Studio Photography and Lighting

Art and Techniques

Christian Hough

• Publisher: Crowood
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781847974860
• eBook ISBN: 9781847975638
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

This book gives clear, practical advice on how to get creative with and achieve the best from your studio lighting. It explains and demonstrates basic and advanced techniques so you can fully understand how to light a subject and compose a great photograph. Explains lighting and camera techniques and the ideas behind them. Utilizes specific examples and diagrams to illustrate everything from portraits and art-nudes to still life photography. Provides valuable advice on all studio-related equipment and introduces the basics of RAW processing. A clear practical guide to learning about studio photography and working creatively with light to shoot great photographs. Aimed at all photographers - professional and amateur covering the full range - portrait, product advertising, glamour and fashion. Covers lighting and camera techniques and gives advice on all studio-related equipment. Superbly illustrated with 196 colour photographs. Christian Hough is a professional photographer experienced in polished commercial and fine-art nude photographs.

Chapter 1 Equipment Advice

LIGHTING

For many years, studio photography was for a large part controlled by the professional elite. However, with the introduction of digital photography, it has slowly filtered down to the semi-professional and enthusiast markets, seeing with it an increase in affordable equipment. What once was an extremely expensive investment is now available to suit every budget, from cheaper imports to high-end established brands. So what do you purchase?

As with everything, you get what you pay for, and your decision will depend on the intended use. So, if you’re planning a busy high-end studio to shoot commercial campaigns on a daily basis, then budget lighting equipment won’t be for you; however, if you shoot the occasional portrait or run a small business selling products online, then budget equipment might just suit your needs. Of course, it isn’t always as simple as how often you shoot, but it also depends on what you are shooting; whether you need to freeze action, cover a wide area or need consistency with exposure and colour. As the demands of your photography increase, so will the demands for your equipment budget.

To this end, your first major decision will be regarding the type of light you will use - namely, continuous light or flashlight. Both have their pros and cons.

Continuous Light

Continuous light is ‘continuous’, in that it doesn’t flash - the largest and best-known continuous light source we know is the sun! However, depending on your geographic location, sunlight isn’t particularly reliable, and shaping and controlling both daylight and sunlight can prove to be difficult. This is where studio lighting comes in. There is a broad range of different continuous lighting systems on the market aimed at both photographers and filmmakers.

Continuous lighting systems are intuitive to use and are utilized by both amateur and professional photographers. They offer the benefit of visualizing the lighting levels and shadows with the naked eye, as opposed to metering each flash head with a light meter - so what you see is what you get. It has been this ease of use that has led to a growth and development by manufacturers for the enthusiast markets, meeting the demands for home portraits and small business e-commerce. Typically the continuous lights that are aimed at the amateur and beginner markets tend to be considerably cheaper than flash lighting targeted at the same level.

There are other benefits of course, such as the ease of balancing your lighting with ambient lighting levels, metering using your camera’s inbuilt TTL (Through The Lens) meter instead of a handheld flash/light meter, and depending on which continuous lighting system you’re using, it may also prove easier to balance the ambient colour temperature, such as daylight. However, continuous light does have its limitations and although it can be used for any subject it typically finds its niche in stills/product photography.

As you would expect, there are a number of different continuous lighting systems available; the prices can vary greatly, and each type has its strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps the most common type of continuous lighting is incandescent light, produced by the standard light bulbs found in many household lamps. As a main light source, incandescent light is particularly undesirable as it lacks power and is best described as the orange hue found on many amateur interior photographs. For this reason, many continuous lighting alternatives have been developed, including the following:

HID Lights (High Intensity Discharge)

HIDs are basically arc lamps that rely on a combination of gas and metal salts and an electric arc between two electrodes to produce light when ignited by current. There are various types of HID lights available to photographers, each producing a different type of light, each with a slightly different colour temperature and, as you would expect, varying costs.

HMI Lights (Hydrargyrum Medium-arc Iodide)

Continuous lighting systems originally found their roots in the theatre with the use of incandescent hot lights, until the 1950s when a more efficient lighting system was designed by Osram-Sylvania, known as HMI lights. Instead of using incandescent light, HMI lights use arc lamps (light produced by an electrical arc inside the lamp) and are approximately four times more efficient than incandescent lights, whilst emitting less heat. HMI lights are typically expensive and can be found most frequently in theatres, broadcasting and film studios. They run at a colour temperature around 5600–6000 Kelvin (standard daylight colour temperature). HMI lights are used by many photographers, especially for lighting larger subjects such as cars and interiors, and are available in wattages that are sufficient to overpower the sun. HMI lights can be ‘hot restarted’, which means they can be restarted immediately after being switched off. HMI lights are traditionally known as ‘Blonde’ and ‘Redhead’ - Blonde with a power output of 1000–2000 watts and Redheads with a power output of 650–1000 watts.

Fig. 1.1 HMI Lighting by Arri (also known as continuous/hot lighting).

CDM/CMH Lighting (Ceramic Discharge Metal/Halide)

CDM lights are commonly used for architectural lighting as they produce high power, yet less heat than HMI lighting, so may be run for prolonged periods. Typically, CDM lighting produces a bluish light that is close to daylight, although the exact colour temperature depends on the specific mixture of metal halide salts within the lamp. There are also warm-white CDM lamps, with somewhat warmer colour temperatures, that produce a more clear and natural-looking light. There are a range of CDM bulbs available that produce colour temperatures between 3000 and 8000 Kelvin. The benefits of these for photographers is that bulbs can be easily swapped to match a given colour temperature. CDM lamps are said to use one fifth of the power of comparable tungsten incandescent light bulbs for the same light output and retain colour stability better than most other gas discharge lamps. CDM lights tend to be cheaper the HMI lights; however, they are ‘cold restarted’, meaning they will take several minutes to warm up and will need similar downtime before they are restarted.

Tungsten Halogen Lights

Tungsten Halogen is incandescent lighting, utilizing a bulb with a filament of metal tungsten. Tungsten Halogen light was for many years the choice of studios for shooting stills and was used within film production, but has to some degree been superseded by flash and HMI lighting. Tungsten tends to vary on colour temperature depending on manufacturer, and the bulbs produce a lot of heat, so they can prove unsuitable for work in confined spaces, close-quarter portraits and culinary photography. Tungsten lighting is very cheap and readily available; however, there have been recent reports of their public use becoming more restricted due to the health and safety requirements of many venues.

Cool Lights and Fluorescent Lighting

Cool lights are fluorescent lights and are typically the entry-level of continuous lighting systems. They are available in a range of colour temperatures, although they are usually daylight balanced between 5600 and 6000 Kelvin for photographic use. The cool lights are available as low-voltage bulbs, which are used in single lighting heads, and in the traditional fluorescent tube format, normally installed in light banks and panels. Colour stability is reasonably good at around +/- 300 Kelvin. The bulbs have a very long life cycle, between 7000 and 10000 hours, and are flicker free. Florescent cool lights produce very little heat, so are ideal for portraits and stills, especially food and culinary photography. Some manufacturers are producing tubes that can be mixed with HMI units and coloured tubes specifically for lighting blue and green screens.

Fig. 1.2 Cool lighting powered by fluorescent bulbs and tubes.

LED Lighting (Light Emitting Diode)

LED lights and panels have a similar application to that of the fluorescent cool lighting. The principle is to use high performance LED technology for improved power output, unit size and power consumption. Similar to the fluorescent tubes, they are daylight balanced, fully dimmable and flicker free. They are available in single head form, similar in appearance to the HMI lights or light panels.

Fig. 1.3 LED light panel, with low power consumption and low heat.

It is possible to mix continuous lighting sources. However, if the sources are all balanced to different colour temperatures, you will encounter strange and somewhat distracting colour shifts in your images. The only realistic way to counteract this problem would be to utilize coloured gels in an attempt to equalize some of the colour shifts from the differing light sources. The degree of accuracy to which you will be able to correct the colour temperature will ultimately depend on the colour temperature of the light source you are using and the availability of coloured gels. It is worth remembering that using a coloured gel will also reduce the power output of the light.

Continuous lighting has many benefits, but whilst it remains a realistic option for modern photographers, especially with the video capabilities of camera systems, allowing the photographer to engage in the worlds of both moving and still images, the quality and power output of the system depend greatly on your available budget. The entry-level cool lights and light panels may prove to be more financially attractive, yet they may also be the most limiting, with the more costly and robust and higher-powered HMI units remaining bey...

Table of contents

• Studio Photography and Lighting
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Equipment Advice
• Chapter 2 Basic Skills
• Chapter 3 Expanding Your Skills
• Chapter 4 Artistic Nude
• Chapter 5 Still Life Photography
• Chapter 6 Basic RAW Processing
• Glossary
• Index