in this video I'm going to talk to you
about the accessory that you cannot
leave home without if you're shooting portraits!
Welcome back to The Breakdown,
my name is Miguel Quiles, it is a really cold day
out here in New Jersey. I am outside with
Veronica and we're going to shoot some head
shots, and some portraits outdoors, and so
you might be wondering, like I said in
the beginning of this video, what is the
one accessory that you just can't leave
home without.. Your're shooting portraits ...
and guess what it is?
It is a reflector, this is the most
important thing if you're starting out
and shooting portraits, and you're going to
be doing a lot of outdoors, even in
studio you're going to be shooting
portraits. You have to, have to, have to..
use a reflector, and I'm going to show you
why? So we're going to take some portraits.
I'm going to show you what it looks like,
with and without, the reflector, and you
decide, you let me know which one you
think turns out to be better. So let's
get started we're going to shoot some
portraits today with the a6500 from
Sony, and I have it paired up with my
personal favorite portrait lens, which is
the 100mm 2.8 stf lens, lens
when you're shooting it right open does
a beautiful job of blurring out the
background, while still retaining a ton
of texture and detail in your subjects
face. So that's what we're going to be
shooting with, and of course we have our
silver reflector. Now there's a couple of
things that I want you to understand, a
lot of times when people are using
reflectors for the first time, they use
them incorrectly, because they bring the
reflector too far down. So what I'm going
to do is I'm going to take one picture
without the reflector, we're going to do one
where the reflector is there, but it's
not in the right spot, and then we're
gonna do one with the reflector in the
right position. So we could see where it
actually needs to be. So Veronica, do one
without the reflector, so we'll put that
one down, and for our settings, let's talk about
the settings we've got f/5.6, we have an
ISO of 400 and a shutter speed of 1:500.
Now you might be asking why such a fast
shutter speed, if she's not moving? To be
honest with you, I want to make sure that
I have these shots tack-sharp, and in
focus. I'm more interested in doing that
then having my ISO be really low, and
having to shoot at a lower shutter speed,
that might have some shake of the camera,
so at 1/500th, I know we're going to be
sharp, every image if she happens to move,
where I move, everything's going to be
really nice and sharp. So we're going to
take this first shot without the
reflector, and we're actually using kind
of like the natural surroundings as a
reflector. So we're actually getting, even
though it's really cloudy and overcast
right now, we are getting some natural
bounce from the ground. The problem is
that it also is acting as a little bit
of a absorber of light, because it's not
perfectly white. It's not gray, it's not
reflecting a ton of light, but the light
it is reflecting is not a very pleasing
color, so if you see her skin tone, it's
not going to be the most pleasant skin
tone with this light bouncing off the
ground, so what I want you to do now is
we're going to bring in the reflector, and I
want you to bring it in at, like, waist
level. This is what I see a lot of
photographers doing, if they shoot
close-up portraits they'll have the
reflector really low, and while it does
help a little bit in terms of not
bouncing light off the ground, you're
going to see what this setup here looks
like. Alright, so there's my shot, so what
you're going to notice with this particular
shot, you are getting a little bit more
illumination on the face, which is great.
What I tend to look for in my portraits,
is to get beautiful catch-lights in the
eyes, and unfortunately because the
reflector is so low, you're not actually
getting to see a lot of the catch-lights
in the eyes, so what we're going to do to
fix that, is we're going to bring the
reflector up. So let's bring it up to
about chest level. That's great! Settings
are going to stay exactly the same, and
again because I'm shooting wide open,
we're getting this like exceptionally
beautiful blurry background, but where
this lens really shines, is that you get
a lot of texture in the skin, which is
pretty awesome, and actually this is kind
of a good point to make as well,
depending on how your model is posing,
but they put their chin up, you're going to
lose the catch-light. Now you might be
asking, or you might be thinking if
you're shooting this outdoors, and it's
really bright outside, how would that
change things. What I would end up doing is
to try to replicate this look, is to find
shade, put the model in the shade, and
again do this exact same setup. Bring the
reflector in, and you're going to get really
really beautiful portraits that are tack
sharp and interesting to look at.
All right everybody, so that is the
accessory that you cannot leave home
without. If you're going to be shooting
portraits, they're really inexpensive, but
they go a very, very long way, in just
adding extra oomph and extra drama to
your portraits. Let me know what
questions you guys have about reflectors
shooting in natural light. If I didn't
cover it in this video, I may cover it in
a future video. So I'd love to hear that
in the comments section below, while
you're down there, check out the
description because Weronika social
media channels are linked in the
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Check out the new work that she's
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Thank you guys so much
for watching another episode of
The Breakdown, I will see you in the next one!
Bye everybody.