Lighting Demo

Portrait Lighting

Setup: 45º/45º lighting, LED light on stand, with and without tracing paper diffusion (do not use with hot lights!). Exposure determined with white card, opening up two stops. ISO 400

Results:

Rembrandt, no fill card. Notice "key triangle" under the shadowed eye

Rembrandt, with fill card

Rembrandt, with diffusion (tracing paper) and fill card

Setup:

Setup: Butterfly/beauty lighting. Light in front shining down on model to create slight drop shadow under nose. Light position is more-or-less centered. LED light on stand, with and without tracing paper diffusion (do not use with hot lights!). Exposure determined with white card, opening up two stops. ISO 400

Beauty/butterfly lighting, no fill card

Beauty/butterfly lighting, filled in with small clamp light from below (half the power as main light)

Still life #1, 2-plane

Setup:

Setup: 45º/45º lighting, small clamp light on stand, with and without tracing paper diffusion (do not use with hot lights!). Exposure determined with white card, opening up two stops. ISO 800

45º/45º, no fill card

45º/45º, with fill card

45º/45º, diffused (tracing paper) no fill card

45º/45º, diffused (tracing paper) with fill card

Still life #2, 1-plane

Perpendicular set-up: Light and camera perpendicular to each other, shooting onto floor. LED light on stand, with and without tracing paper diffusion (do not use with hot lights!). Exposure determined with white card, opening up two stops. ISO 400

Without fill card

With fill card (right side of apple is brighter)

For reflective objects.

Use the perpendicular setup, above, to avoid reflections altogether.

Often, careful use of reflection can add a sense of surface realism, when done well. For this, place the camera on the opposite side of the light. Adjust the height and shooting angle to position the light source so that it shows up/reflects directly in the shiny surface.

However, and a big HOWEVER, you must diffuse the light source (and often use a larger light source), for this to look decent. Compare the two images below. The bottom one avoids the hot spot caused by a direct reflection of the light, because it is diffused by the tracing paper. Also, notice how this reflection "rolls off" toward one corner of the iPad, which makes for a better design. 

Direct reflection of light on surface of iPad. Looks bad!

Direct reflection of light on surface of iPad, but diffused. Looks much better!