Behind the Scenes of a Shoot for a Commercial Using Only Natural Light

Shooting a commercial is a difficult task at the best of times, but to do so only utilizing natural light, is even trickier. In this video, go behind the scenes of the shoot as Eric Floberg walks you through settings, equipment, and considerations to get to the professional final result.

The words "natural light" in photography and videography have something of a stigma attached these days. Where once most high-end portraiture, for example, required flashes, modern cameras have the capabilities to push dynamic range both in stills and moving pictures. This resulted in a lot of people dubbing themselves "natural light photographers" which is admittedly a bizarre brand to assume. That said, simply because you know how to use and control artificial light is not a good reason to neglect natural light in the right circumstances.

In this video, Eric Floberg takes you behind the scenes of a commercial he filmed for a camera strap company, in which he used only natural light. In my experience, natural light is even more enticing in video as powerful continuous lights are usually cumbersome and mean that running and gunning is more difficult. Conversely, however, the best cinematography typically leans heavily on artificial lighting to sculpt the scene and add interest, from keylights through to practicals. This video shows just how high the standard of image can be using just natural light.

Rob Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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1 Comment

Commercial or professional field is not widely open or available on internet .most YouTuber influencer are working for personal brand and Collab nation .the above video is not entirely true to statement of commercial shooting so it's kind of meh leading.