Well hey there everybody and welcome to a gargantuan blog post. Yes, you had best get settled in, make a fresh cup of coffee and get comfortable because this is gonna be a long one! We might actually get to see if my new little laptops batteries really do last 8 hours as I am sitting here at my local Dome Cafe writing this and I didn’t bring the power supply... ok hopefully it won’t take quite that long...
So, to business. As some of you may know Sandy and I recently posted a couple of videos on YouTube which demonstrated how to shoot images using high-key lighting. These videos were a direct result of emails that you guys, yeah that’s right – you – had sent in and requested that you wanted to see. The image at the top of this blog is one of the resulting shots. They are all done in our little studio down here in Kelmscott.
“Well that’s fine for you Tim, but I don’t have a studio” I can hear you say. Fair enough; but in the words of Scott Kelby - if you have four walls and a roof no matter where you are – you have a studio!
Ok before we get too much into this blog, it’s probably best that you go and watch the first video... so here it is!
Ok so we covered quite a bit there in a short space of time but I thought that was best rather than going into information overload on you poor viewers. Rather, we covered the bare essentials and left it up to your own creativity to push the envelope a little further and get really creative. What I will do now however is run through each lighting set-up in a little more detail than we did in the video. I'm doing this so you can choose the images you really like best and just read that bit, or if you are a real glutton for punishment then just read this whole post! Up to you...
Example 1a – Softboxes as key lights on a white background
So this is one of the images from the first lighting scenario. As you can see it gives pretty good coverage on the backdrop and also, depending on how you set the key lights, shadowless lighting on your subject. This example is probably the closest that you are going to get to achieving full shadowless lighting without the use of the foam core panels that we discuss a little further down the page.
Example 1a – Softboxes as key lights on a white background
With this example, the hardest thing is to adequately light the floor so that it does not get too dull and grey which will of course detract from the whole high-key effect. It works best if the softboxes (which are on either side of the model) are at the same power; or in a 1:1 lighting ratio. This is also probably a good time to explain a little about the lighting ratios used in these examples.
In all the images you will see in this post, the background does not change. It’s a 9ft wide white paper seamless roll being lit by two strobes with bounce umbrellas – one on each side of the backdrop. The whole idea of high key is to blow the background out, or basically put so much light on it that it turns pure white; in much the same way if you have ever taken a photograph outside in the midday sun and metered the exposure for the subjects face and the sky gets completely blown out too and turns white.
So, the key to obtaining really good high key lighting is to make the background about two f-stops brighter than the key lights on the subject. Now, you might be thinking how on earth are you gonna be able to take a photo with such a difference in light levels between the background and foreground – but it really is quite easy. Let’s continue and explain. Ok, so with your light meter you want to aim for about f/13 to be read on the middle of the backdrop. You will find that the edges of the backdrop will be much brighter than this (as much as f/16 or even f/18) but that is ok. Please ensure that you do not have the key lights (Softboxes) turned on during this because they will add to the light hitting the backdrop and you will ultimately struggle to get enough separation or brightness into the background. Trust me on this one.
Once you have the background set you can now turn your key lights on. This is where the whole thing starts to come together. To keep the two f-stops of separation, and assuming that our background is set to f/13, meter the key lights so they are no brighter than say; f/7.1 on your subject. All you need to do now is set your camera to f/7.1 and 1/125th second shutter speed and you are set! Easy.
Example 1b – Beauty Dish as key light on a white background
This one is probably my favourite as it is possible to get a little contrast and shadow on the subject whilst still having a high key background. It is however the hardest to clean up in post production as the floor will not be a bright white colour. This is because the beauty dish is positioned only about 2 feet from our models head; and to achieve the same exposure on our model of f/7.1 on her face, if we use the light fall-off rule of thumb "the intensity of illumination is proportional to the inverse square of the distance from the light source" by the time the light hits the floor it is only going to be registering about f/4 or so, possibly even around f/2.8.
Example 1b – Beauty Dish as key light on a white background
This is a small price to pay however as I really do love this light and the contrast and shadow it creates. And furthermore as you will see by the time you reach the end of this blog post, it is not too difficult to fix up these little shadow inconsistencies on the floor anyway with a swift little edit in Photoshop. Problem solved!
In the video we kept the grid spot grill on the beauty dish to really accentuate this light fall-off, but there is of course nothing to stop you from experimenting with different placement of the beauty dish by moving it farther away or taking off the grid spot. It really is up to you and whatever type of effect you are trying to achieve.
Example 1c – Parabolic Umbrella as key light on a white background
Ok, are you still hanging in there? Now we are introducing a much larger light source for the key light. And it doesn’t come much larger than our huge 7ft parabolic umbrella. As Sandy states in the video, because it is a much larger light source than the beauty dish it is also a lot softer than the last example. And because it is directional (only on one side of the model) we are still able to achieve the full length shadow down the models left side.
Example 1c – Parabolic Umbrella as key light on a white background
One thing that will become immediately apparent as you start taking photos using this lighting set-up is how well the floor is lit compared to the beauty dish, but it is still not quite as good as using the two Softboxes as we did in example 1a. I really do like how the key light spans the height of the model, and in this example our model Tanayah is pushing the 6ft mark with those heels on!
So if you need to concentrate on full length fashion shots this light would work a little better than that shown with the beauty dish in example 1b. But as with all things photography related, it is entirely up to you and the final look you are trying to achieve.
By the way - I have placed lighting diagrams for the above-mentioned studio set-ups on my website here. Please feel welcome to download them for future reference!
Congratulations – you have made it past the half way mark! Must be time to watch another video. This time you are going to see the second video we shot wherein we demonstrate how to set up the studio for true high key lighting by taking advantage of the 4ft x 8ft foam core panels.
Easy huh! So now you have seen how to get truly shadowless lighting in the studio.
Example 2 – Lit foam core panels as key lights on a white background
From the image above you can see that you can still achieve a little contrast on the model depending on how she is positioned but there aren’t any real shadows in sight. The key to pulling off the lighting set-up is the positioning of the key lights.
As you saw from the video, the key lights are only about 3 feet behind the foam core panels. The stands the lights are on are positioned on the floor so that they are parallel to the outside edge of the foam core, but angled in at a 45 degree angle so that they will bounce off the middle of the foam core and back into the model. This is the same on both sides of the set for both left and right-hand lights.
Example 2 – Lit foam core panels as key lights on a white background
Make sure that you pay close attention to Sandy’s tip here and stay outside of the “V” shadow that has been created on the floor by the key lights. As I had mentioned in the video, the key lights are in fact pointing directly towards your camera shooting position and the foam core’s actually serve double purpose here. Not only are they reflecting the key lights back at the subject and basically making the area between the foam cores and the backdrop one giant light-tent, but they are also serving as two rather large but effective flags which stop the light being reflected right down the barrel of the lens... provided you stay on your side of the “V” shadow that is...
As for the metering in this set-up, well it is pretty much the same as in the first video. The background still has a strobe head at either end being lit by bouncing the light off a reflective umbrella. You still aim for f/13 in the middle of the backdrop and you still meter the backdrop with the key lights turned off.
But because we are now in this aforementioned light tent as it were, the metering on the subject isn’t quite the two f-stops of difference as was the case for the first three examples. Again, you season to taste but I have found that about 1 to 1 ½ stops of difference between the backdrop and key lights works pretty well here, which means that you can start with metering for f/9 on your subject and see how you like it from there. If you aim for the two f-stops difference I have found that sometimes the light reflecting off the background is a little too hot and starts to create blown out rim-lighting on your subject. This is trial and error and up to you as to how you want the image to turn out. Because we are in a pretty small studio space the distance between the backdrop and foam core panels is only about 8 or 9 feet. Ideally you would want to have about 10 to 15 feet of separation between the two, but you really can just tailor this to your particular situation.
Finally, I have also placed the lighting diagram for this studio set-up on my website here. As before, feel welcome to download it for future reference.
So there you go – you made it! Good for you. One final thing though – there’s one more video to watch. In this last video I show you a quick and easy way to post process the images in Photoshop.
Easy huh. Once you get the hang of that technique, you really can do the edit in a minute or two – flat. Yeah there are 100 different ways to achieve the same effect in Photoshop but after trying many of them, I have found this way to be the most painless.
Ok, so that about does it for now. I’ll be posting a few more images in the next couple of days from a modelling shoot we did in the city yesterday with an old mate that we had not worked with for a while. It was a fun afternoon...
But until then; keep shooting what you love and Sandy and I’ll talk to you soon. Take care.
PS - we need to give a huge thank you to JB @ ViWest Video Instruction for all his help in producing these videos. Without his help these videos would not be possible. You're a champ mate!
