Photography Lighting

On location lighting can be tricky. Here's one easy three-light flash setup that you can use just about anywhere. 

If you are used to lighting with regular tungsten hot lights, the brightness information on an LED light's product description will surely sound vague and confusing. In this video you will find out how an LED lights' brightness compares to a regular 1-kilowatt tungsten hot light. 

This exciting shoot came about when photographer Aaron Anderson was tasked to creating content for Elinchrom’s new ELB 500 TTL and Lifted Up Fitness’s web page, making it a multiple clients shoot.

Following the technological progress of recent years, LED panels are becoming ever more popular when it comes to lighting videos and, increasingly, photographs. Getting your head around the various units involved can be confusing so this video can be a useful means of learning what they mean and how they relate to one another. 

Whether doing event, wedding, or portrait photography, eventually you are going to find your subject in front of or behind a glass surface. Learning tips to avoid your lighting being reflected on the glass can improve your images and save you time in post-production. 

When you're new to artificial lighting, one of the trickiest parts can be understanding the vast array of different modifiers and which one is appropriate for whatever you're shooting at the moment. This helpful video will show you a variety of common modifiers and how they change the look of your images. 

If you have recently purchased a speedlight, you might have noticed it comes with an piece of plastic. Before you throw that away, see what you can do with it. 

One small piece of gear is an essential buy for landscape, travel, and adventure photographers. Even if you already own one, a number of recent developments may mean it is time to update. For me, a bright, reliable flashlight is one of the first things I pack for any hike or backpacking trip.

When a photographer looks into their toolbox, typically hard light is one of the overlooked tools. In this video, learn how to light a scene using just a hard light source and create a unique mood in your images.  

With photographic lighting, there is plenty to learn. Each surface requires its own type of light and every modifier produces its own signature light. One other element we must always consider, though, is the photographer’s intent. 

One of the most important things in photography is lighting. It doesn't matter if it's natural light or artificial light, how you capture it is key. Here are a few tips on how you can improve your lighting. 

Controlling the brightness of the background is one of the most fundamental techniques when it comes to artificial lighting. This helpful video will show you how to create a white background even when you're only shooting with one light.  

When it comes to athlete portraits, dramatic lighting is the world standard. There are many ways to achieve the dramatic look, but in this video, you will see how to get it with continuous lights. 

Are you looking for a quick setup to photograph a group of individuals? Perhaps you only have a few minutes to set up and need a consistent look across all your subjects. Well, then this single light high key setup should be part of your lighting library.

When it comes to taking photos on your mobile device in low light, the options are kind of terrible: a super bright flash that blinds everyone and a not so great photo or ambient light in a dark room where everyone ends up blurry or even grainy. This ridiculously easy iPhone hack will take your low light mobile photos to a whole new level. 

Many photographers quickly move on from umbrellas, because they can seem very hard to control and a bit unwieldy. However, umbrellas can be surprisingly versatile, and this great video will show you five ways to use them in your photos. 

When you're new to artificial lighting, it can all seem a bit overwhelming. This helpful video will give you a very quick introduction and some helpful tips. 

When you're first starting out in lighting, it's always a good idea to start out with single-light setups, so you can master the different parameters and qualities of light before moving into more complex and intricate designs. This helpful video will show you the vast versatility you can get out of a single light and an octabox.  

You’ve covered your bases for that ever elusive amazing sunset shot: you’ve checked the time for sunset, mapped the exact location of the sun, and have composed a few frames so you know what to do when you get to the location. But what about the location itself? 

Glassware can one of the trickiest products to shoot, but when you nail the shot, you'll find the results were well worth the effort. This quick and helpful video will show you how to eliminate pesky reflections and get a clean, well-defined shot of glassware. 

The five-in-one reflector is one of the first accessories any photographer should own, and it's something you'll likely hang on to throughout your career, as it proves itself endlessly useful and versatile. This great video shows the wide range of different looks you can achieve using a single light and reflector. 

Not all photography how-tos have to come from photography websites or YouTube photography channels. This video that addresses basic light-painting of a car comes to us from an automobile YouTube channel. If you are new to light-painting or want to give it a try, this video provides an excellent introduction. 

Creating cinematic images is usually associated with using a single light setup, but you can also use three lights to pop your subject and add more depth.  

Lighting isn't just about following tried and true recipes to get standard shots; it's about experimenting to create something unique. This great video shows how experimentation can lead to shots you never anticipated. 

Famed celebrity stylist and creative director Jason Bolden and his team approached photographer Nathalie Gordon with an idea to shoot a campaign for their newly launched sunglasses brand JSN.

A few quick things to consider when making the shift from still photography to cinematography. 

Intellytech’s RGBW LED panel is something I’ve dreamed of for years. It’s finally here, but do we even need RGB lights? 

When you're new to lighting, the veritable plethora of principles, terms, and techniques can be a bit overwhelming, but there are a few fundamental principles that you should absolutely learn to ensure your understanding is secure. This great video talks about one of those principles.  

We spend a lot of time learning about lighting scenes — where to add it, how much to use, how to modify it, etc. And as important as it is to learn how to add light to a scene, it's equally important to know how to remove it, and this quick, helpful video will show you why and how. 

If you've ever found yourself in an impromptu situation where you knew you could get a really cool shot if you just had a little bit of extra light, the techniques in this video might knock your socks off with their simplicity and creativity.

Lens manufacturers go out of their way to design a lens that will eliminate lens flare. So why would you want to cause lens flare purposely and how would you go about it?

Lighting is everything. As a photo professional, I know this. I've dealt with lights for stills photography for about 15 years now, and although I'm always learning, I'm pretty confident around lighting. Video is an entirely different beast altogether. Although I love my AD600, it does me very little good trying to capture anything in video.

A few years back, Lume Cube hit the market with a very small, bright LED light that is close to the size of a GoPro Hero 5 Session. These little lights have built a name for themselves over time and are now available for the Mavic 2.

Glue guns and poster board.

When you're new to artificial lighting, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to put together successful images using strobes. This helpful video will teach you how to break down light so you can successfully create the images you'd like when you're using flash. 

Photographer Randal Ford has photographed over 100 animals up close and in person and has no plans on stopping. Why would he? These are some fascinating creatures that we share this planet with and so anytime we can interact with them, its probably a good thing. They are also super cute!

When asked why he wanted to photograph animals, he quoted from his book

You've probably read how you can make your own foldable v-flats, but finding high-quality foam can be difficult and you're lazy, so you're never going to get around to it anyway. Luckily, you can buy them prebuilt and have them shipped right to your door.  

In this behind the scenes article, see how I set up my studio in the athletics office of my school and shot a series of intense portraits of my college football team.  

One of the most rewarding parts of photography is choosing the right type of light for an assignment. The light that will best help convey what we’ve been hired to shoot. Nowhere is that more true than in shooting athletic wear. 

If you're trying to add to your lighting kit or get started with lighting for the first time, these are the deals for you. 

If a picture tells a thousand words, these photographs of Baja 1000 race vehicles created after the race tell tales of blood, sweat, tears, and the epic battles that ensue every year as racers battle it out in Mexico.  

Photographer Ole Martin Halvorsen recently did a photoshoot that was was part of a larger social media and advertorial campaign for H&M Norway, in collaboration with Spray for their magazine Portia.

It's always refreshing to me to get behind the scenes and see how some cool images are made. Then, to realize that the only light source was a cell phone LED along with a few props, I realized that my studio needs a shopping trip. 

It’s a gray flat sky day, and you need to get something interesting, but the sky isn’t helping. It's time to think of something different. Of course, time to go blue. 

When you're shooting with strobes onto a plain backdrop, one of the most common problems you're likely to encounter is a shadow from your subject on the background. This helpful video will show you how to deal with this situation. 

One of the most useful pieces of lighting gear a studio photographer can have doesn't actually have a light in it. Check out how v-flats can help you shape your light in this great video. 

The holidays months can bring extra leisure time, and there's nothing more rewarding than spending that free time on a challenging photography project. During last year's fall holidays I decided to turn my available energy into something creative and fun: a pet calendar for 2018. 

We all know how a histogram has to be read, or at least we should know. It is a handy tool to check if the exposure of the image is correct, or as correct as possible. If the image is not exposed correctly we can read the luminance histogram on our camera LCD screen and know exactly how much the exposure needs to be corrected.

Rain during a couple’s portrait session can be hugely annoying for a wedding photographer. A dramatic rain shot can be the silver lining, but only if you’re fully prepared, especially on the lighting front.

My lighting set-up for a rain shot is simple: the key backlight and an optional fill front light. The devil, however, is in the detail.

Earlier this year, I released an in-depth tutorial on product photography with Fstoppers called "The Hero Shot: How to Light and Composite Product Photography." As I started publishing images from this tutorial on Instagram, I found it extremely interesting that the most liked image was the cordless drill.