Jay: Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan.
Juan: And this is Juan Pablo Di Pace.
Jay: And we're here to illustrate how to use LEDs to do portrait lighting.
You'll want to check out our new Stop Motion download.
Two and a half hours of tips and techniques from Trisha Zemp.
You'll love the things she talks about, a tasty video, the B&H logo.
Go to theslantedlens.com where you can download yours today.
[00:00:22] [music]
[00:00:40]
So we're on set now with Juan Pablo, and we're going do some fabulous portraits in that kind
of era of 1920s.
Why did we choose 1920s?
Juan: Because of Rudolph Valentino, and also I love the '20s.
Because tango was created in sort of the '20s in Buenos Aires and he was a dancer, too.
So he kind of like, I don't know, it's an era that I absolutely love.
Jay: It's a wonderful photographic era because the images are just so beautiful.
They're stark, they're black and white, they use very hard light, and so we're gonna try
to recreate that with LEDs here.
Juan: Smokey and mysterious.
Jay: All those kinds of things, absolutely, absolutely.
So but our goal is to show how you can use LEDs, and what the advantages...pros and cons
of LEDs in doing this kind of portrait lighting.
Why do you choose them?
Why would you choose them over strobes, and how are they going to be an advantage to us
here on set?
So let's get started and see what we can do.
Juan: Let's do it.
Jay: So here are the reasons that I choose LEDs when I'm doing portraits.
Number one is you see is see exactly what you get.
When you dial light up, you're seeing it.
It's right on the monitor, as you're looking through the viewfinder.
It is much easier to use LEDs, continuous light, to be able to see the lighting, to
be able to see the ratios, and to be able to actually have an example that's changing
right before your eyes.
It's a much easier way to work.
One of the important ones is that is you're shooting film, you gotta shoot continuous
light.
Because now, I can shoot some stills, I can immediately go to a film mode, and I can do
some video mode and shoot some video.
So it makes it very easy for me to go back and forth between stills and video on the
same setup.
That's a really important one.
If you're going to do both of those at the same time, using and understanding and being
able to work with continuous light is really important.
You also have complete control of your color temperature.
You can dial that color temperature up and stop on a bi-colored light, it gives you the
ability to match your color temperature with a color meter to whatever light's coming through
the window, or in the room, or situation you're in.
They also draw very little power.
Strobes can draw a lot more power when they surge, as they pull to charge.
LEDs draw such little power, there's really no problem using them any time you're in a
home or anywhere else.
There's no circuit issue at all.
If you want to have wide open shallow depth of field, then using LEDs helps you accomplish
that.
This kinda leads me into some of the downfalls or the drawbacks of using continuous lights.
And the number one drawback is that they are not super powerful, and so you're not going
to get F8, F11, F16.
You're never gonna see that with a continuous light source.
You're going to get a much lower power, which means you're gonna have to shoot much more
wide open.
Also, you don't freeze action.
You're not gonna freeze people moving or jumping.
They're really built on the principle that you're going to blur frame to frame when you're
shooting video, and so when you're doing stills, a 50th of a second is fine, and you'll be
able to get portraits if people aren't jumping around.
But if people start to move too much, or when they're talking, if you're doing a fashion
kind of shoot where they're jumping and moving all the time, you're gonna get blurs on every
single image.
Another issue is you really have to use a tripod when using LEDs, because if you're
going to shoot those longer exposures, you're gonna have to be on a tripod.
So it makes a little less easy to move around.
A lot of LEDs are difficult to modify.
Now the SILK 210s have grids that just, you know, they have a magnet, pop them in the
front, that's fabulous and it really controls the amount of light that they give out.
But if you wanna put a softbox in things, it becomes a little more difficult for some
LEDs.
A bayonetted mount LED, and there's a lot of 'em starting to come out in the market
there, allow you to put your softboxes and things and overcome a lot of that issue.
Let's take a look at some of the images we got of Juan Pablo, just a fabulous shot.
So let's take a look at those.
We're now gonna do some two shots, with Juan Pablo and Ariana Savalas.
We're gonna put them together in this kinda "Son of the Sheik" tight embrace, just fabulous
images.
One of the reasons I chose LEDs for this shot, is I do like the little bit harder look you
can get with LEDs.
It's a very directional source, and it just gives you that kind of...that look, that film
noir.
We're going back to the '20s, when the look was a little harsher.
You can soften them, they look absolutely fine, but I just like the look.
I like the direction, I like to be able to see that and be able to recreate those portraits.
So it felt like the right choice, as we go back to that era to use a light that more
imitates that.
Not that LED flat panels were around in the 1920s, but more of that hard directional light,
I think that looks fabulous.
So all in all there's some great reasons to use LEDs as a portrait process, but it's not
a perfect process, as all things in this industry are.
So take a look at the pros and cons and see if using LEDs is right for you when you're
doing your portraits.
So keep those cameras rolling.
Keep on clicking.
It's July, and time for a new giveaway.
We've got three prizes from Vanguard: tripod, the 263 Carbon, we got an Alta Sky 45, and
a VEO Tripod.
So get to theslatedlens.com, sign up.
Three lucky winners.
I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille.
And while I'm doing my close-up, why don't you subscribe to The Slated Lens.
Then you can do your close-up too.