📸 Lighting to Get Maximum Saturation from Gels | the FORMULA EP#01
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- On this edition of The Formula lighting tips and tricks we will walk you through a unique lighting recipe for a cross-lit portrait with colored gels.
FREE! Downloadable PDF:
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Read the Article:
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Learn more about the Sekonic L-478D LiteMaster Pro:
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#gelsforflash #lightinghowto #doitwithsekonic - Jak na to + styl
Awesome video. I'm always impressed to see companies support their products with well-made tutorials. Keep up the good wor,.
Thank You Nicholas
Thanks for your tips ❤️
Excellent presentation, clear, concise and informative. Thanks for the effort and the share! Very helpful.
Thank You Chuck! If there is anything you want to see please let us know. We are working on an entire series of educational free content.
@@absesay1394 What this presentation did is what so many miss the mark on - the detailed explanation of each part in the process, step by step, not assuming the level of understanding on the part of the viewer. If it helps you to think about future curriculum, I'd like to see your series cover not only advanced concepts like this one (using gels) but other "block and tackle" use cases like standard two and three light setups. I'm at a stage where I understand the material and am executing, but repetition is the mother of invention, I find great presenters like yourself help to cement those concepts into action in the studio. Although my studio lighting is not as capable of granular settings (mine are 1/32, 1/16 type measurements), with my Sekonic I can get my light settings close. Thanks for the kind reply and I'll look forward to you and Sekonics efforts, again thanks for the free and well-done material.
@@absesay1394 Very nice! How do you trigger the Profoto Strobes with that meter? I have a Sekonic L-858D-U, but I have to use the Profoto Air Remote to trigger them and meter.
Love the attention to detail. Check, recheck, and check again.
Thank you Pete
-Ab
Very informative. Makes a fairly complex topic understandable and easy to follow. Good stuff.
Glad it was helpful!
Sweet!! Great instructor.
Awesome video!
Very clear presentation and very helpful diagrams in the pdf!
Thank you. We have many more to come.
Excellent tutorial
This is a good instructional video. The model is good and her posing is on point.
Thank you C Saunders.
Amazing how detailed metering can be. As I often remind the "Gray Card Mafia" I will ALWAYS get to my settings faster using my meter than they ever will.
Thank You!
-ab
great! thanks you :)
Very pro. Love it.
Thank you.
Wow this is an amazing video
Thank you GoalKicker
Awesome!!!
Thank you Latrissa,
Ab
@@SekonicGlobal You are very welcome ;)
Interesting method! For me I would do it with intuition so I can start shooting and not metering half of the time but everybody has their own workflow
Intuition is definitely a skill. The process is longer because I'm explaining it, but in actuality Id have it dialed in perfectly with in a minute before my model steps into frame, and if a client wanted me to repeat it, the results would look exactly the same. I definitely hear you, I still visually season to taste as well from time to time, but the energy level is contagious when the first image the model steps into is spot on vs having to do light test, and adjustment with them in the frame.
-Ab
Thanks for this video gave me inspiration for my yesterday shoot. But I don’t like the double shadows. So I placed my model in front off the gel lights.
Thank you Ineke. Personally i think the Shadows make it more dynamic. But you could retouch them out, or you would need a semi opaque wall that you could put the gelled lights behind. Or you can bring your model away from the wall, and eliminate all shadows, You may need to add additional lights for the background with the same gels used in the front.
Would love to see you results.
-Ab
Sekonic I wil tag you in my result or do I have to mail it.
Not sure if we will see the tag, it would be cool to post a link in this chat so other can see as well. Excited to see your results.
Hi Ab. Great presentation! I have a question about your choice of f-stop. Why did you select f/8 in particular as your starting point? Is that your lens' sweet spot? Since you chose f/8 to start and then ended up using around f/11 (due to a cumulative effect of all the lights in play), you're not getting whatever benefit out of your selected starting point.
Hi Robert. Great question! This is Ab. Personly I try and choose lenses that are sharp through their entire range. F-Stop for me is more of a depth of field choice than a sharpness choice. But I do choose my lenses based upon sharpness. I wanted to keep my f-stop high enough to make sure no ambient light was creeping in, and also it's a great starting point when developing a lighting look because you have 3 stops that you can go in either direction on most lenses. I also started with the packs at a low/mid power range which naturally gave me f/8 so that I had room to play with the power on the strobes as well. In the end, I could have easily landed back at f/8 if need be. Please keep the question coming.
@Sekonic Very nice! How does he trigger the Profoto Strobes with that meter? I have a Sekonic L-858D-U, but I have to use the Profoto Air Remote to trigger them and meter.
Hello NolaPIC, I have Pocketwizards connected to the Profoto Strobes.
@@SekonicGlobal so only on the strobes, not on the meter then?
nolaPIC you can buy wireless transmitters that can trigger pocket wizards and others. They fit in the back next to the battery
Great teacher and subject. Can I ask you if the key light was f16 and side gel lights f8 each, what was the camera f stop at?, thank you, Mark.
The Key light was 11.5 and the two gel lights were at f8 each. You can see a lighting diagram at the link below.
www.sekonic.com/formula-lighting-gels
@@SekonicGlobal Ab, so just to clarify, your combined reading of all lights was f16, you mention go 1.5 stops under the meter reading for max saturation. So you used f9 or f10 on your camera for this shot? I came close in trying on my own but saturation is not at it's max.
Does anyone have the pdf that came with this video? As the link is no longer available and I would like to view it. Thanks in advance
The diagram can be found here. sekonic.com/classroom/the-formula-lighting-with-gels/
Did you change your camera aperture to F16 to aline with the main light?
Yes, I believe so.
couldn't you have dialed back the gelled strobes to increase sat instead of turning up the key?
Hey Jim, This is Ab. You are absolutely correct. I dialed up the key because it was quicker to adjust the one light, and I didn't mind having the extra depth of field. I was using Profoto Pro 08 2400 ws packs so recycling time wasn't an issue. If I had less powerful strobes lowering the power on the gels may have absolutely been the better choice. I appreciate the question, I think it will help others learn as well.
@@SekonicGlobal So in essence, to increase saturation is to decrease the amount of light going through the gels? Which also translates to saturation is inversely related to exposure?
@@BushXCGL if you decrease light power, you get more color since you are shooting against a white background. The more power through the gelled flashes, the whiter they would look on the (white) wall.
Are you able to trigger the Profoto strobes with this light meter?
Only if you use a third party trigger. In this video i'm using PocketWizard. Tonight form 5-7pm on twith.tv/adorama I will be going over this shoot in detail.
Only if you use a third party trigger. In this video i'm using PocketWizard. Tonight form 5-7pm on twith.tv/adorama I will be going over this shoot in detail.
@@SekonicGlobal Thank you for the reply! (After watching your video again I should have caught that).
Good video, but I am not sure I understand the need to measure bare flash if you are going to put a gel on it. Why not going straight for the gel? If you know what king of light "balance" you need, the first step is unncessary IMO.
HI Nicolas, You are correct, and your feedback will help with future videos. We wanted to illustrate the difference in exposure once you add gels. We thought about just saying it, but to a small test group of people with varying experience levels, some found it helpful to see. Are there any topics you may want to see covered in future videos. We plan on rolling out a video a month in this series.
Are these coloured gels heat resistant? I'm looking for a solution to place my color gels on the modelling lamp without melting them
The maximum operating temperatures for LEE lighting filters are as follows: Polyester Filters 180°C, High Temperature (HT) Filters 220°C and Glass Dichroic Filters 371°C.
leefilters.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/23048-what-is-the-heat-resistance-of-lighting-filters#:~:text=The%20maximum%20operating%20temperatures%20for,Dichroic%20Filters%20371%C2%B0C.
@@SekonicGlobal thank you
You are welcome! Thanks for asking your questions.
Hey where can I buy these exact gels?
To be fare to all dealers we don't recommend any specific dealer, but any major photography retailer will have them. They are listed in a downloadable PDF in the video description.
If we know the gel will change the exposure, why did you meter before adding the gels?
Its to demonstrate that the exposure has changed. Good question.
-ab
What degree grid is on the main light?
Hi Gerrick it was a 10 degree grid. sekonic.com/classroom/the-formula-lighting-with-gels/
10 degree
Why does increasing the power of the middle light gives more saturation to the other lights
increasing the power of the middle light will not increase the saturation. What time stamp in the video was this stated.
@@SekonicGlobalt 5:45 to 6:50
I'm increasing the overall exposure of the main light and adjusting his Aperture to compensate for that. So the power of the gelled lights remains the same but the ratio is increased when the main light is increased so the relative brightness of the gelled lights changes resulting in increased saturation. It's not a direct result of the main light changing but the exposure of the camera changing and the power of the gelled lights staying the same.
@@SekonicGlobal I think missing the "aperture adjustment" piece is very critical here. I also thought, based on the wording, that turning your key light will saturate the walls alone and was confused by that. I'm planning to do and outdoor 2 light shoot (1 key + 1 gel as a back/fill) without a meter so I'll be doing a lot of test shots lol. Thanks again for the video + diagram!
Thank you for the feedback and no problem! We're hoping to add more educational material to our lineup this year so stay tuned.
Okay, this video could be helpful to some, who use a flash-meter in the studio, but without that, I can tell when the illumination differs top to bottom and actually I can predict that without any meter by following the fall-off law. It's simple actually and I certainly don't use my calculator to do so. The reason is that I have an excellent histogram on my camera-display (and if that's not good enough for me, I evaluate it on pc). Making a photo from each light source (and with all the lights off to evaluate the effect of the ambient light), will help me determine the initial effect. Next is a shot with all the lights on and tweaking the monoflashes with the variable power... Works all the time and is far more educative than using a flash-meter. Also free and faster.
While that is my opinion, if I would buy any flash-meter, it would be a Sekonic... I've used the L-398A for decennia (and still have it) with film. Best gear for that price (but not usable for flash). When shooting digital, however it's useless.
Cool technique.
Lol she was not having fun
Seems like a ton of time wasted measuring lights when you can simply, and quickly, look at your LCD and make judgments and lighting adjustments based on what matters..... what the light looks like on your subject matter. I haven't used a meter since 1999.
Hey Mike,
I think it boils down to your workflow. I like having my subjects step in to frame and the first exposure is on the money. Also for this show is about education. We want others who may want to try the setup have the ability to dial the lights in based on the meter readings, and then adjust to their personal taste. Also once you know that for optimal saturation you want to under expose a gel by a certain amount why not take out the guess work? Camera LCD's are a good qualifier but from experience I don't trust them 100%. I find tethering more reliable, but I tend not to want to be tethered all the time. But in terms of wasted time, I'd race you. LOL!
Best,
ab