On this studio portrait lighting tutorial, you are going to discover ways to use three flashes in your pictures. The three-light setup is so necessary in portrait images—studying it’s typically the purpose the place hobbyist pictures begin trying extra skilled.
In fact, you possibly can at all times add extra lights to a setup, and typically you may must, however I might say that three lights are sufficient for 90% of the pictures that the majority photographers are making.
Beginning With a Third Mild
In earlier tutorials, you discovered learn how to use a flash to provide a key gentle and a fill gentle. So what are we going to do with this third gentle? Effectively, there are a number of issues that we will do with the third gentle. It may be used as a hair gentle, a rim gentle, or a kicker gentle!
Many photographers use the phrases hair gentle, rim gentle, and kicker gentle interchangeably, however I take into account them to be three completely different sorts of sunshine. So I will offer you three completely different definitions.
Let’s begin with hair gentle, since that is the one I most frequently use in portrait images.
Hair Mild
Hair gentle is a really delicate method so as to add a spotlight to your topic’s hair, giving some separation and a little bit of depth to the portrait. Let me present you what it seems like in observe.
This is a picture that has two flashes firing. The important thing gentle is up and to the suitable of the digital camera, after which the fill gentle is on digital camera left, somewhat bit decrease than our key gentle.
If we have been to cease there, I might say that we have now a reasonably good picture, however look what occurs to the identical picture with the addition of a hair gentle.
It is a very delicate distinction, but it surely helps to provide your photograph a very polished {and professional} really feel. A hair gentle may even spill somewhat bit of sunshine onto the shoulders of your topic, and it will assist outline the form of your topic.
This type of gentle is particularly helpful in case your topic has darkish hair or a darkish shirt, and so they’re on a darkish background. It offers some definition that separates the topic from the background and retains them from mixing into the background. This fashion of lighting is among the mostly used lighting setups by professionals in each nonetheless images and in movie. Now that you’ve got seen it, you may begin to discover it all over the place you look.
One other approach to create separation between your topic and the background is to make use of rim lighting.
Rim Lighting
Rim lighting creates a skinny define of sunshine that traces round your topic and separates them from the background.
This is a fast instance of two pictures. They’re the identical besides that the primary picture has two lights (a key gentle and a fill gentle), and the second picture has the identical two lights plus a rim gentle.
Do you see how delicate the distinction is, however how a lot it provides to the photograph?
The ultimate method that I like to make use of my third gentle is as a kick or kicker gentle.
Kicker Mild
Like the opposite sorts of backlight we have been utilizing, a kicker gentle offers separation of our topic from the background, and it brings a bunch of dimension to your pictures.
Let’s have a look at what a kicker seems like in a photograph. As soon as once more, this is a easy two-light setup with a key gentle and a fill gentle, and what it seems like once we add a kicker gentle.
The kicker provides a spotlight to the shadow facet of the face, and does simply what the title implies; it kicks up the influence of your pictures. I really like utilizing a kicker gentle, particularly for portraits of males.
If you wish to see the grasp of kicker gentle, in my view, you must search for the portraits of Yousuf Karsh. He was superb, and he actually knew learn how to take a portrait that had numerous depth and emotion.
So now that you realize what these three completely different lights seem like in a photograph, let’s carry again our topic and present you learn how to set them up and get them occurring an actual shoot.
The right way to Set Up a Hair Mild
Let’s begin with the same setup to what we had within the earlier tutorial.
We have got our key gentle modified with the 18-inch softbox in a loop place. For our fill gentle, I’ve changed the umbrella with a scrim. A scrim is a chunk of silk that can soften the sunshine, so our fill flash goes to be firing by way of the scrim, which provides us a very massive, spherical, mushy gentle.
Let’s take a fast image and see what we’re getting right here.
Nice. In order that’s our customary loop lighting. We have got a reasonably good fill, and we’re at round a 2:1 ratio. One of many issues I believe actually kicks up your photograph is to create some splashes of sunshine across the type of your topic.
We will begin with hair gentle. I will begin off with this third flash set to the bottom energy that it will go, as a result of we need to guarantee that we’re not overwhelming the opposite flashes within the scene. This can be a very delicate gentle, and we will purpose it on the prime of her head.
The sunshine will splash off the highest of her head and her shoulders, and it should create a pleasant cascade of sunshine that comes down over her hair and shoulders. Let’s have a look at how that appears.Â
I believe my hair gentle is aimed somewhat bit too excessive. I need to tilt it down a bit nearer to her shoulders as a result of it is not fairly highlighting her shoulders but. And let’s give that one other attempt.
The hair gentle has added a very delicate glow on her shoulders. Good. That is how I strategy hair lighting in portrait images.
The right way to Set Up a Rim Mild
Let’s proceed this studio portait lighting tutorial by learn how to arrange a rim gentle.
So as to flip our hair gentle right into a rim gentle, let’s begin by reducing the flash. We do not need it coming from above anymore—as an alternative, we need to sneak the flash in behind our topic, aiming at their again. That is going to create a silver lining round them, separating them from the background.
Lastly, we need to improve the ability output fairly a bit. In our hair gentle setup, the flash was on the lowest energy output, 1/128th energy. For a rim gentle, we will carry that energy up, beginning at 1/4 energy.
Let’s take a photograph and see how this seems.
So now we’re getting that good form of silver lining across the left facet of her shoulder. It is positively giving us some separation from the background. Let’s flip off our key gentle and take one other photograph to point out you what that gentle goes to seem like.
You’ll be able to see that we’re getting a delicate halo impact. When you might have your different lights on, it is not going to be one thing that lots of people discover instantly, however it’s one thing that they may miss if it is not in your pictures. I believe it actually provides a refined look to a picture. I like it.
The right way to Set Up a Kicker Mild
The ultimate setup with our third flash is a kicker gentle. We will place our flash reverse our key gentle. The best way I like to think about utilizing a kicker gentle is to skip gentle off the facet of the topic’s face and into the digital camera lens. It will give us some pretty definition on the shadow facet of the face.
The place of this kicker gentle will take a little bit of trial and error as you need to purpose it simply onto the cheek. We’re additionally going to carry our flash again all the way down to a very low energy output as a result of we will be seeing the mirrored gentle.
Lastly, I prefer to zoom within the flash head fairly far. I do not need the sunshine spilling throughout, and I positively don’t desire it going into my digital camera lens, creating lens flare.
Let’s have a look at how that is trying.
As a result of the kicker gentle is on the topic’s shadow facet, one of many issues I believe I might love to do on this scenario is decrease the ability of my fill gentle. This creates somewhat extra drama on that facet, and you may see that kicker gentle somewhat bit extra.
So I will carry down the fill gentle even additional than it was, and see how that appears.
That is excellent. Now we have now somewhat bit extra drama, we have now extra shadows as a result of our fill gentle energy is decrease, and we’re getting that basically cool modeling impact on the facet of her face from the kicker gentle.
In order that’s just about it! These are the commonest makes use of of a three-light setup.
Three-Mild Abstract
This is a fast abstract of three-point lighting:
- Mild 1 (Key Mild) does many of the work.
- Mild 2 (Fill Mild) softens the shadows reverse the important thing gentle.
- Mild 3 (Hair gentle / Rim Mild / Kicker Mild) accentuates the topic.
Principally, the distinction between the three choices on your third gentle is:
- Hair Mild is on the identical facet as the important thing gentle.
- Rim Mild is behind your topic, illuminating throughout them.
- Kicker Mild is reverse your key gentle, skipping throughout the facet of the face.
Homework
So now you might have a stable understanding of the three completely different ways in which you should use a 3rd flash. Now it is time for some homework. I would like you to observe establishing your third flash in these other ways and experimenting till it seems excellent.
Then I would like you to neglect all about what I’ve taught you, and I would like you to mess around with completely different setups. I would like you to have the liberty to maneuver any of the lights in any locations that you really want and attempt to get one thing actually fascinating.
As a little bit of inspiration, this is a setup that I actually like to make use of, and I name it the double kicker setup.
You are a single key gentle within the loop place and no fill gentle. As a substitute, I put my different two lights within the kicker place on both facet of my topic. As you possibly can see, we get an important gentle that basically accentuates type. I’ve actually beloved utilizing this type of gentle for any health shoots.
So now it is your flip. I would like you to go do one thing actually fascinating and thrilling! Don’t be concerned about messing up or taking unhealthy pictures. Simply play with the lighting till you get one thing that you simply like.
