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Strobe and Natural Lighting -- Indoors
Have a shoot scheduled (during the day) next week and am shooting in my living room and one of the bedrooms. The windows in both rooms let in (on a scale of 100%) around 30% light which will leave part of the image sort of dark or in shadow. Thinking of using a softbox for fill but concerned about mixing the color temps. Or, maybe just shoot natural light all the way? How do you get your best results shooting indoors? Thanks. Steve BTW, I've experimented and shot indoors but I never liked the results much. Apr 05 07 07:24 am Link It shouldn't be a problem. Just do the WB for the main light, if it the window natural light use it, if it is a strobe wb for it. If you think it is too much of an issue I'd consider using reflectors to move the light around. Apr 05 07 08:01 am Link Most of my lighting is 1-3 strobes mixed with window. I use bare bulb fringe on most as main and reflector only as highlight key. Window is a natural soft fill. Works good check out the examples in my port. EL Apr 05 07 08:54 am Link strobes are often balanced pretty close to windowlight, check your specs. you may need to put a filter on it to get balanced light if that is what you want. different light colors can be a nice option but surprise is not always your friend in those situations. then remember that the slower you shoot the more room light you will let in (strobes fire for a fraction of a second so you adjust the amount of strobe light hitting your 'film' with aperture, not speed-but then of course you have to compensate with the aperture to get proper exposure), so depending on the effect you want play with your f-stop/shutter speed and strobe power settings until you get the balance of windowlight to strobe that suits you. sorry that was a very long sentence. Apr 05 07 12:50 pm Link It should be pretty close. If the window light is your key light, make sure your fills are as dialed down as possible. Mid-Day, the strobes should be balanced. Earlier and later in the day is when you start to get real strong differences. Apr 05 07 01:05 pm Link If you have a color meter, check to see what is your windows light. Then, put a gel over your strobes if you are worry about mixing different light sources. Apr 05 07 01:16 pm Link I learned most of my lighting techniques from hanging out on movie sets.. shooting stills.. and watching those guys light. It's a matter of balancing (or not) sources of different color temperature. In the film days I carried 2 color meters and a complete set of LB and CC camera filters. However.. where you have 2 completely different color sources (Daylight window can be anywhere from 4500K to 8000+K.. depending on the orientation time of day.. type of glass, etc... interior tungsten can be anywhere from 2200K to 4000K) you either need to gel the windows.. or balance the interior lights to the windows.. if you want them to match. Cine supply houses sell rolls of gel material to either boost or bring down window light.. and you can gel your interior light light sources, too. You can also get ND gel material to lower the level. If you do decide to light interiors.. you need to be careful. Strobes (as long as the UV inherent in them is absorbed) is close enough to photographic daylight.. 4500K - 6000K to pretty much match window light color wise. However, in an architectural interior.. the lighting design is usually very carefully considered.. and a part of the design. Lighting the interior with strobe can easily negate this important part of the design.. that you client will want to see. A poorly considered strobe lighting set-up can make an interiors look very 'flat'. I carry 2 basic lighting kits.. strobe.. and hot lights (a Lowell Light Quartz kit). In addition.. I will have smaller lights .. 75 watt clamp lights, ot Vivitar battery strobes to use as accent and kicker lights (concealed behind plants,, etc.). You can also let the windows "go blue".. i.e. light and balance for tungsten for a rich, lush effect. see below  Where you'll run into trouble is with fluorescents. With a very few very expensive exceptions.. fluorescents are not 'full spectrum' sources. they are very red deficient.. and can make images 'go green'.. They can be gelled to balance.. but they'll still have an overall flatness. This deficiency doesn't always register with a color meter, either. It's a complicated subject.. Noted Architectural Photographer, Bob McGrath has written several excellent books on the subject.. I highly recommend them. Today...With digital capture.. I never filter my camera anymore. I do gel windows, etc from time to time.. but shooting RAW on a tripod and being able to build an image up from 10 -12 shots, then blend in PhotoShop.. it's a different game. Not only can you completely control color balance.. you also have complete control over a much expanded dynamic range. Apr 05 07 01:52 pm Link Why make this any harder by mixing the light? If you're going to shoot natural light, shoot natual light. If you're prepared to use a strobe, why not shoot the entire shot with strobes? Learn how to "SEE" the light you have and then figure out how to make it advantageous to you. This is what I teach in my workshops is how to see the light and then how to make it work for your particular application. Everything in my portfolio is 100% natural light and 90% of the time, I'm using NO reflectors. The shot below is all natural sunlight coming in through windows or doors with no reflectors.  Apr 05 07 02:06 pm Link James IV wrote: what he said. Apr 05 07 02:08 pm Link Marc Grant wrote: Wow! No reflectors...?! Great work...to answer OP...I guess I would use reflectors and if strobe is necessary simply do a custom WB... Apr 05 07 02:15 pm Link james gave you a very detailed and sophisticated reply they make gels for a reason learn to use them but you may also like the mixed color temps you should play with that as well so you learn the notion of only natural light or only strobe (or whatever) is pretty damned limiting. you'll learn little taking this approach. Apr 05 07 02:22 pm Link oldguysrule wrote: James did give a detailed reply and I have no arguement with his method but because my approach is different, does that mean it's wrong? If you like using gels, use them by all means, but the gels are correcting a lighting problem that is being created by the photographer trying to mix 2 different colors of light. If you can avoid creating those problems then you don't need to use gels. Do you think the average OP on MM has the studio and lighting experience that James has? Keep it simple and effective. Apr 05 07 02:36 pm Link |
