In this episode of The Breakdown, I'm
going to talk to you guys about how I set
up my lights in the studio without a
light meter. Welcome back to The
Breakdown, my name is Miguel Quiles,
and I'm here in the studio today with Emily,
and today I want to talk to you guys
about a question that I get all the time,
in the comments section, which is how did
I determine what my power settings are
from my light, and so what I'm going to do
today is I'm going to break down exactly
how I arrived at my settings, without
having to use a light meter. Before we
get started, let me explain to you
everything that I'm using here to take
these photos. So today I have the Sony
A7RIII with me, i have it paired up with
their battery grip, which is super handy,
and super useful, when you have to take
portrait style photos. Makes it much
easier for you to hold the camera. I've
got the Sony 85 mm f/1.8. One question
that I get pretty often in the comments
section, people will ask why am I am using
the 85 f/1.8, if I have the 85 G Master, and
to be quite honest with you, the reason
is that sometimes you get lazy in the
studio. You don't want to hold a heavier
lens the whole day the 85 f/1.8 is much
smaller, it's much lighter, and usually if
I'm not as tired, that can be a lot more
creative. So in professional scenarios, if
I'm working with a client, I would
probably default to using the 85 f/1.4,
but in this case, I love the 1.8 because
it's very sharp, it gives me very
comparable results, but it's much lighter,
and I'm using the Profoto air remote, so
this is what I'm going to be using to
take all of the photos for this tutorial,
and let's go ahead, and let's talk about
the lighting, and what we're using for
our light shapers. Let's walk through the
lighting setup, that we're going to use for
today, and for all of these shots, I'm
using a Profoto D2 and that Profoto D2
is going to be my main light. I have
it set to channel A, so that I'm able to
control it from the remote. It's paired
up with a Profoto 5 ft octa. This is
probably one of my favorite light
shapers, especially to use in the studio because
honestly, you can make anybody look good
with a 5-ft octa, so chances are if
you see a majority of my work... probably
eighty 85% percent was lit with
this size of modifier. Now if you're
watching this, and you're saying, oh you
know he's using a Profoto light, I can't
afford that right now. Please understand
that all of the stuff that I'm showing
you right now, you could do with whatever
lights it is that you choose. There's
gonna be pros and cons as far as color
temperature. As far as power output, all
that's gonna be different however you
could take a speedlight. In this case if
it's a five-foot octa, you're probably
going to need a bunch of speed lights, you
might need three or four to equal the
type of output that you're getting from
this strobe. the recycle time might not
be as fast, but you can use whatever
strobes, whatever flashes that you choose
to use, or whatever it is that you own!
Just try to set up something comparable
to this, and you're going to see that the
results are going to be in the same
ballpark. Now for the fill light we're
actually using another Profoto D2, and
then the softbox, that we're using it's
actually a one by six strip bank from
Profoto, and I really love using this
because you actually get this like
really beautiful catch light in the
bottom of the eye. And with this Avenger
c-stand, I could position this fill light
to basically either be very bright in
the catch light, or kind of move it down
to where you don't see it impacting the
photo as much. Now the question that I'm
getting all the time is, with these two
lights, how do I arrive at my settings if I'm
not using the light meter? So now
that you understand what it is that I'm
using, we're going to talk about how I dial
in those settings to my own taste, and
how you guys are able to do it as well!
Let's go ahead, and figure out how we're
going to dial in this recipe, this lighting
recipe. So the first thing that I always
do when I'm shooting in the studio, is my
very first photo. I'm taking it with the
strobes turned off, and what I'm
attempting to do, is I'm trying to take a
photo in the studio where all of these
lights that are in here, are not
impacting the exposure. So there's two
ways to be able to do that, technically,
there's more, there's three ways maybe,
even four, I don't know! The main ways
that you're going to be able to do this are
going to be by, controlling your aperture,
your shutter speed, your ISO, and you
could also the fourth way, is by
using neutral density filters to be able
to control the exposure. That way, but
that's a little more complicated than
what we're going to talk about today.
Instead we're going to use high speed sync
to be able to control our exposure in
this room, and also to be able to shoot
wide open with our aperture. Now I'm
going to shoot these photos at f/3.5 for the
aperture, and I chose that aperture
because I want to make sure that her
skin texture is nice and sharp and in
detail. That her eyes are sharp and in
focus, but then her hair and everything
else basically will blend, and just blur
away into the background, and that the
background will have a nice blur as well.
At f/3.5 I'm going to be ensured that
all of that's going to be in focus. Now
if I've dialed in that aperture, the only
other things that I'm going to be able
to change is my shutter speed, and my ISO
so what I'm going to do is, using the Sony
camera it makes it kind of easy because
I could see the exposure in the
viewfinder. What I'm going to do is, I'm
going to try to get the scene to be
completely dark to where this light
that's in the studio, is not actually
lighting the photo! So I'm going to try
first and I'm going to try a high shutter
speed. We're going to try 1,5000th
of a second and I'm able to
do this because the strobes have
high-speed sync. So this is one thing you
want to keep in mind, if you have strobes
that don't have high speed sync, you're
going to be shooting at a higher aperture.
Maybe an f/8, and it'll work perfectly
fine. So we're going to try 1/5000th
thousandth of a second, and the goal here
is to have a photograph, where you're not
able to see the model at all, and I know
it sounds kind of counterintuitive, but
what we're trying to do is basically
light her with just these light shaping
tools. I don't want the light from the
studio, I don't want all these back
lights because I can't control them.
They're a different color temperature,
but I can't control these, I can move
them closer, move them away, put them to
the right, to the left. I have a lot of
control. So this first photograph
I'm looking at, and at 1/5000th of a second
you really can't see her. It doesn't look
like too much ambient light is actually
exposing her, but I'm going to take a chance
here. I'm just going to go ahead and go up
to 1/6400th of a second. Take
another photograph here,
perfect, and I'm always shooting tethered
in the studio. One of the big reasons is
that it's much easier for me to evaluate
these things. If I see it on a big screen
as opposed to trying to look at it on
the smaller monitor at 1/6400th of
a second f/ 3.5, ISO 200, I have a
completely dark image. Completely
underexposed, you can't see the model at
all. Once we have this baseline I'm going to
go ahead, and turn on my lights and the
first thing that I'm going to do. I'm
actually going to go ahead, and just try to
dial in the main light, and try to get
that to look proper. Then I'm going to
dial in the power for this bill light,
then I'm going to turn them both on at the
same time, and see how they blend
together. So let's go ahead, and let's get
the main light dialed in, so what I've
done. All I've done is just turn on this
light. The bottom light is not on, so
we're going to take a test shot here, and as
far as how I arrived at the settings, 'cause
this is a very common question that I
get. I just dial the settings to where.. I
think they might need to be! Over time as
you do this more and more, you're going to
notice that you're going to get very lucky!
That you just turn on the lights, you
dial in a power setting that you think
is going to be correct, and nine times out
of ten you're in the ballpark, so I'm
taking this first photograph. It's a
little bit underexposed, so what I'm
going to do is, I can look at it and tell
that it's probably about two stops
underexposed. So I'm just going to go ahead
on the remote take the main light up to
+2, and then I'm going to go ahead and take
another photograph. Very good, and now the
main light is looking... just wait for this
to transfer - it's looking pretty good. So
the main light looks fantastic, and all I
did was just raise it up two stops. Now if
you take this photograph and you notice
that at two stops, is still under exposed
once again dial the power up on your
main light until you get the exposure
correct. Now that we have the main light
set up, I'm going to turn off the main
light and we're going to turn on our fill
light. And you could actually just go
ahead and test push the test button to
make sure that it's going off, and so
we're going to go ahead now, and we're
going to check out the
fill flash... to make sure it's in the right
position, and that it has the right power.
There we go, and I guess I didn't mention
this earlier, but our settings in the
camera are not going to change! Once we
figured out what that proper setting is
in the studio to negate the ambient
light. We're not going to play with our
settings. From that point forward the
only adjustments that we're making are
to the power level of our strobes, now
the fill light in this case is very, very
underexposed. It's not doing very much,
I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm going to
raise that two stops, and again I've
arrived at that by pure guesstimation.
Right you could get a light meter, you
could light meter this. You could be done,
but a light meter could cost you seven
or eight hundred bucks. If you're on a
budget, and you just want to learn
lighting. You don't have to have a light
meter to do studio lighting, you could
just guess and get to your proper
exposure. So here, great so now the fill
light is looking pretty good. I raised
that up two stops and theoretically when
I turn on this main light, and the two
blend together
we should be in business. So let's turn
on our main light, test them out again. I
haven't changed the settings at all.
We're going to take a photo, looks pretty
good! We''re seeing a nice blend between
the main light, and the fill light. So now
that we have that I'm going to go ahead
and start shooting, and try to get some
good poses, and good expressions.
So everyone, that is how I dial in my
settings when I'm shooting off camera
flash in the studio. Hope you guys found
this useful. If you're here watching this
right now, make sure that you give Emily
a follow on Instagram. We'll put that in
the description below, and any questions
that you guys have. Please leave them in
the comments section. I do read them, and
I do try to reply back, and if the
question is really good, I may end
up doing a follow-up video answering
those questions, in a future episode of
A Breakdown... So thank you guys so
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The Breakdown and I will see you all in
the next episode.
Bye everybody.