There are some debates about timeless photography that are fun to enter but will probably never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. There’s film versus digital, zoom lenses versus primes, compact minimalist cameras versus full-featured monster-sized pro cameras and of course, continuous light versus strobe . This article won’t try to determine if strobe or continuous light is better for portrait photography, but we’ll dive into how a photographer uses continuous light in a human shoot. recently famous.
Before we see how the photographer Isaac Alvarez used continuous light to shoot a commercial featuring actress Vivica A. Fox for the American Reality Television Awards, let’s take a look at a few downsides to using this lighting method. One downside is that the output from the constant light source is not as bright as the flash. This means that there are certain situations, such as being outdoors or even in a brightly lit indoor location, where the ambient light will show up with the artificial lighting you’ve been using. add. This is undesirable. You don’t want the ugly blue light from the fluorescent lighting to affect the appearance of the subject you’re trying to illuminate with a continuous light. Besides not being as bright as flash, fixture lights tend to be bulkier and heavier and will require the use of heavy C-shaped stands. Uninterruptible lights typically require AC power, and this makes them more of a hassle to set up, move, and reposition. Reliance on AC power can also limit where you can set up. In some corporate shooting situations, you may have to talk to the building manager before you can plug in the lights.
The other trick is that the constant lights are just that: constant. Having a light source hit your subject’s face during the shoot can be frustrating for that person. This is especially true if there is no dimmer in front of the light. When working with continuous light, you should find a balance between your own aesthetic needs as a photographer and the comfort of your subject.
Given these negatives, why might a photographer choose continuous light over strobe light? One advantage of constant lights is that they allow the photographer to see the results in real time without taking pictures. This is an important time saver for a famous shoot where there are dozens or more people on set and everyone is waiting for you to make micro-adjustments to get the lighting right. Any process that can speed things up is welcome. When using the strobe light, it can take only a second or two to adjust the lighting, take a photo, and review it on a laptop with a network connection, but this seems like an eternity as everyone on the studio is staring at you. Most wardrobes are equipped with model lights designed to simulate the effect of the final flickering look, but those model lights are not designed to overpower the ambient light in the room and are good. especially these lights provide an inaccurate picture of what’s in the end. What will the image look like? Continuous lighting is an important time saver, and continuous lighting can assure everyone on set that your lighting is always right, even when they don’t have access to the image. images as they appear on your laptop screen or camera LCD monitor.
With a full understanding of the strengths and limitations of using continuous light for portrait photography, Isaac chose to use continuous light for his shoot with Vivica. Knowing that Vivica was used to working under bright lights helped make this decision.
For the first setup, Isaac used a Godox FV150 with one Godox P120L Deep Parabolic Softbox modifier as Vivica’s main light and a Godox LC500R light stick as a hair lamp. A white door on Vivica’s side acts as a bounce board to fill the light on the opposite side of her main light. Behind Vivica is a black curtain, which Isaac uses as a backdrop to isolate the subject.
For the second setting, Isaac took a more industrial look. He placed Vivica in front of the electrical box, the cables, and the ladder. The LC500R is again used as a hair lamp, while the FV150 with the P120L dome is placed slightly behind her for the fill. Isaac set up another FV150 with a Godox QR-P90 Parabolic Soft Box crown and a blue gel cover part of the light to give the subject a slight blue tint.
For the final setup, Isaac used continuous lighting that was set up by a team of filmmakers working on the same project. Two four-band Kino Flos lights are used to illuminate the white background. Main lighting is provided by a Apurture 600D bounces onto the whiteboard and diffuses through a layer of silk for maximum diffusion. An Apurture 600D has a dome and mesh just above Vivica used as a hair light.
One interesting aspect of continuous light photography is that anyone who takes a picture of your subject on set with a smartphone will have an image that looks a lot like the final image you created with the camera. your real photo. This can be a potential problem or a potential benefit depending on what you are shooting and how these images are used. If you are photographing a child dancer and your intention is to sell as many photos as possible to the child’s parent, it wouldn’t be good if that parent has already taken some great pictures of the child dancing. dance in your perfectly positioned continuous light setup. This will likely reduce your sales. If you’re shooting a commercial and your rates are pre-agreed, you probably don’t worry if other people on set are taking pictures similar to yours. Perhaps the client wants as many social media posts about the shoot as possible, and the client will be pleased that the subject will be beautifully lit in your setup, even if the photo was taken by someone else. in the seduction group by mobile phone. In the BTS image above from Isaac’s shoot, you can see at least three people taking pictures with their phones where Vivica will have the same lighting as she does in the final images of Isaac. When a photographer uses strobe lights to illuminate a subject, the strobe lights will only fire when they are triggered by the photographer’s camera. Therefore, only images captured by the photographer’s camera will have the right lighting.
The images accompanying this article show that beautiful portraits can be taken using a constant lamp if the light is used in the right environment and properly positioned. What do you think about shooting with strobe versus constant light?
Image used with permission of Isaac Alvarez.
