Hi everybody! Welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography right here on
AdoramaTV brought to you by Adorama it's
the best camera store in the world, check
them out at Adorama.com
Well, I have two models today that are
fantastic Monique and Marelie come on
out and these guys are going to be
helping me explain some things now,
this video is sort of an extension of a
video that Marilee and I did previously
'Crazy Fun Light' and so we had you like
moving all around we had a strobe and we
also had a constant light and that
actually caused a lot of questions. I need
to resolve those things and so in this
video I really want to talk to you about
what happens when you slow down a
shutter and how that affects the ambient
light and motion, and how when you add a flash
to the mix you can include or exclude
things, it really makes things interesting
I'm going to try to break that down
because I think I caused more questions
than answers in the last video, so let's
first start with a slow shutter speed
and really how our camera, the exposure
works in our cameras. So to help you
understand this I have a normal glass
here and some water if you think of this
water as light, and you think of this as
exposure, what you're trying to do is get
just enough light so it fills up your
glass all the way to the top in other
words you want to have your sensor in
your camera get just the right amount of
light, so you're not over exposed, in
other words water going over the glass
or underexposed not enough water in the
glass. And so there's two things that
determine if you have the right amount
of water or the right amount of light
your camera one is how large the opening
is in the glass or the carafe that's the
aperture in your camera
how wide is that how much is coming
through and how much can come through at a
different duration. Duration is the time
it takes - so that's your shutter speed! So
for example, if our aperture is really
small or there's not very much light
we're just going to get a trickle of
light coming into our camera, and it's
going to take a long time for us to get
a proper exposure, and if we don't let
our camera go long enough, I'm going to
be underexposed
But, if we have a lot of light or our
aperture is open really wide,
well you can see that we can use a
shorter shutter speed, and so those two
different things really play into... whoops
Play into.. how our camera's exposure
works. Now with a really long slow
shutter speed 2, 3, 4 seconds... something
like that. Our light is just sort of
trickling into the cameras trickling
into the sensor and so that has an
impact on motion and to explain this
what we're going to have is Monique and
Marelie are going to hop back here on
this seamless white, and what I'm going
to have them doing is.. 1. so Monique
is going to be standing still
2. Marelie is going to be moving and we're
going to see the difference with a long
exposure, how motion will change how that
light shows up on the sensor, and how
being really still changes how that
light shows up on the sensor then add a
flash to the mix, and then I'm going to start
doing some interesting things and so
without further ado we're going to start
shooting that right now,
alright well let's put this into
practice by understanding the principles
of a slow shutter speed and what that
does to our light as it's coming into
our cameras sensor, some really
interesting things happen and so what
we're going to do is we have Monique and
Marelie back there. They're going to be
walking back and forth and doing some
things but let me show you the setup, I
have my camera here and I have this set
to a four second exposure so I'm
shooting f16 ISO 200, I have a neutral
density filter on the front, so we can
really get that long exposure so, the
important thing to understand is this is
a 4 second exposure now back here we
also have a studio strobe, we're going to
get to that in a bit so just don't worry
about that right now,
we'll get to it in a little bit so the
first thing we're going to do is Monique
is going to exit and then Marelie is
going to get ready to walk across our
seamless background. I've already focused
this and so all we have to do is tell
Marelie to go are you ready okay watch
what happens one two three go ahead and
so my shutter is open it's going to be
going for four seconds so 1,2,3,4 - it
just ended now if we look at this image
what you see here is we have just a
white background with the trace of Marelie's
feet so you can see your feet just a
little bit of a ghost
so what the heck
happening so remember that glass of
water is pouring that water and how
light trickles into get a proper
exposure
well our cameras sensor, isn't just a
glass where it's containing the light in
one location, it's a sensor that captures
light across that sensor, so it's
actually millions of little glasses
called photosites that's capturing the
light that's coming into our camera so
what's happening is... Marelie, come on over
here, so we have this 4 second exposure
and so if Marelie just stood right here
and didn't move we would have light
coming and bouncing off her shoulder
into the camera and after it's bouncing
and going into the camera for 4 seconds
then she would be properly exposed right
here, but she's moving, and so what's
happening is, the light's coming in,,
it's sort of hitting her, so take a step
forward, but now she's gone, and so on
this sensor, what we're seeing is the
light bouncing off the seamless white,
and coming into the camera, and she's
right here, she's moving forward go ahead and take
a step, so now she's not here anymore
she's not there long enough
we're seeing light hit off this back and
come into the sensor and as you take
another step forward that just happens
over and over again and so she's just
not anywhere long enough for the light
to hit her and then get into the camera
for a long enough period of time to get
a proper exposure
she just doesn't show up at all because
the light isn't on her long enough
except for her feet. So come on back.
Notice that when she's walking she's
taking a step and then ok take a step that
way
Yep, so like this notice her foot is
standing still
her body's moving, foot standing still
body moving etc. So that's why we're
getting the little ghosts of her feet,
because her feet are staying in one
place longer than the rest of her body
is, so we're going to prove this out, so
Marelie go back to your starting point.
Monique is now going to come onto the
scene, and Monique is going to stay
completely still, as much as possible,
she can't stand completely still for 4
seconds, you're going to do the best you
possibly can
Alright! So here we go, she's going to
stay completely still, and then on the
count of three we're going to have you walk
through this,
ready 1,2,3. So Marelie is walking Monique is
completely still,
now watch what happens when we look at
this image here we can see that we have
a blurry Monique because she couldn't
stand completely still, but all that
light was coming in bouncing off of her
going into the camera, going to the
camera for 4 seconds, we have a solid
Monique but Marelie is moving, so the
light wasn't able to bounce off her long
enough for her to even show up, and so
that's what motion does to an image, so
if you have something that's moving...
along a path
well, they just don't appear at all ok.
Now that we understand that, let's add a
flash to the mix, now the only thing that
I've changed here is I've taken my
camera and now we're at a 1 second
exposure shooting at f16 ISO 200, I took
that neutral density filter off because
now we're using this studio strobe and I
wanted to make sure that it had enough
chance to get into the camera, and have a
proper exposure, so I just wanted to
remove that neutral density filter to do
that, and we don't really need a 4
second exposure, so 1 second exposure
and Marilee is going to be walking
across which is about half way across.
I'm going to push this button
on the remote, that's gonna make the
flash fire, and some interesting things
are going to happen, so are you guys
ready to do this? So watch what happens.
I'm going to count to three, Marelie is going
to start walking, about halfway through
going to flash, and then we're going to see
what happens ok?
Marelie, go ahead and start walking, she
goes... boom!
Ok, that was our 1 second exposure now
what we see here is we still see Monique
she's frozen, she's exposed just like we
normally would see her but we have a
ghost of Marelie, so how is that
happening? So Marelie, come back out here
what is happening here, is all the stuff
that happened before, so the ambient
light is still going into the camera. So
as she's moving there's not enough time
for her to be exposed to show up to the
camera, but when she gets about right here
I fire the flash! Bam, that's a lot of
light coming from that flash! So that is
freezing her and that light is going
into the camera and it's showing that
ghost of her but she keeps moving and
even though that light came into the
camera we still have a bunch of light
that's coming off this back wall that's
also going into the camera, and so that
shows up and it makes her look
transparent, and so that's why you might
see a ghost of somebody, you're using a
flash in a dark room with a really slow
shutter speed, so even though the flash
is illuminating merrily... we have this
white wall here reflecting all this
other light that shows up, and makes her
look like a ghost!
So how do we make her look not like a
ghost? Well we need to eliminate the
ambient light we can do that really
really easily so you're going to walk
again
All we have to do is speed up our camera
shutter speed on our cameras. What I'm
going do is, I'm going put this at my camera
sync speed which is about 1/60
of a second
where have you come on this side and
she's going to walk again.
So now i'm just going to set this up
again, I'm going to push this little
button here when she comes across, so I am going
to put this on the camera so it works
Are you ready? Ok, start walking 1, 2, 3
go
Click... now look no ghosts at all
all I did was they sped up my shutter
speed to eliminate the ambient light and
all the light we see is from the flash
you don't believe me watch this
I'll take this and turn it off so no
flash at all I want to take a picture
you can wait Monique, all right click
taking a picture and when we look at
this what we get a totally black image
and so what we understand there is that
when you speed up the shutter we can
eliminate the ambient light and we only
see the light from the flash we start
slowing down that shutter, we're allowing
more ambient light, but if you go too far
not only are we allowing ambient light,
we're showing motion at the same time we
can separate ambient light and motion
from our studio strobe, and freezing
motion, and then we can start working
with this to bring a little bit of
ambient light or eliminate the ambient
light to create some interesting effects.
And that's what we're going to do next.
Alright, now that we understand the
principles of a slow shutter speed, not
only showing emotion, but more
importantly letting in more ambient
light. Speeding up that shutter speed
eliminates the ambient light, but we can
also have a separate exposure - that's the
flash, and so we can control those two
exposures independently of each other, and
now we know the effects of each one
we're going to illustrate this with this
scene right here! This is the back
room of the studio we're in, and I think
it's really really cool, so Marelie is
here and she is sitting, where she is
facing this light this is a two-foot
octave box with a grid on
We're just getting this pool of light
right on Marelie but nowhere else
so none on the background, none on the foreground,
just this really small pool of light
but I love this chalkboard back here,
It's got the Jeremy Cowarts Help Portrait
right here, and what that means, and all
the information, they're doing that here
in the studio this week I guess, And then
there is awesome, really cool
doodles back here, so I want to be able
to show this, or hide it, and we can do
that by mixing that ambient light with
our studio strobe, so let's do that. right
now the first thing I'm going to do is
I'm shooting at a 1/180th
of a second ISO 200 f8 and that's gonna
eliminate the ambient light, and only
show what we see from the flash so check
this out.
So we're going to have you look perfect
just like that. Bam
Ok now, look at this we just have this
really small pool of light and we don't
see the background because our shutter
speed is too fast to show any of that
ambient light I'm going to really slow
down the shutter somewhere slow this
down to about 1/15th of a second, I'm going
to shoot again, same exact setup so again
ISO is at 200, aperture of f8, but now
we've slowed that shutter down more
ambient light is going to be coming in
and so here we go we're going to look
just like we did before,
Click! Now check that out, that background
just magically appears, it's really nice
now at 1/15th of a second
Marelie is going to have to be a little
bit still, but she can move a little bit because
our flash is freezing her motion, we don't have
to worry too much about motion blur, but
if we wanted motion blur, again we can
slow that shutter speed down, and then we
could have her move, we could do all kinds of
things, so now that you know all of those
principles, slow shutter speed, motion
faster shutter speed, no motion, but no ambient
light either.
Well thanks so much for joining me for
this episode of Exploring Photography
Thank You Monique. Thank You Marelie, for
being exceptional models and walking
around doing all kind of funny stuff
Don't forget to subscribe to AdoramaTV
it's absolutely free so click the button
and subscribe today and also check out
the Adorama Learning Center where there
are types of articles, all about things
like motion, and motion blur, and using
studio lighting, all kinds of things,
anything you can think of it it's at
The Adorama Learning Centre
Thanks again for joining
me and I will see you again next time.