Portrait lighting with house lamps

[rick_cano1]

<p>So I really want to get into doing some portraits just for fun, but I am really bad working with controlled light. I went into the garage to try and get some settings worked out. There was a Compact florescent light hanging and one about a foot and half to the right of the camera. I also used the on camera flash set to -1. I really need some big help with getting some good portrait lighting with some cheap lights.</p>

<p>P.S I was running back and fourth trying to get right settings and standing in front of the camera for test so excuse the horrible looks.</p>

<p><img src="http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6553/img7899x.jpg" alt="" /></p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>If you're actually looking for a pleasing portrait, turn <em>off</em> the on-camera flash. It's going to always leave you with blah-looking, unflattering light.<br /><br />Though I'm not a big fan of compact fluorescent lights (unless they're the really expensive, photography-specific flavor, and even then I prefer something else), you <em>can</em> get by with them. The main problem (other than their uneven spectrum, which is missing some frequencies of light) is that they're just not very bright. And that means you either need a high ISO setting or a very wide aperture on your lens in order to get a fast enough shutter speed on your camera to avoid motion blur in your subject.<br /><br />To make the light more pleasing, consider hanging up a piece of translucent white shower curtain or similar material just outside of the camera's view. This can act as diffusor, to soften the light a bit. You may also want a piece of white foam core material from the craft store (say, 40" or so) to act as a reflector, bouncing <em>some</em> of that light back into the shadowed areas on the face. This will look much better than the straight-on strobe-in-the-face look. But you'll need to use that tripod, since it won't be a lot of light.<br /><br />Consider (assuming you're in the northern hemisphere), a north-facing window as a source of light. You have to watch out for green color casts from grass or tree foliage, though. But good ol' daylight has a lot going for it, portrait-wise. Just a simple reflector to help fill shadows, and you're in business.</p>

[mukul_dube]

<p>Matt is right: on-camera flash kills portraits. Look at the bright patch on the forehead in your example.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Skip both the on-camera flash and the CFL, but your garage is a great place to shoot portraits. Monte Zucker, the late, great king of wedding photographers, did an article I think in Shutterbug not too long before he passed away about garage portraits. The idea is that the open garage door amounts to a huge softbox (as long as it's facing open sky and the sun isn't shining directly in). Pose your subject with their back to one of the side walls of the garage and the door to their right or left. Experiment a little with the angle to see where the light hits best. Use a reflector on the opposite side -- if you don't have a proper photographic reflector, a large sheet of white foam core or white cardboard from the office supply store will work if it's within maybe 3-4 feet. You obviously need a backdrop if you don't want to see tools or lawnmowers in the picture. You can use a photo backdrop or just a good size piece of fabric from the fabric store. A medium gray is usually a good choice and it should be 4-5 feet behind the subject so it can go out of focus and hide wrinkles.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>As Matt says.</p>

<p>However, ordinary "gooseneck" desk and floor lamps are not a bad, cheap alternative to expensive lighting until you can afford better. You can actually put photofloods in them, but<br /> the photofloods tend to be too hot for the sockets, are expensive, and burn out quickly, etc.;<br /> but, with modern AWB or even manual control of color temperature, ordinary 'daylight' or even regular type incandescent lights work reasonably well.</p>

<p>Incandescent lights have the advantage that what you see in terms of shadow and modeling is what you get. No modeling lights, and then flash surprises.</p>

<p>I'd drop the fluorescents, even the expensive daylight ones are hard to get natural appearing shots out of.</p>

[danny_low]

<p><em><strong>Direct</strong></em> light is always a bad idea. If you look at the setups professionals use, they rarely use direct lighting. They bounce them off umbrellas, shoot them through soft boxes and use reflectors. Even on camera flashes give good lighting if you can put on a soft box or bounce it off a good reflector.</p>

<p>The best affordable lighting today are daylight balance CFLs made for photography. They are great but they are also not something you can get at a hardware store. The daylight balance CFLs you find at hardware stores are not the same as what the photo stores sell. They are $25-35 which is reasonable considering they last a long time.</p>

<p>The key is to find ways to soften the light. Translucent curtains make decent improvised soft boxes. A dense white bed sheet is also a decent light reflector.</p>

<p>Danny</p>

 

[JDMvW]

<p>Um, Danny, we were talking about the lights, not the <em>methods</em>. Ordinary house lamps can also be used with bounce panels, etc. A whole floor or table gooseneck lamp is often only a few bucks at the thrift store and new ones from a discount store are usually very cheap too. Incandescent bulbs are literally a commodity item available everywhere. We're talking really low cost here, and why not? For more fancy gear, Adorama and B&H have lots of lighting ranging from cheap kits to expensive studio suites.</p>

<p>I'm not so positive every one would agree that <em>only</em> indirect lighting is good, in any case.</p>

[danny_low]

<p><em>"we were talking about the lights, not the methods."</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

How you use the lights is far more important than what you use. Photography is painting with light and multiple lights and methods are like multiple paints and brushes. The more variety you have, the more you can do.</p>

<p>CFLs for home use and photography use both conform to the type A tungsten bulb form factor. If you want the red tungsten look for artistic purposes you can use a tungsten bulb in a table lamp. If you want a daylight look, you can use a daylight balanced CFL in the same lamp. Different methods on the same equipment can produce different photographs. That is what distinguishes the Wow photos from the Yawn photos.</p>

<p><em>"I'm not so positive every one would agree that only indirect lighting is good, in any case."</em></p>

<p>There are situations where direct lighting can be used to produce a specific artistic look. Direct lighting produces sharp deep shadows that can be used very well in black and white photos. However in most situations, softening the light usually produce better results. In art there are always exceptions to any rule but first you got to know the rules.</p>

<p>Every interest has people who think that all they need to be good is buy the right equipment instead of learning how to use the equipment right. Just about anything can be use for photographic lights but if you do not use them right, then you will never get good photos out of them. So the right methods is more imporant than the right lights.</p>

<p>Danny</p>

<p> </p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p><em><strong>Direct</strong></em> light is always a bad idea.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I disagree with this statement completely. You can see my portraits <a href="http://spirer.com/Portraits/index.html">here</a>. Except for a few with natural light, and the one of the woman on the sofa, these were all done with direct on-camera flash. While there are some hard shadows, they fit completely with what I want.</p>

<p>Photography is about how you control what you have.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>If you look at the setups professionals use, they rarely use direct lighting.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not true at all. Softbox lighting is direct lighting. It's diffused, but it's direct. I use softboxes for commercial work, but that's it. It's just one look.</p>

<p>The people who take the most dogmatic positions on this don't seem to have any photos to look at to see why they would hold that opinion. I recommend looking at people's portrait work before getting all worked up about what you do or don't have.</p>

[john_deerfield]

<blockquote>

<p>Softbox lighting is direct lighting. It's diffused, but it's direct.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I think by direct lighting Danny is talking about light on the same axis as the lens. In general terms, direct light for portraits is not a good idea. <em>Direction </em>of light is going to give you depth, color and texture. Light on the same axis of the lens is going to be very flat (hard or soft aside) which again, in general isn't very flattering for portraits. The shot below is with on camera flash. Notice how flat the image is. The subject's ear has as much light as the rest of the face. In my next post I will post another with the flash off camera, to the left. Big difference in color and depth. I also posted some obvious examples of off camera flash in my Photo.net gallery. As far as the OP goes, it should be clear that there is a lot to learn about lighting!</p><div></div>

[john_deerfield]

<p>On now the flash is off camera, to the left. Now I have shape that I didn't have before.</p><div></div>

[b_christopher]

<p>Rick, you mentioned "<em>working with controlled lighting"</em>, and "<em>good portrait lighting [techniques] with cheap lighting</em>." As you have most likely already learned, portrait lighting is not a simple subject. But, your desire to <em>control</em> the light is a solid start, and whether you choose to use cheap lights or professional photography level lights, is insignificant. I think the simplest way to achieve your goals in "<em>good portrait lighting [techniques],</em>" is to break up the many facets of the whole subject matter and learn one fundamental aspect at a time. I would suggest researching and practicing the _Classic Portrait Lighting Patterns_ to start. <br /> The 4 distinct classic patterns are: Loop, Paramount(aka, Butterfly), Rembrandt, and the Split. You will know that countless photographers throughout the history of photography have used these patterns in the most successful portrait images. I, too, use these patterns all the time in the studio and even look for and try to create the patterns with available light, both indoors and outdoors(using street lights, neon lights, window light, headlights, candle light, desk lamp, etc..) Keep it simple to start, then move on to other portrait lighting aspects and techniques such as; short/broad, accent/kicker, key/fill ratio, specular/diffuse, etc., etc.. Do remember though, in order to get "<em>good portrait lighting</em>," you must understand the fundamentals.</p>

[danny_low]

<p><em>"I think by direct lighting Danny is talking about light on the same axis as the lens."</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

No but it is clear that my choice of words was poor. "Hard light" is a better choice of words than "direct light". Reflectors and soft boxes all convert hard light to soft light. The flat flash look is due to the hard light of an unfiltered flash.</p>

<p>Danny</p>

 

[john_deerfield]

<blockquote>

<p>The flat flash look is due to the hard light of an unfiltered flash.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>This is incorrect. It is flat because there is no direction to the light. BTW, the flash did have a Sto-fen style diffuser on it. When we say hard or soft, we are referring to the transition to shadow. A hard light (small light source) will have an abrupt transition to shadow. In my gallery there is a sunset shot with a small shoe mount flash camera right. There is a hard shadow on the grooms sleeve and under the brides arm: hard light. Soft light will have a more gradual transition to shadow. Both of the images posted are pretty softly lit, it was a sunny with white clouds type of day so the natural light was very soft. Again, the first image is direct, on-camera flash which gives me a flat appearance. The 2nd is off camera and I get shape. </p>

<p>Another way to think on it is to draw a circle on a piece of paper. What do you have? A circle. To turn it into a sphere you will need to <em>shade</em> the circle. This means imagining a light source hitting the circle. There will be a brighter spot (specular highlight), something we might call true tonality, and there will be a shadow. This all comes from <em>direction of light</em>. If we just blast a light (hard or soft) straight at it, we still have a circle.</p>

[jason_hall5]

<p>I am going try to point out some things I don't think anyone else has. I did not read all the post in detail.</p>

<p>First, most any light source can work as long as it is bright enough to allow for shutter speed and desired f stop. You can use cheap fabric (old white bed sheets) or wax paper (and many other house hold items) can work great to soften the light to your hearts content. Check out this web site for many DIY solutions. <a href="http://www.diyphotography.net">http://www.diyphotography.net</a><br>

 

<p>You may need to dig deep into their achieves.</p>

<p>Also another issue that is white balance. Different light sources have different color cast. This can be taken care of by proper white balance setting in camera or in post when shooting RAW. However, when shooting with a mixture of light sources it can be a real problem. Your sample shot above shows a use of a rather yellow light and a more blue light source on the subject coming from different angles. This makes proper skin tone nearly impossible.</p>

<p>So what ever you choose, (florescent, tungsten, or flash) pick one and go with it. Tungsten (normal household light bulbs) will most likely be the cheapest and easiest to use.</p>

<p>Another idea is that, since you have a garage you could roll up the door during the day and allow the reflected light in. This would be like a huge window and could give you some awesome natural light to work with. Make a simple reflector from white board (or card board painted white) to give you some fill light. Foil over a piece of card board can make a good reflector as well.</p>

<p>One last idea to help you with the experimenting, get the head of a mannequin or the like to use as your subject. Beauty supply stores sell heads like this with hair for stylist to practice with. I have found them rather cheap before. This will save you time not having to be your own model.</p>

 

<br>

Check out this page to see different lighting patterns for portraits.</p>

<p>

 

<a href="http://www.portraitlighting.net/patternsb.htm">http://www.portraitlighting.net/patternsb.htm</a><br>

<br>

Jason</p>