Fresnel with flash.

<p>A quick question to studio photographers. Do you use fresnels on your strobes? I mean proper fresnels, not the silly things that come built in into hotshoe mounted flashes?<br>

And if so, then could you show me examples of your fresnel-lit work?</p>

<p>7inch fresnel attachment for Profoto. This is only lighting the face.</p>

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<p>Michael - no criticism intended, but a genuine question. How does using a Fresnel give any different look from simply snooting down a flash in a simple silver reflector? Apart from being more light efficient, surely it gives very much the same quality of light as any other hard source with a limited lighting area.</p>

<p>I ask because I haven't used Fresnel spots since playing with tungsten lighting at college many, many years ago. Also, how accurately does the modelling light show the actual flash illumination with a Fresnel spot?</p>

<p>Fresnel spots that use flash heads come in several sizes. I have a Calumet Fresnel spot that mounts a Speedotron Black-line flash head. The Fresnel lens is 13" in diameter and produces a focused light that has both a hard and soft quality. When used up close to a table-top product or food set the light is soft because of it's relatively large size yet the light has the directional quality of a hard light.</p>

<p>The 250w modeling light in the Speedo head shows exactly the same light pattern as made by the flash tube because it's mounted inside the flash tube.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Here's a shot using that 13" Fresnel Spot as the key light</p><div></div>

<p>Here's another shot where the 13" Fresnel Spot is a bit farther away from the set and the light is harder yet still relatively soft.</p>

<p>There's really no comparison in the quality of light between this Fresnel Spot and a snooted or gridded raw light</p><div></div>

<p>Ditto, what Brooks wrote. Most of my experience with Fresnels is in theater lighting. Totally different from PAR cans or floods no matter how tightly snooted. I've set up lighting in low budget community theaters where they only had PAR cans or simple floods, and tried to tighten up the patterns for certain effects. It's really not possible to get the same effect as a Fresnel - soft, yet directional, with controlled spill.</p>

<p>".. soft, yet directional.." - Sorry, but I find that very hard (pardon the pun) to believe. My experience with theatre and tungsten Fresnel spots is that the light is very hard indeed, casting a very well defined shadow. And using one up close to get softer light - why would you need to do that?</p>

<p>"There's really no comparison in the quality of light between this Fresnel Spot and a snooted or gridded raw light" - Ummm, looks like any other type of light of similar diameter and distance to me Brooks. Since we can't see the edges of the spread clearly defined it might just as well be a flood with a snoot on it. The fall-off is less with a spot, agreed, but that's not going to be apparent up close. Did you really try to get the same effect with a simple dished reflector and a bit of shading material?</p>

<p>And sure, you can't snoot a flood sensibly over the distance needed in a theatre, but we generally have a lot more control over lighting placement in a studio. Especially with close up shots.</p>

<p>Joe, have you used a 13" Fresnel Spot in the studio? I've been using one for over 20 years and am quite familiar with the quality of light that it produces.</p>

RJ, the cheapest way to demonstrate the Fresnel

effect for yourself is to buy an inexpensive

magnifying sheet used too assist with reading

maps or fine print text. A page sized magnifier

works best and doesn't cost much.

 

Use it with a desk lamp, which already has a cone

shaped shade to confine the light. Just hold the

magnifier under the lamp and observe the effect

on the pool of light. Flip the sides around too -

- the Fresnel and plain sides. Switch bulbs

around to compare the effects -- frosted, clear

and fluorescent. You should see a distinct

difference in both the harder edges and more even

distribution of light with the simple magnifier

Fresnel. Snap a few photos with each test to

compare more easily.

 

If it didn't make a significant difference

theatres wouldn't waste money on Fresnels, and

stage lighting designers who rely on PAR cans

wouldn't need to use so many PARs with

overlapping pools of light to hide the weaker

edge effect.

<p>Hey, thanks for the input everyone, sorry I've been absent - had a crazy month.<br>

I did some testing with the Bowens Fresnel 200, which is pretty much the same as the mentioned above Profoto one. I used to shoot with a homemade fresnel before, but it was very hard to use, due to it's McGyver type construction. Anyways, this thing is very interesting - certainly nothing like snoot, and nothing like PAR/barndoors combo that I use almost everyday for my portraits. More control over the beam, and yes, it's softer than snoot and spills much less. A bit on the big side, as far as light modifiers go. I'll certainly give it a proper go at the nearest gig.</p><div></div>