3985 Island Highway South Royston, BC V0R 2V0 Canada P H O T O G R A P H Y INC. Images and Image specifications for Texas School 2018 Mastering Light Class: Three Light Pure White Background Gobos were added to block background lights from subject s hair, normally reflector bowls placed on these lights would block the stray light, but none were available. Background, using a reflective meter, was set to 3 stops brighter than mid-grey. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!1
Image 1: Without gobos. Image 2: With camera-right gobo. Image 3: With both gobos. Better separation of hair from background especially on camera left side. Background light spill on camera left cheek is gone. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!2
One Light Pure White Background and now for something completely, well sort of different! This image is similar to the above 3 light setup, only it is done with one light. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!3
One Light Pure White Background Setup Specs Camera Exposure: F 5.6 at 1/125th at 400iso. Camera: Full frame mirrorless. Lens: 70-200mm set to 178mm. Camera Distance: 6 feet from subject. Camera Height: 5 foot from floor to imaging sensor. Camera Angle: Tilted down 2. Background Distance: White 9 foot seamless paper sits 7 feet behind subject & is angled to push far side of backdrop closer to strobe & near side further away from strobe. Background Brightness: Overexposed by 3 stops, reflective meter reading off the white paper read F 16.0, this is a +3 ratio. Origin of Light Sources Height: Profoto B1X 500W mono-block studio strobe - 7 feet from floor to strobe tube. Origin of Light Sources Distance: 10 feet in front of the subject & positioned to the camera right side of her. 6-7 feet is more normal but due to things in the way, the origin was placed at roughly 10 feet. Main-Source Distance: 4x6 foot Scrim Jim panel frame fitted with 1 layer of white translucent fabric placed 2 feet in front of subject to the camera right side. If the background was a tone darker than a white seamless paper, you can still turn it white by adding more layers of white material to the panel, typically I end up using 2 layers. Main-Source Height: 2½ feet floor to bottom of Scrim Jim panel. Shadow Fill Reflector: 4x6 foot Scrim Jim panel frame fitted with 1 layer of white reflective opaque fabric placed 3 feet to camera left side of subject & a little forward of subject towards camera. Shadow Fill Reflector Height: 2½ feet floor to bottom of Scrim Jim panel. Shadow Fill Ratio: Incident meter reading at subject read F 2.8, a -2 incident fill. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!4
Raw light from origin (strobe head) strikes subject & background. Strobe is both source & origin in this image. Notice background is not pure white. Panel is placed between strobe & subject. Now panel is source of illumination to subject, strobe is now origin of source. Compensating for loss of light on subject over-exposes background to pure white. Model: Kristin Butier Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!5
Fill reflector panel was added to shadow side to lighten shadow, notice how the decrease in Shadow Contrast (lighter shadows) widens the face relative to the image directly above. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!6
One Light Ceiling Bounce B&W Fine Arts Figure Study One Light Ceiling Bounce Setup Specs Camera Exposure: F 5.6 at 1/125th at 100ISO. Camera: Full frame mirrorless. Lens: 70-200mm set to 146mm. Camera Distance: 12 feet from subject. Camera Height: 5 1/2 feet from floor to imaging sensor. Camera Angle: Tilted down 5.3. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!7
Background Distance: Black seamless 6 feet behind subject, read -4 5/10ths reflective. Origin of Light Source Height: 600 Watt Profoto studio strobe (diagram shows 500Watt Tungsten work-light) 80 inches above floor measured from floor to strobe tube & 16 inches below fake white ceiling 2 white panels sitting 8 feet above subject. Model: Devyn Woodruff Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!8
Main-light Source Distance: Brightest part of ceiling light source was approximately 4 feet from subject s head. One Light Ceiling Bounce Lightroom B&W Process Settings Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!9
Butterfly Lighting With One Light What another one light setup, maybe the purchase of another light or two might be a good idea Dave, because this is getting ridiculous, besides how cheap can you get! This diagram pictured above is the setup for butterfly lighting as setup in my own frontroom. For Texas School we had a white seamless paper for a background instead of a mid-grey green wall & a silver fabric rather than a bedroom mirror for a shadow fill reflector. With the green wall an extra layer of white translucent fabric was placed over panel frame to darken subject to enable the background to burn out to pure white. In the diagram there is a small white cloth back edge of panel to reduce light just on forehead, I don t believe we used this in my class demo but it is a good trick to know. Notice the Tethertools rig under camera lens so I can see myself with Live View on laptop screen since I shot this as a selfie. This setup may seem complex to you and really time consuming to setup. And you are right, it is! But only the first time you do it. Also, you can do it almost anywhere, and usually you won t be faced with a mid-tone coloured wall, white walls are way more Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!10
common in homes and offices so you won t need the extra layer of fabric over the panel. To speed it up and to make it commercially viable in terms of time and money when performing on location, it becomes a recipe, a formula: Subject: 3-4 feet from wall. Off Camera Flash: mounted 7 feet high & 7 1/2 feet from wall. Flash: set to Manual & full power. Panel: 3-4 feet from wall. Camera (Full Frame Sensor): Positioned 10 feet from wall. Lens: set to 125mm. Exposure: F 5.6 1/125th at 100iso. I find there is a trade-off using off-camera-flash and that is, most flashes are slow to recycle at full power, much slower than most studio strobes, making natural expressions more of a challenge to capture. I d like to finish off by saying that I think our final image is not really a great work of art nor is it a really imaginative piece, what it is, is a good clean saleable image and it can be done with very little equipment all in your own front room. Now there s a concept, turn your front room into a profit centre or at least that s a good way to pitch it to your significant other. Raw light from the off-camera-flash hits subject & background directly. Subject is correctly exposed with hard light, background is light grey but not pure white. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!11
Add over head panel in this case a circular 42 inch reflector stripped down to its translucent white fabric. It is no longer a reflector but is rather a transmissive light source a circular panel or scrim. This panel drops exposure on subject, background stays the same. Also notice that the overhead panel cases a shadow on the bottom edge of the background it blocks the path from the flash to the background simply tilting panel down at its back edge removes the shadow from the background. Turning power up on flash to maintain correct exposure on subject burns background out to pure white Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!12
No fill reflector high shadow contrast meaning dark shadows. Silver fill reflector added below subject. Which is better? That is subjective, I like the darker shadow on this subject but prefer it with the reflector on others, so it depends on the subject and your taste, or more importantly, the taste of your client, you know the one with the credit card! Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!13
Simulated Sunlight With One Light Really more one light? Well I promise this is the last one, honestly! I live in a rain forest so if I need direct sunlight for a shoot I often have to fake it. The hardest part is keeping the backlighting the fake sunlight from being too intense. Typically I aim to set this backlight ratio to a +2 incident, meaning that the light falling on the back of the subject reads 2 stops brighter than the camera setting (mid-grey). I ve been getting better at it and have dropped this down as low as +0 incident reads same as camera but really a +1 to +2 looks more realistic. There are a number of adjustments to the flash lighting you can use: feathering the off-camera-flash or strobe a little bit off the subject and more onto the reflector main-light source panel, set your flash to telephoto, placing the panel flat on to flash/strobe origin, using a gobo, flag, or barn door to slightly reduce light striking back of subject. To make this fake sunlight look I usually start by underexposing the existing ambient light by 2 stops with my shutter speed I like to reserve the aperture for DoF. An overcast sky still pumps a lot of light onto your subject relative to off-camera-flash and lower powered strobes, so move into areas where natural blocks like buildings, overhead trees, etc. block the sky, otherwise you will have to get into high-speed sync lighting. This diagram is from another simulated sunlight shoot which we viewed on projector slide show in class. The diagram is accurate to our class version of this shoot with the exception of the main source we used a 4x6 foot Scrim Jim instead of a circular reflector stripped down to translucent white as shown here. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!14
Simulated Sunlight Setup Specs Camera Exposure: F 2.8 at 1/200th at 50ISO. Camera: Full frame mirrorless. Lens: 70-200mm set to105mm. Camera Distance: 10 feet from subject. Camera Height: 5 foot 8 inches from floor to imaging sensor. Camera Angle: Tilted up 2. Origin & Separation Light Height: Profoto off-camera-flash which Earl generously lent us - 7 feet from floor to strobe tube. Origin/Separation Light Distance: 3 feet behind & to the camera left side of subject. Origin/Separation Light Brightness: 1⅓ stops overexposed, incident meter reading read f4.5 or 4 & 3/10ths at back shoulder of subject, meter dome pointed at flash. Ambient Brightness: -2 incident. Main-Source Distance: 4x6 foot Scrim Jim panel frame fitted with a white translucent fabric placed 3 feet in front of subject to her camera left side. Main-Source Height: 2½ feet - ground to bottom of Scrim Jim panel. The above image panel is the shoot that the above diagram was created for. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!15
Left: Available light exposure, no flash. Below Left: Correct exposure. Below Right: One stop over-exposed with flash power then warmed up in Capture One or Lightroom. Model: Kaitlyn Toohey Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!16
Outdoor Mixed Light With ND Replacing High-Speed Sync Now this next shot only uses one light again, but I did use the sun as the backlight in addition to the frontal strobe light so it s not really a one light setup, well it is sort of so sorry! Shooting using High-Speed Sync requires strobes that can do high-speed sync. Offcamera-flash with high-speed sync capability is pretty normal for most modern flashes but they are so low in power that using modifiers on them renders them too low in power to compete with the ambient light. ND over the lens, in our case a 3 stop Neutral Density filter (ND) did the job, I set the camera to F 2.8 at 1/125th at 100ISO. The 100ISO and the ND slowed the shutter-speed down into the X-sync range above X-Sync (1/200th usually) only part or none of the strobe/flash exposure is captured. Using a mirrorless camera with an OLED viewfinder still provides a really bright image so you can easily see what is going on through your camera despite the 3 stop ND. 50ISO -3 Stop ND F 2.8 Strobe/Sunlight Mix: Attach -3 stop (ND8) filter to lens. Set camera to 50 ISO, F 2.8, 1/125th. Set meter to 6 ISO to compensate for -3 stop filter over lens This will under expose the ambient light from open sky by 3 stops & will drop direct sunlight backlighting to a +1 incident. If you only want to under expose ambient by 2 stops, set camera ISO to 100 and hand-held meter to 12 ISO. This will render a +2 backlight. If your meter has filter compensation feature, set the filter loss here rather than subtracting the loss from the hand-held meter s ISO setting, now the ISO will be set on hand-held meter to same value as on camera. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!17
100ISO -4 Stop ND F 2.8 Strobe/Sunlight Mix Attach -4 stop (ND16) filter to lens. Set camera to 100 ISO, F 2.8, 1/125th. Set meter to 6 ISO to compensate for -4 stop filter over lens This will under expose the ambient light from open sky by 3 stops & will drop direct sunlight backlighting to a +1 incident. If you only want to under expose ambient by 2 stops, set camera ISO to 200 and hand-held meter to 12 ISO. This will render a +2 backlight. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!18
Outdoor Mixed Light With ND Setup Specs Camera Exposure: F 2.8 at 1/125th at 100ISO with -3 stop ND. Camera: Full frame mirrorless. Lens: 70-200mm set to 70mm. Main: Profoto in 24 Octa-box on edge of frame, read F 2.8 incident at subject. Sunlight backlight: Read F 5.6 incident (+2) at back of subject. Open Sky Fill Light : Read F 1.4 incident (-2) at subject front. Model: Britanie Phan Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!19
Outdoor Mixed Light Indirect Ambient With 2 Strobes Another mixed light outdoors image with wide open aperture (F 2.8) requiring a Neutral Density filter to drop exposure for shutter speed within the safe X-Sync speed limits. Take note this shot uses two artificial lights, two Profoto B1X 500W battery powered monoblock strobes. Wow finally, getting past the one light setups! Outdoor Mixed Light 2 Light Setup Specs Camera Exposure: F 2.8 at 1/125th at 100ISO with -3 stop ND. Camera: Full frame mirrorless. Lens: 70-200mm set to 137mm. Main: Profoto B1X 500W mono-block studio strobe in 24 Octa-box on edge of frame, was fitted with a 50 soft grid (40 would have been better), read F 2.8 incident at subject. Sunlight backlight: Profoto B1X 500W mono-block studio strobe in 24 Octa-box (no grid for wide beam-spread). Read F 5.6 incident at back of subject, a +2 fake sunlight ratio. Open Sky Fill Light : Read F 1.4 incident (-2) at subject front. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!20
Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!21
Available light exposure, no flash. Some direct sunlight coming through trees onto forehead. Add back-light to mimic late day sunlight backlight. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!22
Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!23 Add main-light. Done! Let s go drink! P.S. A larger light source would have been preferable on this shot. Notice how bright the specular highlight is on her forehead, it was hot & sweaty out there so more makeup would help with this too. But, makeup would not soften the edges of shadows, hence the above wish for a larger source larger source would soften shadow edges & lower specular contrast.
B&W Dramatic Body Light Sculpting For this lesson I wanted a caucasian male model with a ripped body. My plan was to under expose him making his flesh appear dark, then show shape & form predominately with specular light-form, that is specular highlights (shine, sheen, glare). Pretty much turn a white guy into a black guy with lighting. As it turned out the model I chose was unable to make it & so we had to choose another. We had several choices, but the model with the most spectacular body was Afro-American, the others paled by comparison, literally & figuratively! As it turned out, I still got to show off my lighting trick of underexposing the subject then shaping him with specular light-form because our dark skinned model was not really dark average Afro-American flesh sits around 1 stop darker than mid-grey. Shoot Specs For B&W Body Sculpt Camera Exposure: F 8.0 at 1/125th at 100iso. Camera: Full frame mirrorless. Lens: 70-200mm set to 70mm. Camera Distance: 7.5 feet from subject. Camera Height: 3.5 feet from floor to imaging sensor. Background Distance: Black 9 foot seamless paper sits 9 feet behind subject. Main-Light Source: Profoto B1X 500W mono-block studio strobe fitted with a 24 Octabox & 50 soft grid was placed 3 feet from subject & sat 6.5 feet from floor to strobe tube. Main-Light Source Brightness: For this dark look, I typically underexpose this main-light -2 to -3 stops below camera setting using an incident meter reading with back of meter against subject, dome pointed at source. Separation Light-Source Distance - Two 1x4 foot Profoto RFi strip-light soft-boxes - fitted with 50 soft grids were placed vertically & slightly behind subject on both right & left sides, each sat 3 feet away from subject. These 2 back-light sources sat 2.5 feet from floor to bottom of strip-light. Separation Light-Source Brightness: I typically set these back-lights to -1 to -2 stops below camera setting using an incident meter reading with back of meter against subject, dome was pointed at source in question. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!24
Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!25
You don t always have to include eyes in the image, eyes closed & looking down creates emotion & mood in this capture. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!26
Model Taondrae Caldcleught Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!27
Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!28
Process settings in Lightroom CC Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!29
Lighting Chrome (Calculator) Chrome is just like a mirror, it becomes whatever you see reflecting onto its surface. Here it sees the black ceiling above. and here it sees a lit panel placed overtop. the light is dispersed somewhat evenly over the surface of the panel s fabric making for a flat looking specular highlight. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!30
A shadow from a hand is cast over the top surface of the panel. This cast shadow is moved over an 8 second exposure at F 8.0 at 100ISO to blur the edges of the shadow to create a soft edge transfer through the shadow. For a more in-depth tutorial go to: https://montizambert.com/lighting-chrome-calculator/ Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!31
Lighting Glass & Liquid (Champagne) To light the champagne bottle below we briefly looked at the usual way it is done, a soft box or panel from one side. Notice the hotspot in the specular highlight on the glass surface of the bottle, this is the strobe tube imaging through the panel s fabric. Two layers of fabric can solve this problem or use white plexiglass as a light source. Now let s look at my favourite way which incorporates digital light painting. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!32
A panel is placed just out of camera frame. It is placed beside the bottle in such a way that a lot of the panel goes behind the bottle so as to create a specular highlight as far back as possible to the back edge of the bottle. The same is duplicated on the other side. Both panels were Scrim Jim frames with white nylon material stretched over. If wrinkles appear in fabric & image in the specular highlight on the bottle, then switch to a time exposure and shake the panels. Or switch to a sheet of white Plexiglass. Both panels can be done in one exposure, you don t have to do them separately. Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!33
A raw light was placed so that its specular highlight hotspot appears mid bottle. This exposure is for the bottom label. A raw light was placed up high over bottle, this exposure works for the top label & will be used as the base dark exposure of the bottom label the bright bottom label above will be selectively painted onto this darker label to create a painterly look. appears mid bottle. This exposure is for the Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!34
A Silver card is held behind the bottle & is angled to caught reflection of left side panel light source to create a glow through bottle. This exposure is over-exposed by turning up the Profoto B1X strobe. Only parts of this bright glow will be digitally painted over the dark glass expsosure. Final image with bottle side specular highlights, both top & bottom label, plus liquid glow all painted together in Photoshop using Layers & Layer Masks. See link below for more in depth video on the process: https://montizambert.com/lighting-glass-bottlechampagne/ Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!35
See link below for more in depth video on the process: https://montizambert.com/lighting-glass-bottlechampagne/ Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!36
Dave Montizambert 2018 (copying without author s permission prohibited) Page:!37