best lighting tutorial on the internet ever

[nycineaste]

Ive seen this tutorial years ago, like im sure lots of you have, but now that I have more experience in lighting, Im realizing this tiny little video, which says its a series of "tips", is practically a little complete crash course in lighting!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_QWP8xrGf8

 

[Matty_g]

Part of tip #3 is WRONG.
Moving a light further away from the subject does not soften the light it actually makes it harder.
Softness is all about size and distance to the subject.
The bigger the source the softer the light, the smaller the light the harder it is.

 

[Amr Rahmy]

Part of tip #3 is WRONG.
Moving a light further away from the subject does not soften the light it actually makes it harder.
Softness is all about size and distance to the subject.
The bigger the source the softer the light, the smaller the light the harder it is.

you are not taking into account the intensity, you loose a lot more power from a softbox every step back you take, but the light does not get that much smaller, and it's still soft light from a soft box, by the time the light becomes a hard source of light, it would have lost all it's intensity and not register on the subject anymore. he was describing a few steps back, not a dozen, or a hundred.

i think in the video he was talking about softening the effect of the light, as in the intensity or power.

 

[nycineaste]

Yeah, despite how awesome this tutorial is, ironically, it has that one mistake in it- moving a light back doesn't, technically "soften" it.

Thanks for that clarification though, Amr. Helpful.

 

[Amr Rahmy]

to be clear, in the video he said 'soften the effect', he did not say soften the light source.

 

[TheDingo]

Matty_g is correct. I spotted this mistake right away...

One other item that I consider to be incorrect is having the fill light source that is smaller than the key light source, which in my book is completely wrong. The fill light source should be equal or larger in size compared to your key light source, so that it exhibits less contrast and blends better with the key light.

In the natural world your key light source is the sun, and the fill light source is everything that is not the sun. ( often the blue sky or green leaves which produce a blue or green color cast to the fill light )

...If you are stuck with a smaller fill light source, then move it as close to your subject as possible to SOFTEN the contrast of the light. ( just make sure it's out of your shot, or can be masked in post )

 

[Tolin]

Like a less charismatic and knowledgeable Barry Green.. On crack
If you only have 7 minutes to learn lighting - Yeah, go for it

 

[David Jimerson]

Thinking of the fill light in terms of its "size" compared to the key light is the wrong way of thinking about it. In fact, its immediate effect would be counter-intuitive -- a smaller light source would work against the typical convention of filling with comparatively soft light, and all other things being equal, a smaller light source will be harder. A quick-and-dirty lighting primer would probably be wiser to tend toward the convention.

"Smaller," of course, means very little without knowing other things -- hardness/softness of the source, intensity of the source, distance of the source . . .

Of course, everything rides on what you want the look to be, and that is, indeed, everything -- size, intensity, softness, hardness, etc, and that'll change from shot to shot as you need it to -- so you need to be thinking about that, not the "size" of your light source, unless the "size" does something specific for you.

 

[TheDingo]

not the "size" of your light source

Too often I see people filling with a light that is as "hard" as the key light is, and it looks terrible. Huge mistake.

Size, position, how even, and how collimated a light source is, will all effect how "soft" a light source will appear.

...As general rule of thumb, the larger the light source is, the softer the quality of light it will produce. For me this goes back to 20+ years of shooting commercial still-life photos with 4x5 and 8x10 large format cameras, where the quality of the light you use is what separated the pros from the amateurs.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Too often I see people filling with a light that is as "hard" as the key light is, and it looks terrible. Huge mistake.

Size, position, how even, and how collimated a light source is, will all effect how "soft" a light source will appear.

...As general rule of thumb, the larger the light source is, the softer the quality of light it will produce. For me this goes back to 20+ years of shooting commercial still-life photos with 4x5 and 8x10 large format cameras, where the quality of the light you use is what separated the pros from the amateurs.

What drives me crazy are people who put heavy diffusion on a fresnel lens light barndoors.... you know, the 12"x12" size gel that is pinned to the barndoors. But it's not that, because that will make the light softer, by just a bit. What really gets me is when the light is not soft enough (because adding a 1x1 diffusion in front of an 8" lens is not much of a gain), they keep adding diffusion on top of the diffusion. Softness gained diffusion is the result of making a light source larger. At a certain point, adding diffusion upon diffusion is just reducing the opacity, not making a light softer. Drives me crazy. I almost never put small diffusion inside of a barn door. That makes it hardly softer than what the fresnel does.

I'd rather use one piece of heavy diffusion, then scrim the light and move it closer to the subject. At least that will make the light softer by being closer and diffused, instead of just adding more diffusion and changing nothing but light output.

 

[TheDingo]

What drives me crazy are people who put heavy diffusion on a fresnel lens light barndoors...

Yes, some people don't understand how diffusion works: It increases the size of the light source, and makes the light less collimated so the angle of illumination is wider. ( surrounding surfaces will reflect this light as additional fill )

 

[Mitch Gross]

Not entirely true, as there are different strengths of diffusion. 250 is weaker than 216. Even though 250 is supposed to be 1/2 the effect of 216, two layers of 250 is actually slightly more diffuse than one layer of 216 because of the diffracting principle of passing through multiple surfaces.

But I will grant you that most people don't really get it. ;-D

 

[David Jimerson]

Too often I see people filling with a light that is as "hard" as the key light is, and it looks terrible. Huge mistake.

Conventionally speaking, yep, which is why the advice to make the fill source "smaller" is misleading at best.

 

[TheDingo]

because of the diffracting principle of passing through multiple surfaces

Yes, diffraction makes the light passing through the diffusion less collimated, increases the angle of illumination, and increases the apparent size of the illuminated source.

 

[TheDingo]

Which is why the advice to make the fill source "smaller" is misleading at best.

Total agreement here.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Yes, diffraction makes the light passing through the diffusion less collimated, increases the angle of illumination, and increases the apparent size of the illuminated source.

I would not use the term 'diffraction' in describing the scattering effects of light passing through a semitransparent medium...

I'd probably use the Newtonian 'corpuscle' or its modern version, the photon, and the 'random path' that the photon takes through interactions of the material.

Hence the 'randomizing' of the photon's path is what decreases the 'collimated' state of the light passing through the medium.

One also has to consider 'near field' effects of a large surface that is providing illumination. The Inverse Square law works for 'point source' lights, A large surface is not a 'point source' until a certain distance is reached. I think it may be on the order of 2x the largest dimension of the surface, provided the 'moderating' surface is evenly lit.

Ultimately the Inverse Square law is based on the idea that light propagates on the surface of a 'sphere'. Devices which change that situation, lenses, laser tubes, what have you, that requires one to place the 'virtual' point source somewhere other than at the actual lamp head.

 

[bill totolo]

What drives me crazy are people who put heavy diffusion on a fresnel lens light barndoors.... you know, the 12"x12" size gel that is pinned to the barndoors. But it's not that, because that will make the light softer, by just a bit. What really gets me is when the light is not soft enough (because adding a 1x1 diffusion in front of an 8" lens is not much of a gain), they keep adding diffusion on top of the diffusion. Softness gained diffusion is the result of making a light source larger. At a certain point, adding diffusion upon diffusion is just reducing the opacity, not making a light softer. Drives me crazy. I almost never put small diffusion inside of a barn door. That makes it hardly softer than what the fresnel does.

I'd rather use one piece of heavy diffusion, then scrim the light and move it closer to the subject. At least that will make the light softer by being closer and diffused, instead of just adding more diffusion and changing nothing but light output.

Good point Ryan. If I'm stuck on a small production (where I'm clipping diff to barn doors) and can't use the preferred method of using two four by frames to double diffuse the light, I'll pan the light slightly off axis so the subject is being lit by indirect light.

 

[paulears]

Surely the entire point about the differences between hard and soft light are that a point source produces hard edge shadows. A soft light minimises this. It doesn't matter at all if the light is diffracted, diffused, collimated or simply random - the size of the source impacts on the softness - that's all. If light passes through a medium and heads off in random directions then it doesn't matter - anything that doesn't head off towards the subject is wasted light. A BIG light source, can (like the Fresnels) direct it's output through a big lens, which is softer than a small one. A redhead with barn doors wide and a big sheet of diffusion is softer because the area of the apparent light source is bigger. Thick diffuser throws away light, so is simply dimmer, area for area than less dense types. The main differences between diffuser types are that some types have a semi-polarised output, other types don't, but as long as the frontal area looks even, it's a soft source. The bigger, the softer. This is why a soft light further away isn't so soft - the angle from edge to subject and back to opposite edge is smaller. That is the physics - all the rest is smoke.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Surely the entire point about the differences between hard and soft light are that a point source produces hard edge shadows. A soft light minimises this. It doesn't matter at all if the light is diffracted, diffused, collimated or simply random - the size of the source impacts on the softness - that's all. If light passes through a medium and heads off in random directions then it doesn't matter - anything that doesn't head off towards the subject is wasted light. A BIG light source, can (like the Fresnels) direct it's output through a big lens, which is softer than a small one. A redhead with barn doors wide and a big sheet of diffusion is softer because the area of the apparent light source is bigger. Thick diffuser throws away light, so is simply dimmer, area for area than less dense types. The main differences between diffuser types are that some types have a semi-polarised output, other types don't, but as long as the frontal area looks even, it's a soft source. The bigger, the softer. This is why a soft light further away isn't so soft - the angle from edge to subject and back to opposite edge is smaller. That is the physics - all the rest is smoke.

That was kind of my point. However, if you stack diffusion in front of diffusion, but leave space between the two, the first diffusion will get a more even spread upon the second piece, making it softer. But stacking diffusion against diffusion often times just starts hammering intensity and not softness, unless you were using very very light diff.

 

[TheDingo]

It doesn't matter at all if the light is diffracted, diffused, collimated or simply random - the size of the source impacts on the softness - that's all

...Most of the time we don't shoot in black walled caves, thus if a light modifier spreads the light beam sufficiently the reflected light from the surrounding environment will act as indirect fill light.

From a practical perspective I consider collimated light to be "harder" than randomized light, because generally there's less light reflecting back ( indirect fill light ) from the environment we are shooting in.