[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
and we're live
welcome along everybody welcome to the
live stream if you're watching the
recording of this welcome to the
recording you can skip the first few
minutes if you're watching the recording
but not if you're live if you're joining
me live let me know in the comments
where are you joining from
where are you in the world i always find
that fascinating whilst you're doing
that because i'm slightly in your future
let me introduce myself for those that
have never seen an adorama live with me
before
hello my name is gavin hoey i'm one of
the presenters right here on adoramatv
and we are live for the next hour
talking about perhaps the most useful
background you could possibly have
question mark at the end but i'm not on
my own i mean i am on my own it's really
weird i'm sort of on my own in here but
i have a a bunch of people the other
side of the camera i mean i have got the
dream team
so you can't see her but you can hear
her i've got the awesome sam on the
comments
hey everyone
lots of people here are they really yeah
yeah yeah i don't know i can't see no
you can't i can't see them either but
they're all commenting which is lovely
um so do you want to know where
everyone's from yes please everyone
there we go alan from bushy park helen
from bushy
yeah
we've got brian he's in toronto in
canada um let's have a look at some
exotic ones in here i mean exotic for us
bearing where we are yeah yeah um keith
in new zealand it's currently stupid
o'clock
what's the first time he's seen you live
um
a donai from mexico
um we've got kuwait that's a first i
think hal joward
maryland's now i always think of cookies
when um someone says lisa in maryland i
hope there's lots of cookies there
awesome
on the super switcher today we have the
amazing freya you can't see her and you
can't hear it but she is doing the the
switching of the the cameras um yeah
it's going to be brilliant it's got
actually a whole bunch of other
technical stuff to do so that's pretty
good uh i also have a model but we'll
get to chloe in a second because first
of all i've got to set my my camera up
so let me come and do this so we're
going to be doing some photography
and we're going to be taking pictures of
this gray background over here which you
can kind of see a little bit oh look at
that she's she's on it today
switcher is working so we have this
rather nice gray paper background right
down the bottom
i have a large lump of metal which is
just holding it and keeping it
relatively flat so that is my go to
one studio background if you could only
have one background in the studio for me
it's going to be this at some point
someone's going to put in the comments
what background is it
it's hopefully in the description of the
video i think it's savage and i
think it's thunder gray it's probably
thunder gray i can't remember it's one
of the greys it's quite a dark grey i
used to have somewhere up there a little
bit lighter gray you can't see it shot
but recently i've sort of switched to a
darker gray because it works better for
what we're going to do but you'll see
we're going to turn it
white black colored patterned um all
sorts of things we're going to do with
that background in the next hour so
whilst that's happening let's just
switch my camera on there's always
things i forget to do on lives including
turning my camera on and setting the
tethering i'm sorry there we go i'm
i'm on it i'm on it
so let's just do that so whilst i'm
setting this up i'm going to introduce
you to our model today we've got the
awesome chloe give her a huge round of
applause
[Music]
hey chloe
that's imagine that there is about 30
people out there clapping
that's that's it so chloe is the model
great to have you back in and now it's
the first of september we're back inside
of the studio rather than outside which
is lucky because it was raining today so
that's pretty good
so um before i get going i'm going to
check in just make sure we don't have
any technical issues we're all good on
the technical department yeah seems to
be good i think everyone can see and
hear everything hopefully you sound
surprised i i do
because you know there's more than a
little hiccup hasn't it if it's going to
go wrong i'll go wrong
andy said
ask chloe if her eye is better now
[Laughter]
don't worry we're not going to go in for
close-ups you'll be fine
okay so let's start with the the
simplest use of a background and that is
not to show the background so it's a
dark grey background
the easiest thing to do with this is
actually to make it disappear so that's
where i'm going to start
it's already fairly dark let's make it
even darker as we turn the grey
background into a black background so a
little bit of technical stuff feel free
to ask questions as we're going along of
course but the light my go-to light for
in the studio is the flashpoint explore
300 we'll also use an evolv 200 why do i
like those two lights in the studio
because they use the same battery which
is so useful
uh i've got a softbox the softbox
doesn't really matter whether it is a
round one or an oval one or an umbrella
whatever your choice is um it's fine i'm
just using this rectangular one today
classic three foot by two foot and what
i'm gonna do with the softbox is turn it
on its side and then chloe do you wanna
just turn and face me
i'm gonna put this have a seat yeah have
a seat you'll be standing long enough so
have a comfortable seat for a minute i'm
going to put it as close to chloe as i
reasonably can
something like that okay so
no where she is in the box it doesn't
matter that it's not perfectly straight
but you know there we go
she is positioned right at the back
right at that far end almost all of the
light is in front of her so from chloe's
point of view she's got a lot of this
white surface that she can see and that
should help to wrap it around a little
bit and give us nice soft wrap around
lighting
okay let's just see we should take a
meter reading and do this let's do it
properly
i know it's live but let's do it
properly and it takes a moment but it's
worth it so we could do trial and error
we could just sort of
guess but i'm going to just uh take a
little meter reading here we go chloe
and i'm going to try and get this to f8
because that's a good place to be so my
settings they're likely to bounce up and
down between f 5.6 and f 8
but it'll always be iso 200 250th of a
second because those are my native
settings for my olympus camera
well actually no it's not in olympus
anymore it's an om
om camera
the om1 okay let's go around here here
we go
okay so hopefully
in one second
there we go
that should pop onto the screen
look at that there we are
so we have a nicely lit exposure on
chloe we have a black background and we
have a rather obvious of obvious what's
an obvious
it's a technical term
don't worry i'll explain about that
later an obvious
soft box in the shot it's dead easy to
take that out in post-processing black
paintbrush job done
there is another way i can do it as well
so let me show you what i'm going to do
so if you come back to me right here we
go oh look at that she's on it um do you
want to try the top camera this could
work
yeah there we go so i can angle the
light now you might have heard about
feathering of the light
i've made a video about feathering the
light we have loads of videos on
adoramatv about feathering of the light
normally we feather the light like this
if i go any further i will hit you
cloudy so i'll try not to as daniel
always says if you're going to hit
somebody use a softbox because it's soft
i love that joke that's so good
instead i'm going to feather it this way
what that's mad i'm feathering it
towards the background but only ever so
slightly
what i've done is i feathered it away
from my camera position so if i take the
same shot again
here we go see if you can spot the
difference
wait a second
where's the softbox gone i haven't moved
it i've just angled it
you might i mean on my screen i've got a
very dodgy monitor to look at i can just
about see it depending on how bright
your screen is you might be able to see
it i can't actually see it on this
screen that's pretty good so what i've
done is i've just put the softbox in the
shadows if i just take the same shot
in aperture priority mode here we go
you'll be able to see exactly what's
going on
if i turn the flash off
nobody look at this picture no one look
at this picture nothing to see here
here we go
this is not my greatest photo but you
get the idea you can see what's
happening the edge of the softbox is
here
and
it's basically in shadow that's that's
the secret it's it's in shadow so if you
see the surface it's going to be obvious
but if you just turn the softbox away
now you have a nice deep black
background
that's an easy one
that works quite well
so if you're watching this live you get
a distinct advantage over those of us
that are watching this on repeat because
you can ask questions
so if you've got any questions
get them into the comments whilst i'm
going along
the more observant of you will have
noticed that everything on this side of
chloe is dropping into the shadows so
i'm going to put a little separation
light which is
there yeah let's get it in
there it is the flashpoint evolve 200
note it says it's upside down but it pro
see i'm a professional it says it on my
lights
that's that's how it works isn't it
there are some advantages have you lost
your
sorry there's things happening in the
background
sam normally waves a question card at me
every time there's a question and she's
lost her question card so that's it no
questions
you'll have to think of something else
what can you wave instead of a question
i'll have to um i don't know wave my
clipboard
i feel out of control i know
i've forgotten what i was going to ask
now
bear with me um
oh there we go
vivek asked what lens are you using ah
that's a good question let's bring it in
hang on
let's try not to knock anything over
good question so the camera is the
olympus om1 it looks enormous on this
angle and the lens is the olympus uh 12
to 40 millimeter f 2.8
which if you had a full frame would give
the similar crop to a 24 to 80
millimeter okay and it's mostly out
normally around about the the uh the 20
uh the 40 ml end which is about 80 ml
equivalent okay go and then oh look
you've written question on a piece of
paper clever yeah so seth asked does
that carpet how you absorb light from
bouncing off that floor seth that's a
really good question i hate this carpet
with a passion i mean i genuinely hate
it it's here for one reason and one
reason alone it's for the the acoustics
so it absorbs the uh the room we tried
it without when we first moved in and it
sounded like i was in some pools
cathedral it was beautiful if you're a
singer
nobody needs to hear me sing
okay
um but i guess it does a bit but
yeah most of it bounces off the roof and
yeah
but yeah it's the reason i should say
the reason i hate it is because it just
all the fluff comes up constantly
okay where were we we're going to put a
little separation light in here we go
whoa
that's what happens when you switch your
your flash off and back on again
okay don't i don't think anyone can see
that that's good news
here we go
lovely go to this picture fray that's
much better there we are
so a little bit of separation light just
a little catch light in there the
advantage of the pro so i said a minute
ago about using the pro there is an
advantage that's at 1 128 power what i'm
going to do is actually turn it down to
1 256 power so that's the difference
between the standard
explore 200 evolve 200
one of them and the pro version is you
can turn it down lower which seems crazy
but actually is super useful
because you can just take that down a
little bit less in the brightness
so that's a 256th that's at 128th
so you can just see how that's a little
bit oh look at that i caught the edge of
the softbox as well just to remind us
that's how we're doing it
okay so black backgrounds
are we good we'll keep going because we
are 12 minutes in and we've got
you okay yeah oh i thought you could ask
a question i thought you had your hand
up i was like
you are you are allowed to ask questions
as well that's fine
chloe has a question
well similarly if you do have any
questions for chloe i've got a
microphone for chloe
and you know
and she's so good at karaoke she can't
wait to have a go is that right is that
what you said yeah that's what you said
all right okay so we've done black
backgrounds let's take the same light
and move it around a little bit so i'm
gonna get the same light and put it in
behind
chloe like this and i'm gonna drop it
down so it's sort of hidden behind her
like that
so the idea with this is if we take this
set up
and take a light
firing at the background i should get a
little bit of light on this background
but there's different ways that we can
work with this let me just show you the
the go-to setting if you like this is it
you sort of stick the light behind your
model you remind them not to lean
backwards because
you know they don't bounce so well but
um chloe is a professional
yeah
i don't need to remind you you're fine
okay
what power should i put that light on in
the background
it's a rhetorical question i don't know
um let's leave it exactly where it was
before we'll put it on one 256th power
okay
start where you ended up okay here we
go and the result is
um
yeah
something went wrong now i'm not going
to explain what went wrong on that one
because i like to leave a little bit of
mystery
but i may have fixed it there's a magic
button that fixes things on the side of
the flashes if it ever goes wrong just
there's a little kind of
there's a magic fix button
which is really useful
here we go
okay
so that is 256 power which i think is
just right that just adds that little
bit of light back there but can you see
a flaw in my brilliant plan
anyone spot any problems anything
yeah
so the black background with the clothes
light works really well right up until
this point where it kind of gets in the
way so
i'm gonna have to move it that's just
life
we'll elevate it up a little bit
we'll angle it slightly down not that it
makes a huge difference but it always
makes us feel better as photographers
and there we go something like that
okay
lovely so same position just out of my
shot but what happens if you move a
light
if you move a light
you change the power so move a light
re-meter the light
um here we go actually we don't have to
do this by flash meter not everybody's
got a flash meter we can do this by
trial and error
okay
uh chloe what do you recommend what
would you recommend as a starting power
should we try 1 16.
top top tip if anyone ever asks you what
what should you start out always say 1
16. that's kind of what unless you've
got pro photo different lighting set up
but yeah 1 16 works beautifully for
most occasions and chloe is pretty much
bang on i'd say look at that good guess
well done it's like you knew how do you
know these things
um maybe just a little bit more light
let's take that up a stop to an eighth
okay
maybe a little bit hot
a little bit too bright so somewhere in
between you can't really do in between
because we work in third stops um but uh
yeah that's pretty good i can live with
that
okay so that works quite nicely
but i can change the background light
chloe what do you reckon i should put
the background light on
1 16 there's a there's a brilliant idea
[Music]
okay just for chloe so let's uh let's
give you a little close-up so now i
forget to do this occasionally oh it's
going to focus on chloe's face unless i
do
that there we are so there's where we
are that is the background light on
group b at 1 16 power
and
that is the foreground
key light at just over 1 16 nearly 1 8.
okay here we go 1 16 power looks
if i can get it they were sharp there we
go like this
okay and that's really nice i like that
that works really well there's a nice
gradation between the bright spot in the
center and then the gray falling off at
the edges so that's very nice
what if you want to change it how else
can we make this different well what we
can do
is i can get this light
move it
it's very easy isn't it you put a light
down it works and then you don't move it
for the rest of the lighting session
i've done that so many times you think
nailed it that's good so here's what i'm
going to do i'm going to get this light
and move it closer
imagine
you have a really small studio space
where you just don't have a lot of room
so you have to put your light this close
to the background
it's it's a thing that happens a lot of
the time so still got the gray
background now the light is about a foot
away from the background or about 30
centimeters
it's really
close
what's going to happen what in your mind
what do you think's going to happen
it's at one point we'll just find out
we'll just take a photo
in my mind i've got an idea let's see if
it works okay same power nothing
changing here we go chloe
okay
can i yeah if you thought that
congratulations you're spot on
you see what i did there
spot okay no no just me spot of light
wasted wasted i am around here
so the closer you move your light the
the more intense it becomes but the less
room it's got to spread okay so you can
you can kind of work with that you can
get interesting lighting positions but
here's a little is a little trick a
little sort of work around i take off
the reflector and i run but let's bring
it closer so you can see it okay
okay so if i take off the the reflector
which was giving us that round shape of
light and go with just the bare bulb
okay so that is just the the bear bulb
what's going to happen to the light now
i'll put it in the same place more or
less
close enough there we go
i'll put the reflector somewhere where i
won't forget it
which is of course a lie because i will
immediately forget where i put it
but there we go we'll leave it on the
same power because
well let's make life easier for
ourselves
okay and the end result is
really nice
you still have that nice gradation it's
even softer than using the reflector and
bringing the reflector backwards it's
really gentle because it is an
omnidirectional light source the bare
bulb the light goes literally
all the way around it really does look
really nice looks really good
i like that so let's just see if i can
actually straighten it up because i
noticed it's a bit wonky
here we go and perhaps we can just take
a few photos like that
chloe are you ready ready okay let's
just take two or three photos i might
just if you're gonna do a little bit of
posing i might just spin the
light round
there we go
i'm probably gonna go vertical
there we go
really nice
so if you're watching us live this is
your chance to get some questions in for
me or for chloe
or for sam
or frey what game are you going to be
playing that's uh
all interaction is good and if you
haven't liked us if you're just watching
us now and you're thinking oh this is
nice hit the like button
that really helps with the the feed as
well so it's really hard to talk and
actually take photos these are great
quite a challenge
i know yes difficult isn't it
okay beautiful lovely i love those so
that was really nice i like that that
gentle
gray gradient it looks really good
especially with this darker gray
background
and for those who are wondering
let's just do one more i'm just going to
take it down to 1 64 power just so if
you're thinking it's a little oh
nobody look there no no don't look at
that one
okay make it down to 164th power
yeah wrong light
there you go so we can have just a
little less intense so that is a much
much more subtle effect
remember if i didn't have that
background light on it would be black
just do a two or three like that chloe
fantastic
so that's incredibly subtle
beautiful okay there we go that's great
gotta remember we're live and we're only
two out of six
and we're 20 minutes in goodness
okay
um
i don't know if there's any questions
there's a couple of people have said
could you put gel on the uh back light
but you know i mean
we could should we do that
that may have been the plan
i see i've lost my reflector okay lost
it already
actually no one saw that it was just out
of shots
catch of the day catch of the day
okay so we've done black backgrounds
we've done gray backgrounds yeah the the
one of the reasons i use gray is because
it can be
any color
you want
literally anything you like
i mean unless it's like polka dot or
something like that that's a bit harder
but actually might be able to do that
not impossible i'm saying might not be
impossible we might get to that later
what color would you like
i'll open it up to the audience what
color would you like
i'm not going to give you all the colors
under the rainbow what would you like
here we go
oh
any any preference
we've got blue blue come on it's not a
daniel's this is not a daniel norton
session
clear clear
that's seth clear
all right let's put blue on because it's
adorama and it wouldn't be an adorama
live unless somebody did a blue
background kik says hot pink oh we got
kickstand yeah
i kicked purple orange yeah we've got
loads of comments so yeah any of those
click still be with freya on adorama xp
and
have you got an hour and a half it's
time cool blimey let's go around quick
okay so um i put a blue gel on it i'm
not going to change the background power
because that's where it was so let's
start where we left off i'm not going to
move the key light because it's not
really about the key light for this
session
okay let's just see what we get
i mean that's that's not bad is it it's
nice
that's nice i'm getting a knife from sam
that's that's unusual that's
good i think that's probably more for
the foreground than the background but
uh yeah that is nice that's nice
what about if you'd like something a bit
more intense so here's where it gets
interesting so that
was
this power
hold on
it's a little bit brighter there we go
yeah can you see you can see that can't
you 1 64 power that was the power for
the background
what happens
if i turn it oh i don't know up
let's go
uh we'll go to chloe's favorite
1 16 power
she loves 1 16 power
okay here we go
okay so we've taken it up
and we get this okay so quick bit of
maths can i be a picture in picture
let's put stick me on there we go there
we go yes rose got it okay so maths here
we go
1 64 power
one more stop would be one thirty second
power
two more stops would be one sixteenth
power okay so we've gone up two stops
since the last photo if i want to go up
another two stops where do i need to be
what power do i need to dial in if i
want two more stops of light on that
background i'm at 1 16 power now
what do i need to dial in
there's a question
i mean i can literally hear pencil and
paper going over behind
us they're on it they're on it
yeah okay
quarter
quarter quarter quarter quarter quarter
of course see they're clever
more difficult questions you should okay
it's not a test though is it
there's no prize it's a test but there's
no prize there we go so a quarter power
will take us up to this okay that's kind
of nice
all right okay let's do chloe's favorite
color what's your favorite color chloe
yes good good answer
is it green that's not green it's yellow
definitely yellow
we could actually do green i found a
green somewhere but i don't know green i
don't know everything that goes with
green
okay here we go so yellow it is
i quite like yellow as a demonstration
color
let me show you why
so let's go back to 1 64 power
here we go 164th power and yellow looks
like this
i mean
that's not good is it i mean it looks
little green it does look a little green
yeah just for you i mean our screen is
truly hideous don't look at that screen
but there is definitely a little bit of
sort of there's a bit of greenish
yellowish going on there
okay that's 164th let's go up two stops
1 16. here we go
1 16 power
two more stops it's looking
better
just
one quarter power
okay here we go
let's bring up
let's go up there here we go
okay wow
okay so we get a lot of difference in
color between the different powers and
it shifts it becomes a different color
particularly right in that center and
then sort of bleeds i want one half oh i
went too far hold on
carried away well let's give you some
props let's give you a
um
okay i'll give you some sunglasses have
some sunglasses
okay so
sunglasses are in i'm going to turn on
my modelling lamp so i can see the
reflection these are mirrored sunglasses
which means if i get this in just the
right place
we should be able to get a reflection in
the mirror of the softbox this is where
a round softbox might have helped okay
chloe i'm going to guide you if you can
look a little towards me keep coming
keep coming keep coming
i might have to get the light closer
we'll live with it okay we're going to
go square
okay that's great
love this
so
drop your chin down a little bit there
you go okay we have some other yellow
sunglasses in here let's try these
i have a very large extensive collection
of sunglasses
there you go
stuff
okay
looking straight at me chloe boom that's
great love that
okay that's cool like that that's fun so
we can tie in the the props or whatever
you might be working with with the color
of your background um we've got a little
bit of time we're doing a right for time
so maybe we can just shift the lighting
around a little bit let's
move that slightly
so if you're watching us live we're 30
minutes into the live stream halfway
below me that went quick
if you're watching us live and you
haven't clicked on the like button why
not
click on the like button immediately
and
if you have any burning questions you'd
like to get answered
pop them in the comments if you're
watching the recording and you've made
it this far hey well done uh and b
we will look at the uh the comments and
then try and pick them up
if there are any burning questions but
there's no guarantee you stand a much
better chance of being here live okay
right let's get this up there
so
popping this on the top
locking it in
not really the right bit of kit for this
but it'll do with
what we've got
tying myself in nuts
what i need is a sandbag
quite urgently so i'm going to grab this
yeah i'm just going to spin that around
to the long leg
it's out front
and then the weight is over the long leg
and then go grab a sandbag safety first
goodness that's
that's a heavy sandbag actually
boom
all right top tips for sandbags um if
you're using a sandbag make sure that
when you kick it it swings if it doesn't
swing if it's stuck to the floor it is
not working as a sandbag it's holding
the the carpet down rather than anything
else which is not what you want
okay
a little bit of beauty lighting that's
better
that's not better that's that works
okay beautiful so what i'm looking at is
the catch lights in chloe's eyes just to
make sure they're there
catch lights not your eyes realize that
sentence didn't quite come out how as i
intended um it's a close light
that's
re-meter okey-dokey here we go popping
this knee or chin
f9 pretty close we're at f8
we're still at f8
f9 here we go
just to
prove the point so everybody can see
what i see
which is
face detect is a wonderful thing until
you don't want it to focus on someone's
face
how's that
where that way you can get that one
that's technically worse
oh just all the way i think oh yay
technology it works okay
let's hang that up so i can find it
again in the future okay so we're just
going to leave whatever gel we've got on
the background lovely so this is beauty
lighting it's overhead lighting it is
little catch light in the eyes
absolutely gorgeous looks lovely and
still has the yellow background which is
great fun
i like that that's nice
can you go through the equipment you're
using quickly and the camera and
and
the lights as well okay a few people
that have joined us okay
so we have
let's start with the camera now the
camera is perhaps the the least
important bit i know i wouldn't like me
to say that but it is it's just the the
camera is doing the capture bit i'm
using the new om1
uh the lenses are perhaps more useful
i'm using the 12 to 40 millimeter f 2.8
not that we're anywhere near f 2.8 but
that's what i'm using i'm tethering in
via a tether tools cable to my laptop
way over there and then the lights there
are two lights in this setup there is a
key light which is the flash point
explore or is it the evolve let me i
always get these muddled up so let me
get this right
yeah it's the explore
300 pro
which is my key light and the evolv 200
pro with a gel around the back
okay
that's that okay cool uh oh yeah color i
was going to put a bit of color so what
if you want to do something a little bit
more interesting
interesting challenging different weird
take your pick with words what if you
want to have split color you want half
your grey background to be red and you
want half your gray background to be
blue i mean i can't imagine why but
we're going to do it because that's what
we do on tutorials
because other people have more
creativity than i do
i mean you might want to do a different
color mix but this will show you quite
graphically what we've got so i've got a
second
evolv 200 this isn't the pro version
this is the the standard version
this one has a blue gel
like that
and this one over here has a red gel in
it
they are both on the same group i'm
going to set them both to the same power
and just gotta find a camera
and let's see what we get
so let's put them about a quarter power
let's see what happens okay quick test
photo
i'll take the glasses away because no
color is going to match this
tana
how's that
was that what you're expecting to happen
we did this earlier and it wasn't that
dramatic that's quite
it's quite good it's going to take a
little shot above your head
here we go
because it's actually just the join
between the two where you might be able
to see a little bit of purple coming
through as they bleed in together so
having lights that are opposite sides
but pointing at the background gives you
this split of color
and
i mean
it's it's interesting isn't it
let's move things around let's just
shift the lights around a little bit um
i don't think the top camera is going to
help no i think all you're going to see
is
okay that will work that's better okay
i'm going to put something back here i'm
going to get the lights
and i'm going to put them next to each
other so rather than having them
separated out
i'm gonna put the lights
right here
next to each other
right here right now indeed
you got a question far away uh simon
asked
why
battery studio lights are not main
powered simon that is a brilliant
question so
the reason for that is
this
i can i can walk around i can pick up a
light and and move it about
i'm not tied down to it so
battery powered lights give you
flexibility they give you the ability to
move around your studio and they give
you one less thing to trip over which is
a cable
mains powered lights
i mean they don't run out of battery and
anyone who's ever done a shoot where you
haven't been keeping an eye on the
battery level which is
everybody
will know how frustrating it is when you
suddenly hear that sort of bibi
just getting to the good stuff so you
don't have that but the the main
advantage for me is it is just the
freeing up of the the cables the only
cable left in here is my tether cable
and although i've tried tethering with
wi-fi particularly when we're doing a
live session
i like cables for tethering but for
everything else
the less cables the better
you've had a couple of people ask um why
not a white background
why not a white background
because that's a good question because
we haven't got to it yet oh what do you
mean why am i not using a white
background that is a fantastic question
here's the thing
if you have a really big studio space
you don't need a gray background if
you've got room
to get distance between your subject and
the background
it's naturally going to go gray even if
it's painted white we don't have that
room it doesn't matter where i go i
cannot get this studio wall
painted white to go anything other than
very light grey light just bounces
around in here and always hits that
background at some point so if you have
a proper professional studio with lots
of space
white will work in exactly the same way
the acid test is what happens if you
take a photo
without the flash firing if you can get
your background black
with not without the flash firing with
just the key light firing if you can get
your black band black background with
just the key light
then you're fine but for me with the key
lights i'm always going to light my wall
so it's a size thing
that would have been much quicker i
should have edit that in edit that bit
out and just say it's a size thing
sure seth can do that
okay where were we oh yeah okay so um
here we go so lights are now next to
each other i've lost track of what power
they're on and they're actually turned
off because i turn the trigger off so
yeah no flash no picture always good to
do that at some point
okay cool there we go
so what we have if you put the lights
next to each other is a very very very
different look
to that one so that's lights opposite
ends of the the background
and that's two lights placed next to
each other
two very different results and the
reason i've gone with blue and red is so
you can see graphically the difference
you might want to choose something
that's a bit more harmonious
but you can mix up the results in
different ways close together
further apart
okay
so that's that
okay
let's move on how are we doing we've got
20 minutes to go 20 minutes to go
goodness me
okay so let's get rid of those
there was
a little uh reason for putting these two
lights next to each other and doing it
this way it's almost like i've planned
this talk i know it seems amazing that
there's any planning gone into this
whatsoever but there was a little bit of
planning because
i'm going to leave those right there
they're not going anywhere
[Applause]
so what i'm going to do is i'm going to
make that gray background go
white
so we've made it go black we've made it
go gray we've made it go lots of colors
let's see if we can make it go white
now i'm going to set myself a little
challenge because i'm a fool and
i like to make life difficult for myself
and i like to make it difficult
when we're live
so i'm going to do this without taking a
single photo i'm going to make this
white then take a photo and you can
judge whether i succeeded or not why am
i doing this this is a daft idea
okay
to do this
it helps enormously if you have a flash
meter okay this is my flash meter my
second
30
308 s it's so old the numbers are rubbed
off but it's uh it's on there somewhere
there it is it is old like you wouldn't
believe but this little thing
is
priceless because it will allow me to
make my white background white
without doing anything at all so
here we go i'm going to put these two
lights
on half power okay so i've set those two
lights up at half power
[Music]
yep there we go half power okay
they're on group b for background
that's not what it means but uh it kind
of works and i'm going to take a meter
reading
off the back of chloe's head
okay here we go back at chloe's head
meters at f 7.1
okay f7.1 let's take another one because
you never believe the first still f7.1
f7.1
remember that in fact i'll tell you what
make my life a little bit easier save
the planet by turning the power down
and let's get this to f 5.6 there we go
save the planet less battery power
faster recycle time f 5.6 okay so i've
meted the back of chloe's head it meters
at f 5.6 i'm going to meet at the front
of chloe's head
i'm just going to pop this near your
head here we go
and that meat is f 6.3
the front of chloe's head meters at
[Music]
well you may have to take my word for it
but it's f 5.6
also at f 5.6
okay so both the front and the back of
chloe meter f 5.6 i'm going to put the
transmitter back on my
hot shoe
i'm going to throw it on the floor first
and it's already held together how did i
manage to break this transmitter i don't
know
it just happened
it's already held together with duct
tape look there you go it still works
there yeah it's live
okay so i'm going to take my camera and
not drop it on the floor but i am going
to change the aperture to
f 5.6 so the flashes are at f 5.6 the
camera's at f 5.6 everything ties in
is this going to be a white background
or is it going to go horribly wrong
hey
white background there you go
so f 5.6 gives me a beautiful white
background
like that's a little bit of flare coming
through there i'm not going to worry too
much about that that's pretty good so i
can make my background go white it's
only going to be white
right around the edge of here by the
time we get to the the corners this is
already looking a bit gray but that's
relatively easy to fix in photoshop
this is asking an awful lot for a dark
background to go pure white is a little
bit of a challenge but we can do it
all we need to do is give chloe
something to work with here we go i'm
thinking sunglasses i'm thinking
standing up
because you've been sat down the entire
time
make it too easy oh yeah yeah
lovely so you're gonna stand in front of
those lights
i'm gonna raise that up a little bit
okay
i'm already regretting that because
not saying i'm short
there we go
so this is great because i've got the
the preview turned on my camera so i can
see
this really dark gray background through
the viewfinder and then as the photos
come in for a split second i suddenly
get this really bright white shot coming
in you can see on the wide shot where my
flashes stop okay so there is a limit to
how far i can do this
so the closer i go in the more effective
this becomes
awesome
fantastic hey hey look at that that's
really good
so that worked all right
again if you're watching this live
welcome along we have 15 minutes to go
you've got any questions you are your
clock is ticking um okay that's good
white background done
let's mix it up a little bit
let's lose one of the lights
so earlier i said that we could change
the color of the background to almost
anything
except polka dot that's kind of true but
we can put a little bit of text which
camera am i on there that one
we can put a little bit of texture on
the background
not texture but pattern
for that we need a very very special
piece of kit so let me get this out the
way let's let's uh
let's get this special piece of kit
now
there are very few of these in the world
they are extremely rare if you're lucky
enough to be the proud owner of a light
strainer congratulations the light
strainer is a
a piece of photographic equipment that
is underrated
some people say it's a cutlery strainer
they're right but if you if you put it
on something it's black therefore it's
photographic the light strainer has been
with me now for quite some time is my
own invention and i have turned down
literally no companies wanting to make
this for me
not
one this is my retirement this is my
pension
it doesn't bode well does it
but with light strainer come great
responsibility
well yeah mostly and the fact that none
of the
is um
put away in the kitchen it's all kind of
all over the work top but
here it is the light strainer is it's
basically
it's a thing with holes in okay
look at that i mean it's already more
exciting isn't it
i'd love to see what that's doing on the
live stream
so um
stefan
said
sorry my mouse keeps going asleep there
we go
and said
very important information for you did
you know you compared the two x-pro
together
master slave to never move the one on
the device no i didn't i'll have to go
and look into that thank you very much
stefan
that's always something else to learn
okay
so there we go that's what it looks like
okay so
as you can see piece of photographic
equipment it's
you know it's a prototype it'll it'll
get better and there's still the uh the
mark one it's actually the mark ii this
has got the new mounting system um which
is um
you know
you know so it's it's still in prototype
form but that works quite well so that's
what we're gonna do we're gonna pop this
back here behind chloe
pointing at the background i'm just
going to reattach it
there we go it's a quality piece of kit
smashing
okay so let's see what power should i
put the light strainer on chloe what
would you recommend
reckon 1 16 power let's go with chloe's
suggestion i say
she knows what she's talking about this
chloe uh okay
here we go
okay 1 16 power
um yeah you were almost right almost
right i think the light strainer takes
away a little bit more power so we're
going to go for a half
and see what we get here we go
boom okay there we go
so we end up with lovely little pattern
pictures which are really nice i'm gonna
move the lights because
because i can
okay i'm gonna move the light around a
little bit here we go
let's drop this down
let's drop that down
let's get this
yeah it's right it's a soft box as
daniel says it's fine you'll be all
right
okay go blimey oh there's a sandbag on
it i wonder
i'm really struggling with this i've got
a sandbag at the bottom okay there we go
so we can pop that around about there
somewhere
we've moved the light what do we need to
do we need to re-meter the light
not only does it give you accuracy it
slows you down so you get a bit of
thinking time and it makes me look much
more professional
which is actually quite important
sometimes
okay that is close to where i want to be
on i think i'm at f 5.6 so that's where
i've set the key light
f 5.6 background is on goodness know
knows what but a half power
so
going vertical
i wanted to get a little bit more chloe
in
ah isn't that good
how cool does that look we can take it
down a little bit so we can go to a
quarter power it's going to kick this
light back a tiny bit
your light strain is getting a lot of
love
who doesn't love the light strainer it
is a piece of photographic
wonderment
anyway
that's exactly what everyone says
okay if that i'm getting the feeling
there's this like sarcasm here there is
i've
i've never stopped developing the light
strainer um
in the the mark ii version that i've got
here uh this is the zoomable light for a
strainer version so i can zoom it
now look at that that's zoomed in so now
it's it's even closer to the end there
zoomed in version
okay here we go pop that back there i'll
angle it because it makes me feel better
i'm not sure it's going to make any
difference at all
okay what's gonna happen if i zoom in
the light strainer
what's gonna happen
possibly nothing at all
but what will happen is
a much more diffused pattern of light
okay so it's much more gentle because
the holes of whatever you're using the
cookie that effective is just a cookie
are closer to the light source light has
more room to spread out around them i'm
going to move that light a little bit
chloe hold on
just mind a dangerous rug which is
determined to trip me up
okay that looks really good
love it
and i can go pretty much full length and
get some really nice portraits and just
dappled lights on the backgrounds
and we'll just move out every longer
five minutes blimey
okay we'll just pop that there
lovely
light to the side not expecting this to
be quite so nice because it's going to
give me a little hot spot in the corner
but you know kind of fun
done okay
great stuff so there we go so that
worked quite well so what have we done
so far we've done black backgrounds
we've done gray backgrounds with the
spots we've done colored backgrounds of
various types we've done a pure white
background
we've done dappled backgrounds five
backgrounds in 50 minutes
we've got 10 minutes to go should we do
one more
let's do it
this
is the simplest
probably my favorite
10 minutes might be too long
so yeah you might want to if you've got
any questions i need to stretch this out
okay here's what we're gonna do
so we're gonna get the gray background
and leave it where it is but move the
light over to the background
right up against the background
like that
lovely
and then
we're gonna elevate that
up in the air like that
there we go
we don't need the modifier light
modifier on i can turn that off
there we go lovely so that's basically
it
it's no more difficult than that i'm
going to put it flush with the wall
because
that uses a bit more time looks good
we could do this by trial and error we
could do this by metering we can do
trial and error it takes longer so we
can do that uh my b light is off this is
a one flash
setup one flash only
let's just see test photo first of all
chloe here we go and i'm at 132nd power
i probably should have been at chloe's
setting
i should have been at 1 16th shouldn't i
let's do chloe's favorite
1 16.
and because it's such a gray background
i can actually review my histogram which
i can't put up on my screen but i can
pull up on this camera should we do this
camera do you want to change the camera
for me there we go okay so my histogram
is looking pretty good it's got a full
extension
right the way over to the highlights and
a large lump in the dark shadows exactly
as you would imagine so
the histogram is telling me that that is
about right exposure
and that's kind of it it's no more
complicated than that i love this
lighting it's so simple so effective
let's take a few photos here we go
let's put it in auto focus hold on chloe
there we go press the wrong button
and i've also got it in the wrong
view mode there we are lovely i'm off
okay here we go
of course exposure is very much
what you think is right so although
these probably are right i'm going to
slightly underexpose them i think that's
going to look really nice
[Music]
fantastic sam have we got any questions
or am i okay just to keep taking photos
well you can do both okay i can do both
uh someone asked your studio sites
okay the studio size is uh
double tap 15 feet
uh from chloe to me well it's water wall
and 17 feet
from you oh you can't see can we do the
pitcher in pitch yeah there we go from
you over to here so
15 feet by 17 feet except around about
six feet from your end is all the
streaming equipment and obviously i've
got chairs and bits and pieces so my
actual working area is about 12 feet
square
which is
just under four meters square
okay
but it doesn't mean i can sit down
and take photos
okay that's kind of nice
like that i'm just going to pull the rug
under you from under your feet
metaphorically and physically
there we go
what i've made is a lovely trip hazard
for a live stream
yeah i can't imagine anything going
wrong
so the the lighter floor although it's
underexposed looks pretty good and dark
and i love this
another question yeah
tara asks where do you keep the rest of
your backgrounds
um
yep the rest of the backgrounds are up
in the ceiling space up in the ceiling
void so
i have a whole bunch of pop-up
backgrounds which are above your head
you can't see them they're up there and
i have some paper backgrounds stored up
there as well so
full use of every inch of a small home
studio so they're up in the the rafters
or in the loft space
okay hold on i'm just going to adjust it
beautiful
okay really important picture
last picture to take before we come to
an end because we are pretty much at the
end of the session
and it's this one i'm going to take a
really wide picture
like that in fact
because that is a little bit dark i'm
actually going to put it in aperture
priority mode
and do the same again here we go
these pictures are so useful because
they allow me to see
where is the light set up what's going
on where did i put the light
so i can reproduce this look again in
the future
these
photos when you look at them they are
lovely they are gorgeous they're really
nicely lit
let's try and find one was actually
sharp
there we go
but apart from the fact that there is a
hint of where the light is it doesn't
really tell you a great deal so taking a
wide shot super super important for your
understanding of where you put the
lights
okay
there we go let's uh try and find one to
finish on
go there okay cool let's bring it back
onto me so there we go that is perfect
timing um sam we've got any more
questions are we done what have you done
to those carpets yeah um
as if we didn't have enough trip hazards
in here before that's perfectly safe
health and safety that's why i have a
clipboard
it's perfectly safe there we go look at
that that's uh
perf perfectly safe
yeah
okay
marvellous okay so that brings us right
to the top of the hour so that was
fantastic we had one background in our
small home studio that was black gray
white multi-colored
patterned and also with a lovely
gradated effect as well so
if you're in the market for one
background gray is the one to go for if
you have a small studio space it can be
a roller paper like this savage one it
can be a pop-up background
just grey generally is just the color to
go for okay so that brings me to the end
of the live stream couple of thank yous
to do i'd like to thank chloe for being
awesome
chloe
yeah freya on the super switcher did a
stonking job brilliant thank you very
much uh sam on the comments thanks
everyone thanks for all your comments
and thank you for all the people that
answered other people's comments that we
didn't get to
i try and keep it relevant for the
session but um yeah thank you thanks for
joining in and thanks for being all over
the world amazing oh it's nuts isn't it
and then seth and adorama for letting us
do this again on their channel which is
incredible but mostly thank you for
being here yourselves we literally
couldn't do this without the audience so
thank you very much let people know
share it like it it really helps we are
back again when are we back again
four weeks yes four weeks so we're back
again four weeks time doing something uh
we're not quite sure what uh it's quite
a lot going on between now and then but
it's gonna be awesome that's for sure
and of course adorama has a lot of
content every single day so stay tuned
to adoramatv and if you're in the market
for a little bit of gaming
freya is going to be live on adoramatv
no adoramaxp on twitch let's get it
right over on twitch at well one hour
from now so whatever time it is for you
one hour from now over on adorama xp on
twitch go join freya for some live
gaming and say hello
okay there you go i'm going to bring it
to an end there thank you very much for
watching i'm gavin hoey thanks for
watching
you