Learning, slowly, about lighting

[RalphLambrecht]

I wish you a speedy recovery from your painful shingles.

me too; thankfully,I was over it in about ten days with he help of antibiotics don't let your doctor talk you out of successful shingle treatment requires antibiotics.

 

[drmoss_ca]

If you mean antivirals I'm completely with you! I have to take a low dose daily for a year after a bone marrow transplant, and as soon as I was sure it was shingles pain (I've had it twice before) I tripled the dose to the full treatment dosage and will keep that up for ten days. When I had shingles before I recovered reasonably quickly, but then I had some remnant of immunity from having had chickenpox as a child. This time I have a brand new immune system, like a newborn, so I'm completely dependent on the antiviral to stop this generalising into adult chickenpox (which is a disaster). I have started having all the immunizations of infancy already, but I'm not allowed a live/attenuated virus vaccine for two years in case even the attenuated virus overwhelms me. Sadly, that means no chickenpox/shingles/measles/mumps/rubella vaccines for two years.

 

[Steve2997]

Another possibility, or rabbit hole to go down, is continuous lighting (aka Hot Lights) with fresnel lenses. The famous Harcourt studio in Paris usually has some behind the scenes photos that show how they are using a mix of Mole-Richardson and Arri fresnels along with some Dedolights, to get the "old Hollywood" look that they specialize in.

https://www.studio-harcourt.com

 

[drmoss_ca]

Another possibility, or rabbit hole to go down, is continuous lighting (aka Hot Lights) with fresnel lenses. The famous Harcourt studio in Paris usually has some behind the scenes photos that show how they are using a mix of Mole-Richardson and Arri fresnels along with some Dedolights, to get the "old Hollywood" look that they specialize in.

https://www.studio-harcourt.com

That looks fascinating! When I was doing paper negatives (ISO 3) I used up to three CFT lamps and a strobe on top sometimes. Never seen a real incandescent photographic light in use.

 

[Steve2997]

Yes, you likely wouldn't see them except on motion picture or television sets. Now most replaced for studio work by cooler lights, but still found on lighting trucks for movies. Like so much analog gear, these were cheaper five years ago but still often available for USD 50-100.

 

[M Carter]

Just noticed this thread, some thoughts -

Continuous lights are nice, but tungsten is the cheaper way to go - but they're hot and can be an issue with diffusion materials. Youc an find used theatrical fresnels all over the place, but in my experience, you need 500 watts or so to have a lot of flexibility. Harbor Freight "Router speed controls" make good dimmers for them (with B&W film, as the clor warms as you dim 'em) - those controlas can take up to 1K, household dimmers will be more limited.

LEDs are awesome but pricey for useful output (I use them all week for commercial video). I can stuff an Aputure Lightstorm panel ($600-$700) in a softbox and get about F4 at ISO 400. I have a Falcon Eyes 100 watt flexible panel ($270 or so), but it's about half the output of the lightstorm.

I'm 100% strobes for stills, and if the setup is at all complex, I use a DSLR (well, mirrorless) to proof the shots - just like polaroid back in the day. Even shooting 8x10, use a similar focal length and everything matches up. I have a B&W camera profile that's very close to film. Beyond lighting quality, it can point out things like grip gear in the shot or odd reflections you'll miss.

With softboxes, I'd say 90% of the time I want a fabric grid on the thing. I have 30" x 8" strip boxes, various rectangles, even a 6' strip. But I really like using 11" grid heads for portraits as sort of a "face fill".

Hard light is great for showing shape and form, I love it on cheekbones from behind.

This is a grid reflector on the face and some various soft lights - no diffusion, just letting some flare creep in, on E6:

Hard light from behind, and a mesh scrim to tone down his hands:

Two light setup, 11" grid with mylar behind the grid, and a tungsten light on the BG, 1/2 second exposure - after the flash popped I cranked the focus to hell for the BG:

Hard + soft, just playing with angles, flares added in post:

No real rules to this stuff, just have fun - having a willing model is half the battle!!!

 

[christophern]

Hello Dr. Moss . . .

Sorry it took me over a year to come across your post. I hope that your health is better. By now you may have already finished your project, I don't know. I thought I'd contribute, anyway, for anyone researching the subject later.

First of all, thanks so much for your kind words about the book that my late writing partner, Roger Hicks, and I wrote on Hollywood Portrait lighting; he would have been pleased, and I'm glad you found it useful!

I totally agree that digital works well as the new "Polaroid", to help us better visualize results before making actual exposures. (Speaking of the word, "visualize", it reminds me that Ansel Adams actually did this, using Polaroid materials!)

At the risk of sounding obvious, I would say that your efforts to achieve the so-called 'Hollywood' look would be greatly helped simply by using the same type of lighting and techniques which were used to make those great portraits in the first place: tungsten floods and tungsten fresnel-lensed spotlights. As has already been said here, one of the biggest advantages of this sort of lighting is that you can actually see the effect, immediately. In fact —once you've standardized your parameters — you may not even need a "digital Polaroid" in order to visualize your portrait; I find that I can actually see the final image 'pop up' before my eyes when the right lighting is finally adjusted. A few technical points: be careful to adjust the power output, distances, heights and lateral directions of your lighting fixtures, as mentioned in our book.

Lastly, I don't believe the full look can normally be achieved without detailed retouching (though it's sometimes possible).

Attached is a portrait I made of a friend — a "digital Polaroid" of my own— that I put here to illustrate a few of my points.

Best,

Christopher Nisperos

 

[wiltw]

I am long a proponent of the use of a SINGLE CONSTANT light source to learn lighting principles, as applied to portrait photography.
As a student of lighting, it is important to instantly see what changes in lighting angle do (both L/R and up/down position)...

• see where shadows are cast on the face
• see how shadow position can flatter or make hideous a visage
• learn how broad lighting vs. short lighting can flatter different types of faces

After you learn to position a single source to be able flatter any type of face, then you can use a second source/reflector to reduce shadow contrast.
All the above will make lighting more intuitive than simply mimicing 'formula' lighting. It decreases setup time, when you get portrait clients who you might have a hard time with, when the attention span is short or their time is short.

THEN you can learn what things like softboxes or umbrellas do, to soften shadow edges (penumbra).

And finally, then you can learn to employ a third or fourth or more light source for other purposes.

Strobes are great because they increase exposure, allowing higher shutter speeds and smaller apertures for greater DOF. But they prevent you from SEEING immediately, to LEARN from what you see... unless you have strobes with modelling lights.

 

[gone]

If I have to use artificial lighting, or even if it's outdoors, I find a phone nearly always will show me reflections that I missed by just looking at the model. Outside, I usually can see that, but not always. So a phone can be used for the same purpose as a Polaroid.

There are few things more annoying than taking what you thought was the perfect portrait, only to realize later that a stray reflection or uneven lighting ruined the shot.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Since I rather hate digital cameras I am only able to learn very slowly about artificial lighting. I am aware that during some supposed 'golden age' photographers would check their lighting with a Polaroid back on the Hasselblad before committing rolls of film to a set-up that was going to be a disaster. Very sensible too.
Lately I have been re-reading Hicks and Nisperos book about the lighting of classic Hollywood portraits, which is really a remarkable piece of work. I was inspired to try something out, using a high-mounted strobe as key, and a right of camera CFT fill. I got a set of photos that were OK, but were absolutely nothing like I envisaged. It was clear to me that the softbox on the strobe was a large part of the problem, and that I had not done anything to check what the results might have been like before using a whole roll of film. As I am working my way, perhaps painfully, with an obsession with Olympus half-frame SLRs, there certainly isn't the option of using a Polaroid back, even if either the back or the film were available. Having occasionally used an ancient Canon G9 as a kind of exposure meter before exposing an expensive piece of 10x8 film, I decided to go a bit further down that road. Maybe a bit further than this forum allows, so I will post only a link to the result, not the image.
My first film used a strobe set very high and pointing down, with a CFT fill light from the right of the camera. I used a corded flash meter to set the exposure, and it all worked exactly as it ought, but nothing like the way I had envisaged! This is a half-frame picture (you'll just have to cope with my current obsession with half-frame Olympus SLRs, so sorry about that!):



A perfectly nice photo, but nothing like what I had in mind. I could see that the softbox on the strobe was destroying the harsh shadows I wanted. So today I took it off and set up another experimental exposure with the same strobe, no fill light (laziness being my only excuse), and exposure measured with a corded flash meter on the better-lit nose, rather than the usual chin and lips (wanting to keep them dark). Here comes the forbidden part: I took a digital camera, and spent at least as much time in its menus as would normally develop and dry a film, so that it was set to the same fixed ISO as the film I wanted to use (640, being Kentmere 400 developed in Diafine), manual exposure set to f16 and 1/60 as my trusty flash meter prescribed, and to auto-focus on a half-press of the shutter button along with a remote release cable. I may need therapy for the time spent in those menus! Being at home alone under house arrest as prescribed by a recent bone marrow transplant, despite triple vaccination, you will have to put up with a nearly hairless and ugly subject. It's tough being a reader of Photrio, but there we are. I took one shot, being bored already by all the set up. It came out much more like the result I had wanted, and I shall expend a roll of film doing it this way next weekend when the family (poor devils!) are home.

So what's the message here? Perhaps it is not to be afraid to use digital as a modern Polaroid test shot. Perhaps it's just that I'm not very good at this as yet. If so, I don't care, as long as I have enough fun doing it to keep me entertained. Anyway, I may end up taking a selfie in which I look like Cary Grant (or more likely Bela Lugosi) - it doesn't matter as long as I have fun doing it and perhaps inspire someone else to have some fun too!

It's easier said than done but true. The only way to learn lighting, is shooting, shooting, andmore shooting