Her name is Amelia.
I had the opportunity to do a quick little portrait shoot with her. For this photo shoot I made a simple yet flexible beauty lighting setup. The setup allows me to let the main light come from left or right at the flick of a switch. And the setup supports exchanging a black background for a white one in 15 seconds or so. Yeah, pitstop formula 1, baby. I took this oportunity to explain this type of setup in a video.
Press play - check it out:
Some photos from this portrait photo shoot:
Model: Amelia
Styling: Nizi
Location: Hotelroom in Beijing, China
Photos: Michael Zelbel
Hard to get my thick German accent? Here's the transcript!
Hey fellow photographer! How's it going?
I'm Michael Zelbel.
In this video I will show you a very quick and easy
one-light lighting setup.
I'm using the setup in order to warm up my models before the shoot.
That's very useful especially if you are shooting nude photos,
and you need to get the model comfortable in front of your lens.
The model we are warming up today is Cousin Emily.
You might go like: "Hey come on, Cousin Emily is so
used to photographs. She is a real pro. You don't need to warm her up!"
But, that's wrong actually! I think it's a very good practice
to warm up your model.
If the model is not yet comfortable in front of your lens
and in front of your lights you will read that
in her body language and in her facial expressions.
That gives you results which you usually don't want to have.
So better warm her up and make a sort of artistic shooting
with a few little photos upfront.
Usually you don't have so much time and resources
ahead of your actual shoot that is why I think you should
go for a super simple one-light lighting setup.
Something which is bullet proof, which definitely
produces good results which the model will like,
which is very easy to light and which gives you the
ability to shoot her nude but which does not show anything.
This is what we are going to do.
We achieve that by covering the model with
a big piece of silk so she is hidden underneath the silk.
Let's have a look at the actual lighting setup.
We have a simple black backdrop which is made up
out of two black curtains.
Those curtains have a gap in the middle, right in the middle.
The model is placed in the middle and she is
pretty close to that black curtain, 1.50 meter away.
That's not so much distance.
She is covered with a big piece of white silk,
which is thin enough to let some light go through,
but thick enough to - under normal lighting conditions -
not show anything.
The one speedlight that we use is placed right in
the gap of this two backdrops.
It's in this case a speedlight with guide number 58.
It's dialed down to 1/16th of its power,
zoomed back to 24mm so it got a broad cone of light,
which makes sure the light goes everywhere in the silk,
no matter how the model is posing.
The camera is a little bit further away,
4 meters or 13 feet and it's on standard settings,
1/200s, f/11, ISO400 and daylight white balance.
That's already it. Not so much to setup.
But it's ideal for warming up your model, not only a shy model.
The model may or may not wear underwear,
that really makes no difference.
What makes a bit of difference is the hairdo.
If she is tying up her hair that really makes for some nice,
fancy shapes underneath the silk.
Some mistake that I made in this little shoot was
I had Cousin Emily wearing high heels and jewelry.
It's not such a big difference but on this silhuetted photos
it does not really match the emotion of the photos.
Wearing nothing would be much better.
Especially if you use a little trick:
You can, for instance, turn around the photos 180 degrees
and then it looks like a sort of cocoon.
If she is then inside this cocoon she looks like a
sort of embryo, actually an embryo with boobs,
but still something like an alien embryo.
And then high heels and jewelry, you know,
doesn't really match. But whatever. It's just for warming up. I don't care.
You can give your model permission to do all sorts of
wired poses underneath the silk, wired expressions.
That makes her free to later on also do wired poses.
That really warms her up.
It's ideal for that because she is so covered.
If you still say: "Michael, bullshit, you don't really
need to warm up your model so much!"
I would ask you to do ONE thing, because then
for sure you haven't done one thing:
Have somebody taking nude photos of yourself!
And I really mean that. Do it! Do it at least one time!
I don't blame you if you never did it, but now go
and ask a photography buddy to shoot some nude
photos of yourself.
Because this way you experience how exposed a nude
model feels in front of a lens.
Then you will know that even a seasoned pro of a model
feels quite exposed and it's a good idea to make her
comfortable and warm her up.
Alrighty! Enough for this week, now please click on the like button,
click on the plus one button, drop a comment,
and come back next Thursday!
I wish you good light!
Hi all,
I wanted to do a favor for those of you who cannot understand my strange, German-accent English. So I transcribed the video into strange, German accent written English:
Hey, photography friend, how is it going? I am Michael Zelbel. I am still here in Beijing. It is my last day. Tomorrow I am going to fly back to Germany, but today, I still have one spontaneous shooting with a new model, Amelia. She just signed up for the model forum, like, three days ago. I thought she got a wonderful face for a couple of portraits and that’s what we are going to shoot today, some crazy portraits. It will be very interesting, so keep on watching.
This lighting setup will be all about flexibility. I did not really plan the shooting. I know I just want to do a simple portrait, but there are so many variations. I don’t know the model. I don’t know whether her face is better from this side, from that side, which means should I have my main light coming from the right or from the left. I don’t know whether it is better to have her long beautiful black hair open, and probably place it in front of a black background or whether we should tie it up and place her in front of a bright white background. We will try out. I will try out and learn. And for that I need a really really flexible setup. And this is what I am going to do. I will, uh, I will use two speed lights as my main light sources. This is Speed Light A and I will have it sitting over here and have the speed light a bit higher coming from this side, like this. Just above the table, 45 degree angles, Speed Light A. Same on the other side, Speed Light B. Now the good thing with those two speed lights now is I can control from the camera, and from the on-camera flash, I can control which one of those is my main light. I just have to dial one control and say the ratio is now 2-to-1, so 2 times the light from here, 1 time the light from there. Then when I tell her to turn her nose toward this side, I just dial, uh, dial it and I have 2 times the light from here and just 1 time the fill-in light, from over there. So, it’s just one second to change the position of my main light. I would shoot from over there, to over here. I need a fill-in from below. And for that, I just put a simple white towel ontop of the table. It will reflect a decent amount of light. Here we are. Beauty light from all the sides, nothing can go wrong. ETTL, as I said – even I can’t mess it up. Good, now the background. Uh, over here, I have got windows. Uh, I can let down the curtains. Then it is, ah, pretty much bright background, creamy bright one, which would need some more light to peer white, or I want to have black. Black is very simple, I’ve got my big reflector, I’m just, uh, put it over here. I just put it over here, lean it against a chair, if I shoot from there, then, now I have got a black background. She has got black hair and probably I would have her wear a black hat. Then I would need some head light. And for that, I would use this, another little speed light. Will hang it under the ceiling, zoom it to, uh, to 105mm. So it is, uh, emitting a very directed beam of light. We will hang it this way around, right over here. So we just hit her head over here. In case I want to have the bright background, I just have to remove this reflector, turn this speed light around. Pull out the build-in diffuser, so it zooms out to 14 mm. Now it is emitting a very broad cone of light to the whole wall, to the whole window wall over there. If I now shoot her against the light, then this will be brightened by this speed light. It’s set to group C, so I can control it again from the camera. To brighten up the wall, I would probably dial it to +1 over-expose the wall by one f-stop. To have deliniation in the hair, I would set it to -3 to have just a little bit of light over here. And uh, it is just a matter of two seconds to change the setup.
Okay, that’s it. Now we can try out a lot of things within a few minutes. Let’s do so.
[Photoshoot here]
There you have it, just a little portrait shooting, but with quite some variations. Uh, and the speed lights, especially the ETTL element of the speed lights, it was quite helpful. It makes it a whole lot faster. So, I hope you enjoyed it. And uh, I hope you have fun with your shoots, and I hope to see you soon. Until then, I wish you good light. Bye-bye.
Thanks for the video tutorials. It's exactly what I've been looking for to learn lighting. I will be trying your technique shown in this video today, but I have one question. During this shoot/tutorial, did you also have an on camera flash? You don't mention it, but while you are shooting I see a flash on your camera. Just wondering if I'll need my on camera flash for this.
Thanks!
~Sandra
great work michael, thanks for sharing.
I've just watched all your vids and have picked up a fair few tips.
Sandra, I so glad you like it! In the shoot I did use an on camera flash as a trigger for the other flashes. The on camera flash did not contribute to the exposure. You do not need it. A radio trigger or a cable to one of the other flashes would do the same job.
Having said that, on other setups I often use the on camera flash as a subtle fill in flash. When I am working with harder light and with shaddows on the subject, then the on camera flash is good at providing just enough light to rescue the shaddows from sinking into black. If you use the on camera flash for this, then in a perfect world you would use a ringflash adapter. I never do that because I am lazy and a ring flash adapter is a nightmare to handle. However, for perfect results and for complete avoidance of drop shaddows from the on camera flash light, I would need to use it.
Hey Michael,
I love following the pictures online, of course I am always open for new tips on my pics. I am looking at taking pictures of models in the near future for my own interest. Next time you are around in DE (you know what city) let me know I would like to meet up and pick your brain ;)
Talk soon,
Stuart
Yep, cousin, I am now in the city we don't speak of.
Hi Michael... Firstly thank you! for the wealth of information on your website and in YouTube, I have just finished watching all your videos.
Secondly do you have a forum on your website?
And finally, I am becoming a strobist and shoot with a Canon 20D. My flash is a 420ex. I plan to buy an ST-E3 and another 420 or 430ex. I can't afford the new Odin system. Is this a good move towards getting into speedlight photography? The ST-E3 appears to offer the functionality I need from off-camera flash including ratios although the 420ex flash is an automatic only option (no manual zoom or power settings)
Many thanks once again...
Goose
GREAT! you are.
Hi,
I am trying to use one shoot thru umbrella. But I am not sure why seems like I am getting hot spots...
Like in this pic..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14783330@N02/6230702422/in/photostream
The cheek seems too hot...
Is my umbrellat to far/ or close ? or I need fill in ?
Thank you
PS. I really enjoy your videos and your simple style.
I have a question on the Canon flash system in ETTL. What happens to the Zoom on the slave flashes when doing either canon flash or radio flash, especially when the slave flashes are much closer to the subjects than the camera is to the subjects? Do the slaves "red light sides" need to be pointed at the subject for zoom to work? Or can they be pointed at the camera Master to get more consistent flash,(or towards the ceiling if you are bouncing the master)?
Cheers, and thanks for all your help, the beautiful models and the posing inspiration.