Before setting up your lighting for studio photography, the first step is to decide what arrangement of light sources will create the effect you intend. Will your light fall into the hard category or will it be soft? What's the difference between them?

Let's first look at their main characteristics, and how each of them feels when photographing the same subject.

Hard light in studio photography

In general, hard light is a single source of light directed at a distance, such as the sun on a clear day or a flashlight at night.

This hard light source produces high contrast, where the transition between highlights and shadows is very clear and easily distinguishable.

In some cases, this contrast may appear too harsh (and undesirable).

Soft light in studio photography

On the other hand, a soft light source is larger, wider, and the light is located relatively close to the subject. On a cloudy or overcast day, when diffuse light is reflected off a large concrete wall, this could be an example of a soft light source.

The light tends to be nice in areas of contrast, with highlights containing more detail and shadow edges soft and open.

It's a nicer light overall, but it's not necessarily a single light source.

Many factors influence the quality and type of light on set. The direction may be set by the art director or the client, who asks that photographs be created in the spirit of an existing style. They may ask to recreate natural light conditions (such as hard sunlight in a hot desert hitting boots, or cool early morning light falling on a set table).

The subject itself can also have a big impact on what light you choose. Highly reflective objects (such as glass or chrome) or high contrast objects can present quite a challenge to a photographer when trying to illuminate them with a hard light source. If you use only it, then fighting spectral highlights or preserving detail in shadows and highlights will be a real pain.

If you're lucky enough to have a client give you creative freedom, or you're working on your own project, you'll be able to illustrate a mood or emotion by choosing appropriate lighting. Careful selection of the lighting scheme, a combination of hard and soft light sources will help you achieve the desired result.

How to install hard light

To create a hard studio light pattern, place the key source (flash with a 12" modifier) ​​to the left and slightly behind the subject. The initial beam may be too wide, so to concentrate it you can add a 35 degree reticle for the modifier.

For this setup, final adjustments were made to the height and position of the key light so as to change the angle and length of shadows on the table and floor, as well as to illuminate the corners of the computer monitor in a pleasing manner. A 4′x8′ sheet of black foam board was placed on the left side of the location to deepen the shadows and eliminate unwanted reflections. Two smaller sheets of white foam board were installed lower on the front and on both sides to preserve the details of the table's front edge and legs.

A second light with a 7” mesh modifier was mounted high at the back of the location. Its angle was set to highlight the top right corner of the background, as seen in the photo (right).

How to install soft light

To create the soft light pattern, the key light was placed in the same location, but using a 4′x4′ diffuser panel placed between the light and the subject. Remove the grid from the key light to widen the beam. The black cardstock is replaced with white to fill in and open up the shadows (but the two sheets at the front remain). The background lighting is pushed back, the grid is removed, but a diffuser disc is added to soften and cover the entire background. This makes the entire area bright and softly lit with plenty of light filling the image (left).

How to change a hard light source to a soft one

There are times when you've positioned your lights and find that you want to go a different route. In this case, it is enough to simply change the type of light source from one to another. You can diffuse hard light to create soft light by placing a diffuser material between the source and the subject, allowing you to control the angle and gradient of the light. You can also simply attach a softbox to soften the light and even make it wider. You can take a soft light source and, by changing its distance to the subject, make it hard and more focused. You also have the ability to redirect the light using reflectors, umbrellas, or craft supplies to soften it and make it less directional.

Combining hard and soft light

A final piece of studio photography advice is to be flexible with your lighting designs, regardless of years of experience. You may have an idea in your head of how you want the photo to end up looking, but you'll find that on location the subject looks different in different lighting conditions. Be prepared to try and explore, as often a combination of hard and soft light can bring out the best in a product.

An example of a soft light with a hard edge (push or accent) light from behind. Notice the hard shadows on the table in front of the cups - this is created by the hard light.

Once you fully understand soft and hard light sources, you can combine the two techniques. For example, a location should have edge lighting to add mood or dimension to the image, or to add emphasis to certain elements in the frame. Mastering both types of light will allow you to have complete control over your lighting and the final image you create.

Lighting plays an important role in photography. It can bring a photo to life by adding interesting effects, dramatic shadows and silhouettes, but if used incorrectly, it can end up with unwanted highlights and reflections in your photo.

This guide is written to introduce beginners to one of the most important aspects of photography: lighting. The guide consists of 3 parts. The first talks about hard and soft light, the second talks about artificial and natural lighting, and the third talks about light intensity and depth of field.

Part 1: hard and soft light

This section addresses the fundamental question of the difference between shooting with hard and soft light.

Hard light creates well-defined, dark shadows and usually comes from a single source, which is usually small or very far away. At the same time, soft light creates soft shadows, or does not create them at all. Such light has several sources, is scattered or reflected from various surfaces, falling on the subject at different angles. In natural lighting conditions, hard light can be observed on a cloudless day when the sun is high above the horizon. Beginning portrait photographers should avoid shooting scenes with this type of lighting. But cloudiness, fog, or even industrial air pollution create soft lighting, since sunlight is partially reflected and scattered along its path.

It is important to remember that the size of the light source is inversely proportional to its hardness. So, the smaller the light source, the harsher the illumination it produces.

Soft light You can also create your own using diffusers and reflectors:
- Diffusers. Clouds are an example of a natural scatterer. Any translucent material is suitable for artificially scattering light. So, special curtains on flashes or even ordinary white cloth can be used between the light source and the subject. The main thing is to correctly select the degree of transparency of the material and the strength of the light pulse (if shooting is carried out using artificial light sources).
- Reflectors. Reflecting light essentially creates another source of light. The photographer can control its direction and angle of incidence on the subject. In addition to professional reflectors, you can use ordinary sheets of paper for these purposes. Both natural and artificial light can be reflected.

Both types of light have their advantages and disadvantages. Hard light can be used to create images with high contrast to highlight shapes and textures. It is also good for enhancing the 3D effect, adding dimension and dramatic effects to an image. However, hard light is difficult to work with and is generally considered unsuitable for many (if not most) situations, especially people photography.
Soft light, on the other hand, creates even illumination that better displays the colors and shapes of objects. Naturally, the choice of light type depends on the genre of photography, the subject and the desired effect, but soft light is usually preferable and is by far the best and safest option for beginners.

Part 2: artificial and natural light

Obviously, natural light refers to direct sunlight or normal daylight, such as indoors. And all kinds of fluorescent lamps in various household or industrial appliances can act as sources of artificial light.

Natural light

Natural light is less controllable and varies significantly depending on a range of conditions such as time of day, weather and geographic location. It does not require the use of any additional equipment, although, of course, the same diffusers and reflectors can be used. The question of choosing between using natural or artificial light is obviously more relevant for portrait or product photography. In the case of landscape or wildlife photography, the photographer's choice is usually limited to natural light.

Among the factors influencing the nature of natural light, it is worth noting the following:
- Weather. As mentioned earlier, cloudy weather is often considered preferable by photographers because cloudy skies create soft light. But cloudiness is not always perfectly uniform, and its density also varies. This is worth taking into account, since the intensity of the light depends on it. And natural phenomena such as hurricanes, storms or even ordinary fog are also worth trying to use for the benefit of a photograph: a black sky will give it drama, and the light scattered in the fog will give the landscape a sense of depth and improve perspective.

- Times of Day. You can usually get milder lighting conditions early in the morning or late in the evening. In addition, the light is warmer at this time. Sunrise and sunset are often considered the ideal times to shoot landscapes and portraits. But during this time of day, lighting conditions change very quickly, both in terms of intensity and color. On the one hand, this allows you to get a series of varied shots in a short period of time, but on the other hand, there is a risk of missing a truly perfect moment. During sunrise and sunset, shadows change their intensity and shape. So, at sunset the shadows lengthen and become less intense, but in the morning the opposite is true.
- Geographical position. There is a pattern that the further you are from the equator, the longer you can watch the sun rise and set. Thus, mild morning or evening light conditions last much longer in such areas and, conversely, pass much faster in close proximity to the equator.
- Air pollution. Like water vapor in fog and clouds, particles from industrial air pollution scatter light rays, making it less intense and softer.

Artificial light

When working with artificial light, a photographer faces the same problems as when shooting in natural light. But in this case, he has complete control over the light sources, their number, location, angle, brightness and hardness. In addition, different artificial light sources have different color temperatures. For example, halogen bulbs are cooler and produce light that has a blue tint, while tungsten lights have a reddish tint. All these nuances must be taken into account and kept under control to obtain the desired result.

When it comes to controlling and manipulating light, there are many options, depending on whether you're dealing with artificial, natural, soft or hard light. It all comes down to understanding how the final image depends on lighting conditions, its selection and management, as well as adjusting camera settings (in particular, white balance) and further processing of the photo in graphic editors.

Part 3: Light Intensity and Depth of Field

In the final section, we'll talk about the importance of light intensity and what beginners should know about it.

When shooting, the camera requires a certain amount of light to capture the image on the sensor. The amount of light captured by the sensor is determined by three parameters: ISO (sensor sensitivity), lens aperture and shutter speed (camera shutter speed).

Photography can be carried out in various conditions. For example, a sunny day for landscape photography may seem ideal to a beginner, but in such lighting the high light intensity tends to increase contrast and degrade the level of detail. At the same time, cloudy weather and diffused light, as we remember, will help level out these shortcomings, improving color accuracy, smoothing out gradients, softening shadows and preserving the texture of objects. But the ambient light intensity is lower and low-light landscape photography requires a slower shutter speed and/or a higher ISO.

ISO

Excerpt

At the moment of photographing, the shutter located directly in front of the matrix opens, thereby letting in the required amount of light. The longer the shutter time, the more light will be captured by the matrix. When photographing moving objects, a high shutter speed is necessary in order to “freeze” the subject in its motion. At the same time, they are useful at night when the camera needs more light to create an image. You can compensate for light sensitivity while keeping it within acceptable noise levels. To further stabilize the camera in such cases, a tripod is useful.

Diaphragm

The aperture is the hole in the lens through which light enters the camera sensor. The size of the aperture is controlled by a special device called. Naturally, the larger the diameter of this hole, the more light enters the matrix in a certain period of time and vice versa. are displayed as F/ values. Thus, small values ​​(for example, from F/1.0 to F/3.5) indicate the maximum relative aperture diameter parameters. With this opening of the aperture, the greatest amount of light enters the matrix. And the F/22 value indicates a closed aperture and a limited light flux passing through the lens. The aperture setting range may vary between lenses.

It is the aperture that controls the depth of field - the distance between the closest and farthest points falling in the plane of focus. The larger the hole diameter, the shallower the depth of field.

Auto mode

In Full Auto mode, the combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO is chosen by the camera itself based on its perception of the most appropriate settings for the particular moment of shooting. In many cases this produces decent results, but experienced photographers take amazing photos solely using manual camera settings. However, for beginners, this mode will be very useful in many cases, leaving the opportunity and time to concentrate on other aspects of shooting.

Manual camera control

Depending on your current shooting requirements, you can use different camera control modes. The most common shooting modes are shutter-priority, aperture-priority, and full manual (for more experienced photographers). In each of them, the ISO value can also be set manually, or left in automatic mode.

In aperture priority mode, the photographer presets the aperture value, for example to control depth of field, and the camera calculates the optimal shutter speed. This is generally the preferred option for shooting landscapes (with the aperture closed) and portraits (with the aperture open).

In shutter priority mode, the shutter speed is manually set while the camera's automation selects the remaining parameters. This mode is used, for example, when photographing sports events (short shutter speeds are important to capture athletes in action) or in the case of night photography (extra-long shutter speeds are necessary to capture maximum light).

In full manual mode, an experienced photographer who understands the impact of certain shooting parameters and their interrelationships gains absolute control over the shooting process.

Well, you can find out what camera shooting modes there are.

IMAGE
And again and again a note about the next lecture by Alexander Shimbarovsky (subject - Photographic Art).

At the very beginning of the lecture, we talked about the practical use of flash, and the operation of a tilt-shift lens was also demonstrated, but since I already described all this in sufficient detail in the note before last, I will not repeat myself too much. I’ll just mention a couple of new points.

When working with flash, a higher ISO allows you to better study the background (background).
External flashes, which are attached directly to the camera, can be used as an alternative to monolights. This alternative turns out to be more mobile and such flashes can also be synchronized with each other. To do this, they have switches like: Off - Master - Slave. Off - autonomous operation, i.e. synchronization is turned off, Master - the flash is the master, i.e. gives a signal to the slave flashes to fire, Slave is a slave flash that will fire based on the signal from the master flash.

After a short workshop, we returned to theory again and looked at the types of light (based on the role of light in the frame) and the main lighting schemes used when shooting.

Before considering lighting schemes, it is imperative to understand the types of light, what kind of light is called and what tasks it performs.

Main types of light

Each lighting source in the studio has its own name depending on its location in the studio, purpose and force of influence on the subject being photographed.

Key light as main light

It is placed in the near sector in front of the model, but placed above the axis of the camera lens. The primary task of key light is to illuminate the most important elements, to emphasize the volume and shape of the object or model being photographed. Competition from other types of light is unacceptable - they can only complement key lighting. Simply put, the key light can be called the main light. Self-drawing light is rarely used, since it provides contrasting lighting, which makes it difficult to work out details in shadows or highlights due to the large range of brightnesses.

Let's list a number of disadvantages of key light if it is used as the only source.

The physical properties of the light source (in particular, we are talking about the drop in luminous flux) do not allow the background to be properly illuminated. The background remains contrasting due to the difference in lighting between the model itself and the subject and background.

The lighting is only partial: the model is half illuminated - the side with which the model is turned towards the light source.

Choosing a place to set the subject takes a lot of time. The fact is that problems arise with shadows, of which there are a lot: on the face, on accompanying objects, in the background, etc.

With key lighting, it is impossible to use the background as an element to balance the composition.

For all its shortcomings, key light has its own textures and helps make the final image more vivid and contrasting.

Often the image of a single source of painting light is called Rembrantian and a certain similarity of the finished photographs with the artist’s brush is noted. The scarcity and laconicism of the coloring light allows you to highlight the current character or object and leave it in the viewer’s field of vision.
Painting light is also characterized by its beauty and complexity. True, the main problems arise primarily due to imperfection.

To fully work with any light sources, you should remember two basic rules:

1. Each of the listed light sources is usually installed separately.
2. Control over lighting is established only through the camera viewfinder.

Fill light

Essentially, fill light is general, uniform lighting. In terms of intensity, it should be weaker than the drawing one, as a rule, by two or three levels. It is known that the brighter the fill light, the weaker the pattern, the lower the light contrast, especially if we are dealing with a flat image. Sometimes the role of fill can be played by modeling diffused light. On-camera flash is often used as fill light.

So what is a fill light for? It softens the light and shadow pattern of the photograph and makes the shadows less deep. However, there are situations when its use is not necessary. These are: a dramatic female portrait, a black-and-white male portrait, a light-toned soft portrait. In other cases, fill light works to the benefit of the photographer, so it is worth knowing about its features.

To create fill light, soft boxes and reflective panels, light panels, and light disks are used. The fill light source is located as standard: in front or next to the camera, diagonally in front. There is an opinion that the fill light source should only be placed from the front, because otherwise rough double shadows will appear in the photo. But, if the photographer uses a soft box or light disk, placing them close to the model, the risk of additional shadows can be avoided.

If you use only fill light, the frame will be flat, lacking contrast.

Together, fill and modeling light create a fairly harmonious picture.

If we want to use a non-black background, and especially if the model’s hair blends into the background, it’s worth connecting additional light sources, which will be discussed below.

Backlight

Backlight is also called contour and accent light. It reveals the shape of the entire photographic object or any part of it, and also “tears” the object away from the background. In order to obtain a light contour line, the backlight source is located behind the object at a close distance from it. You can adjust the thickness of the light contour line in a photograph by increasing or decreasing the intensity of the backlight. Backlight serves to highlight the light accent. With its help, the texture of hair, clothing, etc. is emphasized.

One technique based on backlighting is kotrazhur(Contre-jour, shooting against the light).

Background light

As the name suggests, backlight illuminates the background against which the subject of the photograph is depicted. It can be uniform or uneven. Background light has two purposes. It creates additional spatial depth in the photograph, separating the subject from the background, and illuminates the background, emphasizing its texture and color. The intensity of the background light should be lower than that of the painter.

The background light source is set so that the light areas of the object are drawn against a dark background, and the dark areas against a light background. Hard light sources are used to create background light. They form a light spot of a fixed shape and size or evenly illuminate the background. There may be several sources.

Modeling light

Modeling light is a low-intensity directed beam of light used to produce highlights that improve the transfer of the volume of an object and highlight shadows in order to soften them, and sometimes completely eliminate them. Depending on the purpose and creative ideas, modeling light can be soft or hard.

The direction of the light flux can be very different - from front to back, which is determined by the photographer’s intention. In this case, the modeling light, to one degree or another, inevitably affects the density of the shadows, brightening them the more, the closer these shadow areas come into contact with the areas on which the modeling light is applied.

Modeling light is an auxiliary lighting component. It must be harmoniously correlated with the key light, always taking into account its predominant importance in the distribution of lights and shadows on the object.

I will tell you about lighting schemes in subsequent notes, since during the lecture we were given a very superficial idea of ​​the four basic schemes, but they promised to work it all out in more detail during practical classes in the studio. I think that after these practical lessons I will describe all the points related to lighting schemes, otherwise if you now try to understand the topic using Google, there will be no material left for subsequent notes and will have to be repeated)

And within the framework of this note, I will also mention that light can be soft and hard.

Soft and hard light

The concepts of “hard” and “soft” light are relative and the same light source, in different shooting conditions, can be both hard and soft. On what parameters then does the light depend? Let's look at some illustrative examples made on 3D models.

The main difference between hard light and soft light is the transition gradient between light and shadow areas. If you look at the places circled in red, you will see that on the face on the left the illuminated part ends abruptly and turns into shadow, while on the face on the right the transition from the light to the shadow area is smoother.

Now let's move from the three-dimensional model to the real one:

In a photo with hard light, the shadow turned out to be clearly defined, with sharp boundaries, while in a photo with soft light, the shadow is more blurry and the transition from light to dark (shadow) is much softer and almost unnoticeable. As you may have noticed, photography with soft light looks more attractive, so it is believed that portraits using soft light as the main source look better (if you are photographing a girl, shoot with soft light).

Factors influencing the type of light:

The size of the light source relative to the size of the object being photographed;
- the distance from the light source to the subject.

The larger the light source and closer to the subject, the softer the light. And vice versa, the smaller and further away, the tougher it is.

If you photograph a person's face in the light of an incandescent light bulb, the light will turn out to be harsh because the light bulb is smaller than the person's face. The sun on a clear day is also a harsh light source (and a big problem for the photographer), even despite its enormous size, since it is very far away relative to the subject being photographed.

If the sky is overcast, the light will be soft, since sunlight passing through the clouds will be scattered. For the size of the light source in this case, we will no longer take the sun as such, but the clouds that scatter directed sunlight. Clouds are much smaller than the surface of the sun, but are much closer to the subject (which is why photographers rejoice when it's cloudy outside).

A hard count emphasizes the texture and texture of your subject and can make a photograph appear more contrasty and dramatic.

Ways to soften the light

- light scattering. Any translucent object is suitable for this; place it between the subject and the light source. Photographers use umbrellas for light and reflection, softboxes, octaboxes, diffusers (sold together with reflectors), but it can also be a sheet, a curtain, anything that can diffuse light;

ABOUT light reflection. Position your subject so that only reflected light hits it. This is why photographers shoot indoors by pointing the flash at the ceiling.

It must be taken into account that when softening the light by scattering or reflection, a significant part of it is lost and the illumination of the subject will decrease, as a result of which it is necessary to make adjustments to the shooting parameters (increase the power of the light source or increase the shutter speed, open the aperture, increase ISO).

What features does soft light have? In contrast to hard, it hides flaws and defects of the surface being removed well, makes the model’s skin more attractive, and makes the transition between the shadow and light areas more invisible.

Enough for today...

To be continued...

In this article we will look at concepts often found in the description of lighting sources - soft and hard light. Depending on the tasks. that the photographer sets for himself, his choice may be different.

Let's start with hard light. Hard light, as a rule, is formed from a point source and is directional. Examples of hard light sources include: the sun in a clear sky at midday, a spotlight, a studio flash with a small reflector at a great distance from the subject.

Hard light forms sharp and deep shadows, the area of ​​transition from light to shadow (tonal transition) is very small, in other words, the border between light and shadow is sharp. This lighting, when directed at an angle, conveys surface character and texture very well, but at the same time strongly emphasizes wrinkles or uneven skin. Portraits with hard light tend to be dramatic and bright.

But despite this, many photographers avoid working with hard light, since it requires certain skills, the ability to “see light” and very precise installation and adjustment of light. The slightest turn of the head in one direction or another leads to a strong change, and often to the destruction of a beautiful cut-off pattern. Russian photographers who are masters of using hard lighting are Oleg Tityaev and Ilya Rashap.

Now let's move on to soft light. Soft light- this is not necessarily diffused light, as is sometimes claimed. This interpretation of soft lighting is incomplete. The following statement would be more correct: the softness or hardness of lighting is determined by the relative size of the light source in comparison with the subject, as well as the distance to the subject.

Based on this, a soft light source can also produce harder lighting if the distance between it and the subject is increased so much that the distance is much greater than the size of the source. Then the source will become close to a point.

How to get a source of soft lighting? After all, a flash is practically a point source!

Exit - make the radiation area larger, that is, distribute the luminous flux over a large surface. Please note that the direction of the light will remain the same! Technically, this is done by reflecting light from a large surface (reflective umbrella, shooting with an on-camera flash aimed at the ceiling), or by passing light through a large area of ​​scattering material (softbox, scream panel, frost frame). Examples of natural sources of soft light are the sky on cloudy days, as well as a large window that does not receive direct sunlight.

The image obtained using a soft light source has more extended boundaries of transitions from light to shadow, that is, wider tonal transitions. This lighting conceals the texture of the surface, making skin irregularities and defects less noticeable in a portrait photograph.

Many people think that to shoot a portrait with soft lighting you must have studio equipment. This is not a mandatory condition at all. A good portrait with soft lighting can be shot using light from a window.

Which are designed to emphasize the natural beauty of the object. The most common among them is soft lighting. The director and cameraman talk about what it is, how to achieve it and how to make your project “beautiful in appearance” Ted Sim in the Apurture video.

Soft is usually called, which seems to envelop the subject of photography. At the same time, it casts diffuse shadows with soft contours. This is the exact opposite of contrasting, “hard” lighting.

When to use it

Soft light is used as key lighting when you need to create invisible or minimal shadows in the frame. Because soft light envelops the subject better than contrasting light, it is most often used in scenes where you want to hide certain unwanted textures in the image.

Consider artist Bob Ross. Since it is the arrangement of shadows and highlights that creates depth in the image of an object, it is best to minimize this effect by getting rid of shadows.

When working with fashion videos, for example, you can use soft lighting to hide the model's wrinkles or other signs of aging that would otherwise become noticeable. Additionally, soft lighting works great as fill or “ambient” light. Due to the lack of obvious shadows, you can use it together with a painter to expose the subject. This will prevent him from having several shadows appear at once.

Let's look at the situation from the point of view of the classic three-part lighting scheme. If the fill light is too contrasty, two shadows may appear under a person’s nose and chin: one from the key light, the other from the fill light. We are accustomed to seeing only one shadow - from the Sun, and only in such a situation the image seems natural.

Screenshot from video

Of course, this rule can be broken, but you should not forget about it if you strive for a classical understanding of a beautiful image. Obviously, when it comes to an all-white environment, soft light is what you need to think about.

Scene from the movie "Birdman"

Soft lighting is also ideal for situations where you need to move lighting equipment without the viewer noticing. Let's remember the traditional technique of “talking on the go” - the characters move towards the camera, which also moves in space with them. But how can you maintain beautiful lighting in such a situation? Using soft lighting. Such scenes are usually lit using a reflector or large lighting equipment such as a Chinaball or softbox. The movement of light is revealed by shadows, so if they are invisible, the illusion is preserved.

How to Create Soft Lighting

The key factors are quite simple - the size of the source and the distance to the object. In general, the larger the source and the closer it is to the subject, the softer the light. The sun, for example, is a huge source of light, but since it is far from the Earth, it emits a hard light that is clearly visible in clear weather.

Screenshot from video

The easiest way to achieve soft lighting is with diffusers. More specifically, softboxes that can be attached to a lamp, thereby increasing its size. If you need even more light, try using lamps like Chinaballs. More traditional means: fabrics, frames - in general, anything through which light can pass. In addition, a reflective panel can be used, which will also help make the source larger in size.