" The artificial lighting learning curve for most photographers starts with a built-in flash or external flash mounted above the viewfinder. The photographs they take with a single flash look flat and boring because they lack shadows to creat ...

Natural Lighting Artificial lighting Lighting Angles How many lights do you need? Lighting Ratios Photography is the art of illusion, tricking the viewer into thinking an image reproduced on a two-dimensional piece of paper or a comput ...

As in all things you need to know your tools so you can pick the best one for the job at hand. The goals for different styles vary and if you plan to shoot a variety of styles you'll need a wide variety of modifiers. Any light source will ...

"Light ratios are confusing because there is more than one way to describe the difference in intensity between lights and because incident readings used to infer reflected highlight-to-shadow ratios. So first let's start by defining terms:" ...

In the studio you use a low-key or high-key background to create contrast between the background and the face. Which key is most effective for the background is mostly influenced by the tone of the clothing, which needs to blend into the back ...

There have been several scientific studies which have attempted to quanitfy beauty. Most involve showing photos to panels and having them rate which they think is most attractive, then via measurment determining the common denominators in the ...

"When shooting portraits outdoors, it is often necessary to control or modify the natural light in order to achieve the most flattering results. In a high contrast, outdoor lighting situation, many photographers resort to using fill flash to ...

While shooting portraits at the beach can be great fun, harsh lighting from the direct sunlight can result in blown-out highlights, distracting shadows, or squinting from your model. This lesson will show a technique that we like to use fo ...

"We discuss three lighting options with our portrait studio continuous lighting kit. The kit consists of 3 lights including the "key", "fill" and "back" or "hair" light. The "key" and "fill" lights use "bounce" umbrellas to soften the light a ...

I'm using the speedlites with softbox combination more and more ... Here's the same set-up taking an other shot, the slave 580ex speedlite is trigerred by the 550ex master one: Other photo with the speedlite flashed through the softbox ...

The main problem with using an on-camera flash is the same as using the built-in flash, the light goes straight at the subject and flattens features and can cause red-eye. With an on-camera flash you almost always want to use a diffuser if sh ...

An important concept to understand when dealing with studio lighting for portrait photography is contrast. Contrast is the difference in the amount of light that falls on the dark areas of a scene and the amount of light that falls on the hig ...

"Learn how light works to model a 3D face in 2D using window light before spending a lot of money on lighting gear. It costs little beyond your time and will will save you money in the long run because you'll understand intuitively what you n ...

On-camera single light. Wired Off-camera single light. Wireless Off-camera single light. Hotshoe FILL + Wireless KEY light. Wired FILL + Wireless KEY light. Hotshoe FILL + Wireless KEY light + Wireless BACKGROUND light. ...

light : Monoblock flash head in large softbox .Set almost at zenit , inclined.Single light source. Monoblock on medium softbox, mid-high, single light source, reflected with silver reflector. light : one monoblock in medium softbox on 45 ...