Learning how to use artificial lighting in your photography can be overwhelming for any beginner. Apart from familiarizing yourself with new equipment, you also have to study how light behaves in different scenarios. To help you start with studio photography, Mark Wallace of Adorama TV teaches you a few essential lighting terms you’ll need to grasp to succeed.
How colour contamination may be ruining your photographs and how to fix it
Whether you’re aware of the correct terminology or not, you have likely experienced this colour contamination happening in your photographs already.
Put simply, colour contamination is when one colour is affected by the presence of another colour in close proximity. So for example, if you’re photographing two friends side by side, one of them is wearing a white t-shirt and the other one is wearing a red t-shirt, the white t-shirt will likely take on a pinkish tone due to the fact that it’s receiving bounced light from the red t-shirt close by.
5 ways to avoid lens flare with studio lighting
If you’re unfamiliar with what lens flare is then it’s the hazy washed out areas in an image that appear far brighter than they should do. You usually can’t see flare with your own eyes but when you take a shot, there it is and often it’s an undesired effect that can ruin several aspects of your photo including contrast.
7 common studio portrait lighting mistakes and how you can avoid them
We all make mistakes in photography. All of us. But these are things which help us learn and grow as photographers. We make mistakes, we figure out what went wrong, we correct it and then don’t make that mistake again. Thanks to the modern Internet, though, we can learn from the mistakes of others, too.
In this video, photography Antti Karppinen talks us through 7 of the most common lighting mistakes photographers make shooting portraits in the studio. But he’s also going to show us how we can avoid them, too.
This Isolite modifier system lets you relight your photo in post
And we’re not talking iPhone Portrait Lighting mode here. This is light actually recorded on-set, that can be adjusted and changed in post. It’s a bit like how you can relight objects in 3D software, but there’s no 3D software in use here, this is all captured in-camera, thanks to Isolite. It’s a new series of light modifiers being funded through Kickstarter.
Describing itself as “The World’s First Intelligent Light Modifier”, Isolite claims to actually let you turn lights on or off in post. And it’s not simply brightening and darkening different areas of the image, it actually knows how each of the different lights are contributing to the shot. It works with almost any camera (that shoots raw) and just about any flash or strobe, too.
Learn to light portraits by photographing vegetables
Today seems to be a day for portrait related posts. We’ve had the breakdown studio lights from Mark Wallace. And a complete start to finish location portrait process from Francisco Hernandez. Now, from Ed Verosky, we have another way to practice portrait lighting and experiment. Photographing vegetables.
Five ways to improve your lighting skills
To produce photos of a certain look, we need to know exactly how to use the light. In this video, Hans Rosemond gives you five tips that will help you improve your lighting skills in no time.
What I particularly like about this video is that these are not “technical tips” about types of lighting and where to put them. These are the guidelines that will help you get the right mindset and attitude when it comes to lighting the scene. And when you master those, you’ll master any kind of lighting setup you need for the shoot.
7 truths of shooting natural light only
Natural light is beautiful and can give you incredible shots if you know how to use it. But should you limit yourself only to the natural light? Photographer Jason Lanier discusses this matter in a very honest and objective way. As a photographer who used to shoot only in natural light and later learned artificial lighting, you’ll hear seven truths about being a “natural light photographer.”
Natural light photographers, here is how to start using studio lighting
When you decide to take the step from natural light and start shooting with artificial lighting, you may not know where to start learning. Daniel and Rachel from Mango Street have teamed up with photographer Daniel DeArco to introduce you to the basics of studio lighting. And when they do it, it seems less scary and it will help you successfully take the first steps.
Broncolor helps you learn dozens of lighting setups for free
If you’re new to studio photography, here’s something you could find immensely helpful. Broncolor has a wonderful learning section to help you learn dozens of different lighting setups for all kinds of studio and outdoor shots. Portraits, product photos, sports, still life and more – there are image examples with explanations of all the settings. Even if you’ve been into studio photography for a while, you can get inspired and learn something new. And you can do it all for free.
