Order my first reflector .. related questions.

Portrait photography isn't my number 1 thing. I ordered my first reflector 40 inches or 110cm 5 in 1. I figured they are pretty cheap and with a silver one one can get into beauty light which I guess is what most people like. Most people just want nice looking shots rather than a creative shoot at F1.4. I have one brolly and one softbox to go with my speedlight.

 

Question - how limited would it be for a portrait photographer if they only had 1 speedlight and they could only bounce? Ie - no light stands, no strobist, no reflector. Thinking about, many people who just have a body with 2 or 3 lenses and a hotshoe flash.

 

 

Cheers.

"Question - how limited would it be for a portrait photographer if they only had 1 speedlight and they could only bounce?"

 

- Pretty limiting.

There are many examples of portrait photography using only 2-3 lights, although a manual slave with enough power to light the background or add a hairlight is pretty inexpensive. One flash is pushing it a bit, especially on-camera, though if your reflector could see the flash before it went through a diffuser (so you got more reflected light) I guess it might help. Ring flash is an exception, I suppose.

 

I'm generally a believer in reflectors as a way of getting light of the right colour balance into sensible places, especially outdoors, but they're a bit of a faff if you don't have assistants wrangling them.

 

...says a man who barely uses flash, of course. I did use a two strobe setup for my last passport photo, possibly with a reflector (I forget), and only looked slightly like a corpse. But I don't exactly have a studio.

Yes, I was trying to get a view that many people just have a few lenses and 1 speedlight for their entire photography life. So I was thinking if it was possible to pull it off. Say the person spent 1yr or 10yr with just that - which many people do.

 

I just ordered the reflector. Since I got into this hobby all I had since 2004 was a single speedlight. So without even the reflector, just the single speedlight would it be plausible.

If your camera has a pop-up flash, you can put a shield on it, then use an optical slave on the now off-camera shoe flash.

Get a light stand, and head, they are not expensive, probably less than $30 on eBay. Maybe also a 42 inch convertible umbrella.

This gives you a lot more flexibility to position the key light and get it OFF the lens axis.

And use the reflector to fill the other side of the face.

You will need a 2nd light stand or assistant to hold up and position the reflector.

 

If your goal is to go LOW cost, the cheapest option is to simply shoot next to a window which has a lot of light and the ability to put a diffuser on the window.

You will still need a stand to hold up and position the reflector.

If your camera has a pop-up flash, you can put a shield on it, then use an optical slave on the now off-camera shoe flash.

Get a light stand, and head, they are not expensive, probably less than $30 on eBay. Maybe also a 42 inch convertible umbrella.

This gives you a lot more flexibility to position the key light and get it OFF the lens axis.

And use the reflector to fill the other side of the face.

You will need a 2nd light stand or assistant to hold up and position the reflector.

 

If your goal is to go LOW cost, the cheapest option is to simply shoot next to a window which has a lot of light and the ability to put a diffuser on the window.

You will still need a stand to hold up and position the reflector.

 

Yep I have a low cost light stand and a brolly from China eBay. I also just ordered the reflector.

 

That all aside.

 

I was wondering that many people won't even do that for various reasons. Many people will simply just have a camera body 2 or 3 lenses and 1 speedlight for their entire life. Maybe wireless mode which they support now triggered by the pop up flash as you say.

You make do with what you have or can afford.

There were a LOT of good stuff made with a single light source. You need to find the books with the images, or look at some paintings. The Rembrant style of painting (and lighting) is based on light coming in from a window, which is a single light source.

 

In fact, it is highly recommended that you start with ONE light source.

 

Then when you get good at it, add the 2nd, then 3rd, because each light you add, makes it more difficult to do correctly. This is because then you also have to balance each light source against the others.

 

And yes, the majority of the people do not want to deal with any of that, and will just use the pop up flash on their camera.

 

So to answer your question of "how limited would it be for a portrait photographer if they only had 1 speedlight and they could only bounce? Ie - no light stands, no strobist, no reflector."

Significantly limiting or fatal. It would really tax the skills of the photographer to make do with just the one light source on the camera.

Once you move the flash off-camera, things become better and easier, because you can now control the shadow.

Add the reflector, and you are able to fill the shadow, for more light control.

 

And again, the majority of the people do not want to deal with any of that, and will just use the pop up flash on their camera.

Many recent fashion photographers seem to have made a living using the 'deer-in-headlights' on-camera flash look.

 

Why any picture editor would pay good money for such hideous lighting; I have no eye deer (idea - geddit?):p

I think that can be over-stating it. I'm by no means a portrait photographer, but if your thing is environmental portraits, an awful lot can be done with natural light and reflectors. The look isn't the same as a studio shot with carefully positioned flash guns, but that's not necessarily a problem. I watched a fairly recent TV competition series for photographers (highly contrived, and apparently all using Leicas for some reason that I suspect was down to sponsorship) and I don't recall them using flash much, especially off-camera, when they were doing portraits, although I may have blotted it out.

 

If you're running a studio and people are coming in for a head shot on a time limit, not having a decent lighting rig is going to be tricky. If you're dealing with full photo shoots of a client over an extended period and can take them to locations, it would still be helpful to have more light control, but I don't think it's catastrophic to go without - and it certainly allows for more mobility.

 

I very rarely use flash, even though I have three SB-600s and some smaller units. Modern DSLRs are very good in low light (if you just lack photons) and, in better light, have very good dynamic range that can allow you to do much the work of a reflector in post-processing - always at some image quality cost, of course, but I've rarely had a problem in direct sunlight that I couldn't fix since the D800 days (D700 not so much). Programs like Portrait Pro and features on the iPhone can retrospectively apply controlled lighting effects to portraits. Actual lights, while obviously the higher quality solution, are massively less convenient, and sometimes less controlled (just as an ND grad can't do everything that HDR editing in post can do).

 

Still, better to have flashes in your toolbox than not, but I wouldn't lose sleep just because you're not Joe McNally.

Do not place your reflector directly opposite the key light, as I've seen recommended so often - and by so-called professionals that ought to know better.

 

Doing so creates a shadow line down the face and splits the lighting into two halves. Especially if the key light is hard.

 

You should aim to wrap the fill light around the face to blend seamlessly with any other light. Easiest way to do this is to have the fill coming from the camera or nearby. However, using a reflector in this position may not catch enough of the key light to provide a decent fill.

 

You basically have to take each situation as it comes, or use 'formula' lighting, which almost always involves using more than one light source. Even if one of those light sources is a reflector.

Question - how limited would it be for a portrait photographer if they only had 1 speedlight and they could only bounce? Ie - no light stands, no strobist, no reflector.

 

Hi, I've spent years doing high-volume portrait work with multi-light systems, but my initial formative years were with mostly whatever light happened to be there, handheld on b&w film.

 

If you had asked me your question in person, the first thing I'd have done would've been to ask you, "What do you mean by a portrait photographer?" If you said, oh, someone who does this for a newspaper periodically, doing mostly b&w, I'd probably say no problem. Except, I'd rather have a lightweight light stand so I could put the speedlight where I wanted, pointed where I wanted.

 

If you had said I had to shoot in color, with high quality reproduction, this would be a big problem - my indoor shooting locations would be greatly restricted because of lighting mismatches. It would be endlessly frustrating to me, and I would probably not put up with the limitations for long. (I'd either quit or start hauling my own lighting gear.)

 

If you were to define a portrait photographer as making a living shooting portraits that the subject would buy, I guess it would depend on both my competition and how much money the customers are willing to spend. If they were free enough with their wallets that I could get by on one or two sessions per day, and they did not make specific demands on locations, I could probably get by. But here's the problem with your scenario - why on earth would I so limit myself in this situation? If I brought along some lighting, and perhaps an assistant, I wouldn't have to spend so much time hunting for good-enough locations, and thus I could shoot a lot more customers, and thus make more money.

 

Or, if you said the customers are much more frugal, but plentiful, and are tight with their wallets, then it has to be a preset location, preferably with studio lighting and using a camera stand so that I can interact freely to get the expressions I want without wasting too much time. The customers would have to come to the preset location, and likely have to wait in a queue.

 

Having said all this, I suspect your question is really more along the line of, "If I (meaning you) had only 1 speedlight, could I possibly make as pleasing a portrait as a well-equipped pro?" then my answer would be, "Certainly you COULD, on occasion, do this." You would have one advantage as a hobbyist, in that you can put as much time as you feel like into the project (assuming that the subject will cooperate). Whereas the pro, doing this for a living, can only spend as much time as the customer is willing to pay for.

"What do you mean by a portrait photographer?"

 

I thought of the question from what most non photographers the Joe Jane public perceives.

 

Photography hobbyists turn up to a social event or a friend's wedding with their SLR and they instantly think of portrait photography - weddings, children and family at home or at the botanical gardens, a portrait of the grandparents before they pass away, social group event photography like a Christmas or New Year function and yes; for the most of them color photography. People want color these days right....

 

It's not because of frugal. By in large many hobbyist don't get involved with light stands and light modifiers. Your typical hobbyist turn up at a family or friend's social event or someone's wedding as a invited guest, they are not the official photographer. To normal people they expect, you have a fancy camera they expect professional photographs.

 

"you can put as much time as you feel like into the project (assuming that the subject will cooperate)"

I found that most people don't have the patience. They expect you to know everything and get the job done in couple of seconds and they can get back to do their own thing - spending time with others.

Some people do fine with simple lighting :rolleyes:

Some people do fine with simple lighting :rolleyes:

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A kicker or hairlight as key - now there's something you don't see every day!

 

"Grid improves mid-tones"

- Huh?

 

What complete plonker wrote that wondrous piece of advice?

Somebody who wanted to sabotage the opposition maybe?

 

I have a great book, full of Karsh portraits. None of them look remotely as if a setup like the above was used.

Is it so important since the post was simply about simple lighting in the first place?

What complete plonker wrote that wondrous piece of advice?

 

FWIW

Karsh portrait