Photography Lighting

There are numerous articles that are discussing the advantages and disadvantages of hot lights and LEDs. Knowing these, I want to share my opinion from a practical standpoint.

Filters are an essential part of any professionals toolkit and Polar Pro has built up a great name over the past few years in the filter industry. From the ease of use, quality, and performance of their products, Polar Pro is expanding into new realms to help filmmakers and photographers at a higher level.

Being a successful photographer or videographer requires a good understanding of the fundamentals, with perhaps nothing more foundational than the behavior of light. This excellent video will show you four fundamental aspects of light that you should definitely know.

Using artificial lighting for on-location portraits can go a long way to balancing out the exposure of your images and improving the look of your photos. But are speedlights or monolights the right choice? This great video examines the usage of both to help you decide the right one for your work.

When you think about crafting a lighting setup, you probably think about it from the standpoint of adding light. However, as important as it is to know where to add light, it is just as important to understand when and how to take away light to better shape your subject. This excellent video will show you three lighting setups using the black side of v-flats.

If you have ever wanted to create dark and moody images of people or food, then this video will help you understand how to light them.

Continuous LED lighting has come a long way in recent years, and while there are pros and cons to shooting with strobes or continuous lights, LED technology has definitely shifted the balance a little. How useful is continuous lighting for a studio portrait shoot? This video aims to find out.

You can improve your photography dramatically by merely practicing a little product photography. And no, you don’t have to be a product photographer to benefit from this practice. Portrait, architecture, macro, and even landscape photographers can all benefit from a little product photography practice.

Half the fun of studio lighting is that you get such granular control over the lighting that you can bring ideas to fruition that simply would not be possible with just natural light. Such is the case with this video, which will show you how to create these eye-catching shots using slit lighting.

When you are new to working with artificial lighting, it can all seem a bit overwhelming and foreign, but it does not have to remain mysterious forever. This excellent video tutorial will teach you a clean three-light setup that you can use for commercial portraits and more. 

It may be a statement that you've heard many times before, but it's the photographer that makes the picture and not the camera. Here's how a little bit of knowledge along with some cheap kit can turn your images from looking amateur to professional in a few simple steps.

I love scrims. I don't actually remember the last time that I did a photoshoot without one. In this video, I go over the different options as well as how I build my own scrims.

Soft and beautiful lighting is the quintessential ideal for many portrait photographers, but what do you do when you need to work quickly in multiple locations?

They say RGB lights will make you get rid of old-fashioned color gels. This article shows exactly the opposite. You should keep your gels and even buy more.

V-flats are one of the most useful lighting items a studio photographer can have. In fact, they can allow you to create much more complex lighting setups just by shaping a single light. This great video will show you how you can create three different lighting setups using just a single strobe and some v-flats.

Gina Manning Photography has been working with the Bruno Magli team for two seasons now, shaping their brand and new campaign and collections visually. I’ve been fortunate enough to harvest an incredibly collaborative and artistic relationship that has led the way for us to make the art I love seeing in the world!

In my never ending pursuit for the perfect lighting modifier, I tested shooting beauty with a 7” reflector as my key light.

I just finished shooting my first video for Levi’s and it was a learning curve of note.

Once you have mastered the basics of how artificial lighting works and what you can accomplish with it, it is time to move on to more complicated multi-light setups to better bring your creative ideas to fruition. This great video will show you the process of creating a three-light portrait from start to finish. 

If you are new to artificial lighting, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to understand how all the technical terms and processes come together to create a successful photo. One of the most important concepts is flash sync speed, and this excellent video will show you why it matters and how to work with it.

Aputure has revealed details and specifications of its latest release. Unveiled at IBC 2019, the LS 600d LED light is the company’s most powerful continuous light so far, in what they are calling “600 watts of raw LED power.”

Shooting out on location in a busy environment like New York City can be extremely difficult. When dealing with police, public safety, traffic, and pedestrians, it can often be near impossible to create the look you want without sacrificing your lighting. The way videographer David Geffin tackled these issues in his latest project, "Let's Dance," is pretty brilliant.

When your only strobe dies on location, you'd better be prepared.

In a new announcement from Profoto, the company’s first ever studio lights for smartphones have been unveiled. The C1 and C1 plus are small, portable, handheld bulbs that can be used to enhance any casual phone snaps.

Before I even get into this review, I just want to state that I absolutely love flexible LED light panels now. I have properly been missing out on how brilliant they are. From now on, anything I shoot in a studio environment will be shot with a flexible LED panel. 

As high quality RGB Led light panels become cheaper and more compact, more and more photographers and videographers are finding just how useful these little lights can be. In this video, I compare the new Falcon Eyes Pocketlite F7 light to my favorite RGB light panel as we explore a few unique lighting setups any photographer can create on the fly.

If you’re looking for a complete educational series on using flash photography from indoors to outdoors, there’s a brand new free tutorial that you need to check out!

Whether on land or underwater, photographing mermaids has become almost a whole new genre in itself. It has gained popularity in recent years creating whole mermaid communities as well. There are a few tips on creating a great portrait for your mermaid clients. 

I relish a challenge and I knew this job was going to be hard, but I had no idea how much improvisation would be required to complete this shoot and come away with images that worked for the client. Huge venue, one light, complex action, no reccy visit, and just six hours to get it all done.

In this video, I look at the difference between 17 of the modifiers in my studio. With such a huge selection of modifiers out there, it is often hard to work out what you need. Hopefully, this video helps. 

Today, I thought I’d take you through the sometimes agonizing process of figuring out the best way to light on location and some of the tools and techniques I use to get around the obstacles.

There seems to be a new modifier coming out of China every other week; in this video, I go over the key lighting modifiers I use as a food photographer.

As a photographer, I am not someone with extensive experience in using artificial continuous light. What better way to push yourself forward than to find something you aren’t familiar with and dive in head first? Self-growth for the win!

Getting into off camera flash can be daunting. This video covers a great and cost effective way to get your first set up without having the fear of buying the wrong equipment. 

In photography, we are always looking for the best lighting for our subject, but when we don’t have the ability to choose the location or need to create interesting and dramatic lighting on the go, we need to be able to use the light we bring with us. This involves starting at the fundamentals and learning how to balance your flash and the ambient outdoor lighting.

Perhaps one of the key things that an aspiring photographer needs to learn is that the quality of light is one of the most important elements in making a great photo. Often, it's the light that makes or breaks the photo.

Halloween is just around the corner, folks, so it's time to start getting those creepy, creative ideas out of that weird head of yours and into your camera. What better place to start than in the comfort of your own home?

Gonzalo Amat, who’s up for an Emmy for his work on Amazon’s Man in the High Castle, tells us the steps he takes to make a scene stand out in darkness.

Weddings are a nonstop whirlwind of technical and creative challenges, and the more knowledge and tricks you can have for both categories, the better. This awesome video follows a photographer behind the scenes at a wedding and focuses on his use of off camera flash to help you learn how to quickly and effectively turn dull and drab lighting into professional images no matter where you're shooting.

Whether you are a photographer or videographer, more and more content creators are adding constant lights as their go-to lighting setups. Quasar Science recently released their 30-watt T8 bulbs with raving reviews, and today, I explore six useful lighting setups you can build with four lights under $80 each. 

Adding some video production offerings to your photography workload has become pretty common for a lot of photographers. Even though a lot of the technology is transferable, not all the skills are, and shooting interviews, both in the setup and getting better dialogue, can be difficult to learn. 

If you have a good understanding of how light works, you may find that an expensive studio stuffed full of high-end strobes and funky diffusers is far from important when it comes to creating striking images. In this short video, photographer Irene Rudnyk shows you how to produce something remarkable using little more than a shed.

As photographers and videographers, let's be honest, we never have enough light equipment. But it can quickly become quite expensive! Thanks to DIY Perks, if you own an old TV that you don't use anymore, you won't have to break your bank account to add a new LED panel to your kit. 

We've been using the Falcon Eyes BL-30TD for three months now, and we are big fans. For $800, it has an amazing list of features. But, how does it compare to another light that sells for the same price? 

One of the most important skills any wedding photographer needs is the ability to quickly and effectively use artificial light in both a practical and creative way, whether it's to supplement or supply the light for a scene. This great video will show you a few techniques, tips, and tricks for using off-camera flash in wedding scenarios.

The beauty of well-lit interior situations is when you can't guess how it was set up or it looks natural, as if the practicals in the room served as light sources. In this lighting tutorial, you will learn how to create a convincing scene of a cozy night interior and a fierce thunderstorm on the outside.

Portrait photographers normally have a go-to light modifier they prefer from the standard array and might work with two or three lights to completely sculpt the light as they see fit. However, this neat video shows the awesome results you can get by using a lesser-known modifier as your only light source.

The portable strobe wars are not over yet. Yongnuo is going after its own China based competition with its new pocket strobe, the YN200.

If you’ve been following my recent articles, you’ll know that I’ve been on an umbrella modifier trend. I just love how portable and easy to set up they are.

Lee Morris recently flew out to LA to compete with Pye Jirsa from SLR Lounge in an epic shoot-off to see who is the better photographer. You won't be disappointed by this challenge.