Shedding some light on the matter

I spent Easter Monday with a professional photographer Damian Comans learning about lighting (especially incorporating artificial lighting).  It is something I had not looked into and I knew there was a lot to learn and did not feel confidant in going out and buying any speedlites without knowing how to use them.  Damian was introduced to me through a work colleague of mine who said his mate was looking to do some photography workshops and would I be interested. Of which of course I said  yes. It turned out that lighting happened to be one of his strong points so it was all looking good.

We covered a lot during the afternoon and I had written up lots of notes during the day.

Things we covered:
- Getting the basics right (Aperture/shutter speed)
- Setting the position of the light source
- Setting the power of the light source
- Using only 1 light source e.g. shots indoors
- Using another light source e.g. outdoors!
- Using reflectors and positioning of reflectors
- Using gels and adjusting the white balance (OMG this is where I need my notes)
- oh and shooting in RAW files (of which I had to convert to DNG as the Aperture seemed to not like portrait photos!)

It was a brilliant insight and can’t wait to play around with lighting shots again.  I just ordered my Canon speedlite 540ez, reflectors (5 in 1!!), light stand, umbrella and wireless trigger thingy!!


Here are the shots from the day which shows my learning curve. Ignore the compositions, the purpose is to show you the different shots I took throughout the day of which there were looooaaaaads of. (well that’s my excuse anyway). Thanks very much Damian for an enjoyable afternoon and thanks to the lovely model Nadine for braving the windy weather outside! 

Light source to left 

A bit too light?

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

Too dark!

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

Almost right!

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

 Light source behind

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

whooo - halo affect!

Outside 

Standing too close to Nadine with the lens in her face gives her a bulbous head - a NO NO when taking pictures of people! (picture of left)  Instead, stand back and zoom in instead (picture on right)
   






Light source from sun and flash




This one looks like the power was too much from the speedlite
Aperture f/13; Shutter speed: 1/160; ISO 100

This one incorporates both light sources (the sun and the speedlite), but still has harsh shadows in her right side of her face

Aperture: f/9; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 100

Using Gels
This is really cool! The use of colour gels stuck on the speedlite gives the photo a completely difference feel. It colour gel removes that colour from the scene.  And the white balance is re-adjusted using a grey card as a reference.

So looking at my pictures this was using an orange gel, and the shot of me using the grey card to re-adjust the white balance

and hey you get this…

And so we used a blue gel

and the outcome is this…

Cool huh?! Yeah well it will be once I find my notes!! :/
Reflectors were used throughout the afternoon - but I can’t remember which shots - but they will be ones with less shadows on the side of the face!