Seeing Light

A lot of my friends and followers are fellow portrait photographers, so I wanted to share a recent experience I had in the studio where I tested and compared different types of light. 

The idea was to take a few different photography lighting setups, and see how much of a difference is made by only changing the modifier. I chose the work on the lighting setups that I don't use as often, so I can grow and get more comfortable with them for my clients. 

This "play day" was inspired by the incredible Felix Kunze, and his lighting tutorial, The Lighting Series. 

The Lights I Used

I use Profoto B1s and D1s in my photography studio. The B1s are great when I'm using a smaller modifier that doesn't eat up much light, and the D1s are great for when I need more power to use my larger modifiers, like my 7' octabox. I also use a Stella 2000, which is a constant LED light.

Profoto B1X 500 AIRTTL​

Profoto D1 1000 AirTTL

Profoto Air Remote TTL-C

Stella 2000 LED Light

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The Modifiers I Tested

I like to pick and choose my modifiers, regardless of the brand of light. I love my Profoto lights, but I've always loved Elinchrom octaboxes. They are just easier to setup for me, and I enjoy the quality of light I get. 

Elinchrom 27.5" Octabox

This is the smallest octabox I own, and I actually add an extra layer of diffusion to it by cutting out a piece of diffusion fabric and clipping it to the edges. This is to help soften the light.

Elinchrom 39" Deep Octabox

This was the first Elinchrom octa I invested in, and since it's deeper, it creates a beautiful pocket of "punchy" soft light.

Elinchrom Indirect Litemotiv 191cm

Since this octa is shallower and so gigantic, the light it produces is incredibly even and soft.

Elinchrom 90cm Strip Box

46" Photek Softlighter

Felix introduced me to this modifier, and it's the lightest, most portable modifier in my arsenal. It's shallow and medium-sized, so the light it produces is a soft, even spray. 

Profoto Beauty Dish

This beauty dish is a mix of soft and hard light, which can create a soft light with pop. 

My Backdrop

I just received one of 3 new hand-painted canvas backdrops for my studio. For my lighting experiment, we used a muted teal, which did a great job of showing how the light falloff changes as we switch modifiers. If you're looking for a quality backdrop to add to your studio, I highly recommend checking out Franklin Backdrops. He is truly an artist and a master of his craft.

The Lighting Setups

Below you'll find the example photos of the different lighting setups, along with a few behind the scenes images.

These images will be compressed for loading purposes, but if you'd like to download large jpegs to really compare the subtle differences, please click here. 

The first setup I did was "Felix's Signature Light". It's a setup that combines directional light with softness. This lighting is one of the more challenging lighting setups for me to perfect. The main thing I learned from this series was that the placement of the key light is so critical, and so is using the right amount of fill light. 

​I think these samples do a good job of showing the quality of light for each modifier, however I think the shot with the 39" octa + 7' octa is closest to how the light should fall on her face. It's valuable observations like this that help me know what to pay attention to next time.

The next setup, The One Light Setup, is just one light feathered across my subject. (One of my dogs, Baxter, decided to hop in for a few shots). 

You can definitely tell a difference in the softness of light on her skin, but something else that really jumped out at me was how the different modifiers effect how the light hits the backdrop. For the image with the Stella light, I think I ended up getting more of a "split light" the way I had the v-flat aimed, but I love the results!

The next series is from what Felix calls the "Kickass One Light Setup". This setup is as minimalistic as you can get, as you just bounce a bare strobe into different parts of the room. I did use a Profoto Magnum Reflector to keep the light aimed towards the ceiling/well and not all around the room. ​ I found two different places to aim the light that really created beautiful results. 

My Key Takeaways

I've owned many of these lighting modifers for a long time. Things like the beauty dish and 27.5 octa are things I kind of purchased, tried, and then never really learned how to use properly, so they sat and collected dust. After spending the time to really learn and compare the differences, which are sometimes subtle or dramatic, I definitely feel like I have a better understanding of my lighting arsenal moving forward. 

If you have any questions or if you have a favorite setup, please feel free to comment below.
Also, make sure and join me on Instagram @andrew_knowles !