Now You Can Practise With Studio Lighting!

The main advantage of the studio is the possibility to set up required illumination with the help of special lighting equipment, such as studio flashes, reflectors etc….

The studio lighting sources can be of the impulse and constant nature.

Constant lighting sources are powerful halogen lamps, which consume a lot of power and produce enormous amount of heat. That is why they are rarely used in photography, but their best application can be found in video shooting instead.

Impulse lighting sources (studio flashes) consist of two lamps: a flashing lamp itself and a simple “pilot lighting” lamp of small power (around 300W). “Pilot lighting” is required to assess the shadowing picture, and, of course, its power is not enough for shooting. The power of the studio impulse lighting sources is indicated in joules, (J). For example, 150J, 300J, 500J, 1000J. A power switch can be found in the back of every lighting source; the more power is on, the brighter the light is, and the greater bills you receive for electricity.

Besides, impulse lighting sources can be divided by mono blocks and generators.

In a mono block, the controlling elements, the lamp (flash) and the “pilot” are combined in one body, which is installed on a tripod and powered on. In a generator control elements of several lighting sources are placed in a single body, to which the lamps are connected. The possibility of managing several lighting sources quickly is the key advantage of the generator. Such devices are usually of the higher class and have better characteristics than mono blocks (such features as power capacity, the length of impulse, speed of recharge etc.) Consequently, generators are more expensive.  

Light-forming attachments - these are the mounted frames, which are connected to the lighting sources through a mechanical connection (bayonet joint), needed to change the character of the luminous power.

The lighting character

·        Directional light (hard & sharp) – leaves highly visible transitions of light and shadow on the lens, and in some ways even the lens flare (for example, projector, bright sun or any point-lighting source). Directional light is produced by snoots, soft reflectors as Beauty Dish, honeycomb grids and so on.

·        Scattered light (calm & shadowless) – the light, which is illuminated on a large surface, evenly covering the object, leaving no sharp shadows and flares (for example, the light from the window, which is curtained by the white blind; the reflected light from the white wall; overcast weather – reflections of light from the clouds). Special photo umbrellas are used to produce that kind of lighting (bounce light or through-light), as well as soft boxes with lots of modifications.

umbrellas and a soft box

Reflectors

They are also called “passive” photo equipment, because they do not produce the light but only reflect it (or light goes through them), allowing to change its direction, character and color temperature. Usually they are of white, black, golden or silver fabric, which is put on the round or rectangular frame.

Impulse synchronization

Impulse synchronization is the simultaneity of the lighting impulse and opening of the camera shutter. We may find the following types of synchronizers as they are used in photography today: infrared synchronizer, synchro cable and even the photo camera flash itself.

·         Infrared synchronizer is the most common type of impulse synchronization. It looks like a small box which is installed on the place of external lighting flash of your camera (the so-called “hot shoe”). Synchronization is run through the infrared impulse and then received by a special light-capturing device in the mono blocks.

·         Synchro cable allows synchronization of your studio lighting flash and your camera through a synchro connector. But pay attention to the fact, that types of connectors around the company-producers differ a lot, so you should know exactly which cable you need to plug in your camera and the source of lighting.

·         The lighting flash of your camera (internal or external one) triggers the rest of the lighting sources with the light-capturing devices in there. But if you feel like reducing the influence of your camera flash into the lighting picture of the photographed object, you need to cover it (for example, by a piece of cardboard) to reduce its power. In most of cameras the flashing process runs as follows: first, an initial impulse is made (it measures the exposure), being followed by the main lighting impulse. Our eye perceives these two flashes as one, but light-capturing devices are activated at the 1^st impulse, so we may receive an underexposed shot. Solution: turn off the initial impulse in your camera or in flash (for example, in Nikon cameras), or try to use the “exposure memory” feature. There are also impulse sources that pass through the 1^st estimated impulse and thus are activated at the 2^nd main impulse, but this is not a common practice anyway. That is why we may call the type of synchronization with the help of a camera flash as being quite inconvenient.

·         Radio synchronization (through a radio channel) is widely used in the photo studios today. Usually it is a set of the transmitter (plugged in the “hot shoe” of your camera just as the infrared synchronizer) and the receiver (connected to a synchro connector of the lighting source). The key advantage of radio synchronization is that it is not becoming “blind” during the bright sunny weather (if shooting out of studio) and does not receive any other outside lighting impulses, thus not triggering a “faulty” and unexpected lighting flash. Besides, in the studio environment, you may find it really helpful to allow some more mobility to the photographer, being not concerned by the length of the synchro cable at all.

Measuring the exposure in the impulse lighting

Please remember, that we cannot measure the exposure in the full auto mode in the studio environment, while working with the impulse lighting. That is why studio shooting should be held in the Manual (M) mode of your camera.

Matrix sensitivity (ISO)

Try to shoot with the lowest possible sensitivity for your camera so as to avoid too much noise on the picture. Also, it is highly recommended to shoot in the RAW mode and not in JPG.

Shutter speed

The shutter speed of the mono block impulse is quite low, so we need to set the so-called “X-synchronization” shutter speed in the camera (usually 1/200 sec – 1/500 sec.). The shutter speed of synchronization is the minimum shutter speed, where the shutter is fully opened. If you set a low shutter speed (more shorter) you will receive an unexposed (black) part in the shot, but if the shutter speed is longer, it won’t affect your picture because the power of the impulse lighting in a studio is much higher (comparing with the natural light), and the length of impulse is low.

In other words, there are three ways to manage exposure

1.      Changing the diaphragm value

2.      Changing the power of light sources

3.      Changing the distance from a model to the light source

Measuring the right exposure

First, for the purpose of measuring the right exposure (the right diaphragm) we may use a special device called a light meter. It works with impulse lighting well.

The alternative to the flash meter is the histogram of the shot. It is a graph of half-tone image distribution, where the horizontal axis represents brightness (half tone levels from black color on the left to the white color on the right), and vertical axis represents relative number of dots with the value of brightness (the higher the column is, the more dots it has there).

Studying the histogram we understand the general view on the right exposure (looking at overexposure and underexposure) and finally assess the required change of exposure. When shooting an object, look at the shot histogram and prevent it from reaching the top side on the left of your screen (which means the shot was underexposed) or on the right side (when your shot was overexposed). The best shot (its exposure) is always represented on a histogram as being evenly distributed on the horizontal axis, although it always depends on a certain shot and the situation as well.

And you already know that the best knowledge is practice! Don't be afraid to try! And ask your questions on our forum!