Hey! This is Daniel Norton, I'm here in my
studio in New York City with Paulina and
today we're gonna play around a little
bit with prisms.
So I was I don't know a month or so ago
Vanessa Joy came by the studio.
She needed a place with windows so she
you could mess around for an Instagram
story that she was doing for Adorama.
I think we can put a link...
I'll put it in the description at the very least..
super fun, she puts them in front of the lens,
but we were just started talking cuz she
had a prism, and she was like oh you know
I'm gonna shoot through it to to get
reflections ...
you can also throw rainbows with it,
and I was like, you know I have a prism,
I actually have one in my kitchen,
that's what I told her.
I have a little one in my kitchen,
and I love that like I walk in there I
see rainbows on the wall and stuff,
but I always feel like I wouldn't use one
because it's not predictable enough,
and I'm very much like a gotta set it up
shot, so then I said well, let me do it myself,
right, so I did a bunch of
experimentation to see kind of what
would be the ideal way to kind of create
an image with consistent rainbow using a
prism, we messed around with various
different types of lights okay, so let's
take a second to talk about what a prism is...
I mean essentially it's a triangle,
but usually either glass or plastic
right, you can get these things
inexpensively and as your light kind of
comes into it, you know light is made up
of all these different colors that
creates white light.
So as all this light hits the prism,
it kind of goes through the glass or
plastic at kind of a different speed,
kind of right, and it breaks it up into,
into your various colors right?
You've got your red,
your orange, whatever, and you create a nice
rainbow coming through it..
so it's simple as that.
We just want to throw light
through the, through the prism and it
will kick out the other side a rainbow.
You may notice by the way that even
though my subject is over there, my prism
is over here, it's kind of like it's not
pointed right at them, and that's because
you'll see the lights actually gonna
come out of the side of the prism...
it's really interesting, so you think about
that when you're setting up your, your
position.
I have my DLED 7 here
which is just an LED light from Dedolight,
and I'm basically just pointing it,
I've got the by the way, I just put this
on top of a baby plate that we just
flipped upside down, just so.
I have a nice flat place to put it, you can I
probably wouldn't recommend for this
type situation to holding in your hand,
because again the whole point here is
this thing is to get the whole point of
this exercise is to get it as precise as
possible so we don't want to be...
anything to move, alright, so there you can
see right there on my subject okay?
But I have all these overhead lights in here
which is making.. so you can see me..
let me kill those, so we can actually get
a full effect, okay?
So the lights are off, we can see we have
nice saturation here, so let's take a shot.
I'm just using the meter in my camera,
we're at about a 1/60th of a second at f/4,
it looks good,
you know remember that your
exposure is going to control your
saturation, you see you have nice
beautiful saturation here, the only
downside to this is that we're not
getting any light kind of... on the non
rainbowy part of the face right?
So we can use some kind of a reflector for
that if we want, there is like a little
bit of light bouncing around in the
space right?
I mean if I come over here and I drag my
exposure slider up...
it doesn't take much to start to bring that
up over here, and that's just cuz I have
white walls.
If you had an issue with light bouncing
around, you could use a
flag or something to block it, but I
don't think we have to worry about that
right now.
What I'm gonna do is actually
bring in a reflector, so this guy is just
a silver reflector, you know, and again
the idea here is, that we want to throw
some light on the subject to bring up
the, I don't want to block it, so it's
gone, but good yeah, maybe I can see the
saturation is dropping, so you don't mind if
I do, I'm actually gonna turn her face a
little bit this way, just so we can see
this better right, move the reflector in.
Nice light on there, and let's see what
we get again, the trick here because I'm
using the single light, is to not block it.
Same exposure, yeah, and we can see now
that we've got some light there, that's
basically no kickback, and there we have
some fill, so you can get away with using
one light here if you want.
I think in the end if you're gonna make an actual
portrait, you're probably going to want
to use multiple lights,
but before we get into that,
I think the next step here is
I'm gonna try to do this with the flash.
Okay so really to have full control here
right, the thing I really want is I want
to use flash, because this way I can do
my prism rainbow effect anywhere for the
most part, as long as I can you know,
more or less knock the light down,
which with a powerful studio flash I can do,
so I have my B1X here, I've got it the
prism setup, it's kind of the same setup
where I have the prism sitting on top of
the baby plate,
I'm aiming the light at it, there's
a few different variations here though.
Number 1... it's much harder to figure
out exactly where the lights going to
fall with the flash, because even though
you have a modeling light, the modeling
light is not the flash tube, right, it's
not exactly in the same spot, so it is
going to be slightly different, so a lot
of this is gonna be a bit of
experimentation.
When I found work pretty
well is, you kind of get into position
where you think it's gonna be, and you
pop the flash multiple times, and you can
kind of see where it's falling, you know,
use the modeling light to get it close,
pop the flash to adjust, or do a couple
of test shots to move it.
The other thing is, especially with my light
these studio flashes are designed to
throw a light really wide, right, so if I take this
right now, I have the rainbow pointed
at everything, looks fantastic, and if
I take my my flash I take a shot here
you know, I've got the prism all set up,
like all cool, go like that, and looks
like we didn't do anything right.
It's basically lights everywhere,
we need to control the spill of light,
there's a lot of different ways we can do that,
the, this preferred way, the simplest way
really is to use a grid, so I have my 5
degree grid on my Profoto now I'm
gonna put that on, you know make sure if
you're gonna use a grid and stuff like
that, that you do all the lining up,
and stuff, that I talked about a second ago,
with the grid on there right, that's the,
you want to make sure everything's in
place before you do it.
I want to make sure I am not blocking
light as well, so it might be good to put
the modeling line on.
We take the shot, now we can see, we've got
this nice rainbow, and now guys I'm
shooting at 200th of a second, f/8 so I'm
killing all the light in the space, but
you might be saying, what I can see
there's like white light over here,
Daniel, yeah, that's because this light is
bouncing off the wall, a big white studio.
Right, so, and where I'm gonna do over
here is, I'm gonna block that light right.
You know the way that you flag stuff
really depends on what you're flagging.
Sometimes you want to put the flag close
to the light source, sometimes you want
to put it close to the the subject.
In this case I think close to the subject
is the best way to do it.
You certainly could put it over here as
well, but I feel like with this light it may end up
bouncing too much around, even if I do
that, there we go, so now I'm in total
control, so if I want that colorful light
on her face, and I don't want any of the
ambient light, I need a bounce light
should say from my flash to here, this is
the way to do it, I have both options
available to me, and again this gives me
total control.. okay so, in the end we were
able to get a really pretty decently
controlled shot using the flash,
which of course is going to be my
preference, you know, using the Sun,
using constant lights, if that's what you
got, or even like a flash light through a
prism would be cool, you can get a lot of
cool effects, but using the flash gives me
power, it gives me control, so I've got my
B1X set up, I have the grid on it.
It's shooting through the prism giving us a nice
rainbow, and now I have a much nicer
model, so let's see, let's, let's get that
set up guys, all right, so we're basically
set up here.
I'm gonna turn I'm at 1/200th of a second,
f/8, ISO 100, I'm going to just
turn on the modeling light on the light
with the prism, so that Paulina can see
it, or you be able to see it, are we under
kill the lights in space.
Well we have to kill the lights in so you
can say okay, you know work with your
model, let them you
know kind of, how to do it, you know that
that's the key here.
I find a lot of photographers don't
communicate and then they
just they're like, I can't get the person
something.... it's like yeah exactly.
It's like let them see it, so this is
just the rainbow, I'm in manual because I
don't want to bounce around, cool, yeah so
you know we have the exposure here, you
know, how the exposure, how you achieve
the exposure I choose TTL to get this
set, at first it worked pretty fine, you
know we've got a decent exposure here,
you can dial your your light up or down to
get it where you want,
but that's actually pretty darn good,
but of course this in and of itself
is just a rainbow in the darkness,
a rainbow in the darkness,
we all need that right?
And it's not that interesting,
right, so we want to build a shot of this,
and make something really a little bit
kind of more elaborate, a little more creative,
so the first thing I'm seeing is, again a
lot of darkness, I want a separator so
I'm actually gonna do a couple of lights
from the back to kind of cut her out, and
I decided to use two different ones cuz
I feel like if you use always the
exact same lights from the back, to give
your cutout lights whatever, they can
look a little more commercial or
whatever, so a lot times when I'm trying
something funky, I'll mix it up a little bit.
So I have a beauty dish with the
grid on one side, to give it a little bit
more of a specular punchy contrast to
your light, and then on the other side I
have a small softbox, actually it's a
extra small softbox at that, and that's
gonna give me a more of a softer diffuse light.
So that'll be our two cut out light
...if you will, I'm going to turn those
on, that's B and C, and good let's see
what that looks like, so again we have
the rainbow, you know enough of that
light is wrapping around her that we're
getting separation on the face, giving
good look to the face, because if we just
look at this one you know, we're not
seeing the sides of her cheekbones or
anything, so this gives us enough to work
with we can move around her position
within the light, and all that does look
pretty good, but one thing I want to do
now to give a little bit more control
over... to make a little easier is
I'm gonna kill the overhead lights, so
that way we can see this a little better,
yeah that makes it a lot easier, it's
harder for you guys to see, you but easier
okay, come a little bit this way, good, perfect,
yeah, now we can see, we can really kind
of control where that rainbow falls, let
shoot a couple like this, you know, and
like before guys, I could bounce back
some of this light, if I want feel
there's a lot of different things you
can do, but just give him some room to
move is nice, good, cool, oh that's nice,
right, and you would think I'd be happy
with that, but not if you know me at all.
I got to add one more light right,
because I feel like it's cool, and she's
separated from the background, but it's
just like cool shot of somebody,
or the rainbow light and whatever,
like I want to create a scene,
a feel, a vibe, so what I have over here
is my Dedo light a DLED 7 fitted with a
projection attachment, and in that
projection attachment I have what they
call a breakup, and you know it can be
sharp like that, if you want to be like
wow, but we're gonna make it really out
of focus in nebulous, nebulous you like
that ring, and I actually have it set to
tungsten white balance, this is a dual,
dual color light now, the only issue here
is, in order if I shoot at 1/200th second at
f/8, like I'm doing, right, yeah it doesn't
do anything does it, that's a little
disappointing, all right so we need to
drag the shutter for that right, so I'm
going to go into my camera, and I'm gonna
dial down to.. I'm just gonna look through
the camera, and I'm going to dial it down
to where I think it looks pretty good,
let's say 1/8th of a second, and
let's shoot that, okay, yeah, pretty good,
right, 1/8th of a second right,
ISO 100, f/8, you see that it's nice and
sharp,
why is it sharp even at an eighth of a
second, because Daniel has amazing steady
hands.... probably not, no, it's because none
of this is like constant light really is
hitting her, there is a little constant light
hitting her from the modeling light of
the flash, but it's not enough to make a
difference.
If I want to be extra, extra
perfect, I'll turn that one off, so what
I'll do is, I can control that from my
camera, so I'm gonna get Pauline into a
position that we're good, I'm gonna focus
and get it nice and tight, then I'm going
to turn off that modeling light, so I'm
going to hit the A group, and there we go good.
Now I'm not turning off the flash, I'm just
turn off the modeling light, good,
focusing, I can turn it on so I can focus,
and see turn it off, shoot, right here we go
it's not terrible, it's gonna be hard to get the
'cause your arm is getting white light as
well, so if you want to do that, you have
to just, you can turn, but then just kind
of turn your shoulder back towards the
light a bit, you know, this shoulder this
way, look open up a little bit
just have to cheat it a bit basically, yep
there we go, let's see, yep, there you go
perfect.
Cool, yeah, you get a little bit that
creeps past it over here, just kind of
cool, yeah, see we can actually control
you know, we're just working together to
get the the rainbow where we want it,
do one like really straight on, I wanna do like
a powerful straight on shot, so again I'm
gonna turn the model in for a second.
I'm just gonna get into position right there,
we're gonna focus, turn the model light off, there,
and fire you know nice and simple really,
easy guys, sure it takes a second to do that,
but that gives us a lot more control, you
know, and we don't have to worry about
any blur, so good, right there, good,
I'm not gonna bother turning it off,
cause I don't think I'm getting a blur,
we'll just shoot a few, you'll see if that's
the case, focusing, good, good, hold sorry,
yeah...
right there, hold, good, nice, so we're just
playing with different effects with the
rainbow on the face, it's really cool cuz
almost looks as we were saying earlier,
almost like paint on the body,
we try to work towards the, the, basically
camera right,
so you're left, yeah your face,
so you get a little more color in the frame.
Your face, yeah, good, like that, good,
good, nice, yeah,
these are super fun, and there we go, we
can do this, you know, all day long, right,
getting whatever color we want, and you
know just as one final thing, because you
know I like to change things up....
in the middle of a shoot.
I'm going to turn off my two kicker lights,
and I'm just gonna do the front light and the
background light, so just straight at me
like almost like a beauty shot, exactly,
let me see what that looks like, it's
curious, if she falls into, also kind of
different and interesting, but not enough
because as we all know, the more lights
you use the better it is, nice yeah,
that's beautiful, so cool, huh, there's
like, there is good like, a little right
on the tip your nose is blue.
Well you perfectly line that up, that's
that's called perfectly lining up there
with the rainbow, that's the expert right
there, ten points for that one, oh I love
it.
You don't actually do something, we put
your hand forward, yeah, like look, look
off of this way with your face, more so, I
get some of the background light, I want
you to block the rainbow basically, yeah,
but then turn your face slightly to your left,
yeah I think then we'll get some of that
background light, I'm just curious
it might be too bright when did you that
no we worked cool right so she's
blocking the rainbow, the reason why I
had her turning guys, is so this background
light would light her up, otherwise she'd
be too dark, we're now, you got rainbow
hand, nice,
all right one more, we always have to end
with a good one, I'm gonna do it,
horizontal cuz you know we like that,
good, good, good.
Focusing line myself up.... that's
beautiful, cool, let's see what that looks
like, oh yeah, couple more, like that.
I'm gonna, for some reason the horizontal,
I want the background to be brighter so
I'm gonna go down to I think the quarter
of a second, we'll go half a second, try
one more like that, horizontal, good,
should give us so much brighter
background, oh yeah, and this one,
I'm gonna kill the modeling light when we do it,
so I'll get you in position, I'll kill
the modeling light, good, good, one more,
focused, good, good, focusing, good, killing
it good,
nice, yeah, super cool, yeah just cuz with
the longer exposure I was nervous about
the modeling light, and then there you go you
know, half a second, still sharpe as can be,
sharp and shiny, it's like you're in this
bizarre rainbow world, love it, super,
super, good, okay, so we did it right, yeah.
It's like when you see something out
there, you know like techniques, or trendy
things that people are doing, and you
play with them.
I think that you can have
a lot of fun with it, but you know try to
make them work with your style,
you don't have to change the way that you
shoot to use things that are going on,
that are you know like what people use ...
like techniques.
For me I like to light with flash,
I like to have more control, so if
I want to do the prismy thing, that's
how I do it, right.
I'm gonna use flash, it just took me a little
time to figure out exactly what works best
and I was able to in the end, create the
shot I want, and all day long,
we could shoot this, and it
won't matter if it's sunny, if it's the
middle of the winter, if it's the summer,
it's raining out, I mean who cares,
I can make a rainbow, anytime I want,
by doing this, and now I'm tempted to go
out and buy a bunch more of these
prisms and put rainbows everywhere, so you may see
another future bizarre rainbow shot, but
anyways I will put up Paulina's
information in the description.
Be sure to follow me of course
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OnSet.