Cosplay Class-20131103

Last time I showed you some lighting examples in dark situations. Today I will show you more lighting skills in bright locations. Never think that you have enough light. You will always lose light. But sometimes only reflectors will provide you enough lights during day time. Also, you can provide extra lighting, mount your camera on a tripod and use a longer exposure, or paint with light (leave the shutter of a tripod-mounted camera open in a time exposure while you illuminate the subject with repeated electronic flash bursts, a flashlight, or some other light source).

Now it’s time to see our examples. One of them is taken at night but there are a lot of street lights. Others are taken in day time.  

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In this photo, the photographer set a flash light that oppose to the model. As I said before, if the light is straightly to the model’s face, there will be no shadow on her face. In case to make the light softer, the photographer put a silver umbrella reflector in front of the light. Light falloff can be used to vary the relationship between the light on your subject and your background. If you place a light close to your subject, the falloff from the subject to the background will be more pronounced. Move the light farther from your subject, and the background will be relatively brighter. Since the lights on the street and cable car are bright enough to hold the background, we set the light a little bit closer to our model. The same holds true for side lighting: With a light close to the side of your subject, the falloff of light across the frame will be more pronounced than if the light is farther away.

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This photo was taken at dusk. But we already lose lots of natural light. The photographer set a light with diffuser in the left front of the model. Diffusion scatters light, essentially making the light source broader and therefore softer. When clouds drift in front of the sun, shadows get less distinct. Add fog, and the shadows disappear. In the nature, clouds, overcast skies, and fog act as diffusion—something that scatters the light in many directions. In case to show the background, the photographer also set a 135mm flash light behind the model.

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This photo was taken between two buildings. The environment is bright, but when you shoot her you will find that she looks flat. So we have to set a light with silver reflector umbrella in the right front of our model. Front lighting de-emphasizes texture; lighting from the side, above, or below emphasizes it. A portraitist may want to keep the light source close to the axis of the lens to suppress skin wrinkles, while a landscapist may want side lighting to emphasize the texture of rocks, sand, and foliage. Generally, the greater the angle at which the light is positioned to the subject, the more texture is revealed.

So, today I’ve shown you three more ways to set your lights when taking photos during daytime. Please have a try by yourselves. I hope you will have pretty photos(●′ω`●).

Cosplay Class-20131011

Today I will show you some lighting skills. A good light setting can upgrade your photos, specifically when you are doing Cosplay photography. You can provide extra lighting, mount your camera on a tripod and use a longer exposure, or paint with light (leave the shutter of a tripod-mounted camera open in a time exposure while you illuminate the subject with repeated electronic flash bursts, a flashlight, or some other light source). 

Let’s see some examples. Most of the example photos were taken at night. There’s no natural light anymore, you have to use extra lights to build the scene. 

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In this photo, the photographer set a flash light that oppose to the model. If the light is straightly to the model’s face, there will be no shadow on his face. In case to make the light softer, the photographer put a silver umbrella reflector in front of the light. Also there are some traffic lights and street lights to brighten the background. 

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This photo was taken at dusk. The higher background (the sky) is still bright but the lower background (the city) is dark. The photographer set a light with diffuser in the left front of the model. The broader the light source, the softer the light. The narrower the source, the harder the light. A broad light source lessens shadows, reduces contrast, and suppresses texture. A narrow light source does the opposite. This is because, with a broad source, light rays hit your subject from more directions, which tends to fill in shadows and give more even illumination to the scene. 

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This beautiful bride’s photo only used a small light. But she still looked soft and bright. Like the first example, the photographer uses a oppose flash light and a silver reflective umbrella. That’s because the closer the light source, the softer the light; the farther the source, the harder the light. This stands to reason: Move a light closer, and you make it bigger—that is, broader—in relation to your model. Move it farther away, and you make it relatively smaller and therefore narrower.

So, today I’ve shown you three ways to set your lights when taking photos in a dark place. Next time, I’ll give you some examples in a brighter scene! See you(●′ω`●)!