In this video I'll show you how using
flash on your location portraits can be
better than just ambient light.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey and you're watching AdoramaTV,
brought to you by Adorama, the camera
store that's got everything for us
photographers, and today you join me on
location. I'm actually in a field just
outside of the Gatwick aviation museum
with Gatwick Airport right behind me. As
you probably see in here in the video,
the idea with this is, we're going to do a
location lit portrait, but when it comes
to adding light to my location shoots. I
have one goal in mind, and that's to make
the light that I add better than the
light that's already here. So with that
in mind let's get some light set, let's
get a model in, let's get shooting. So
to help me out today, I've got the
amazing Jade Lyon. She's going to be the
model for this, and things haven't quite
gone to plan so far, because believe it
or not, this is supposed to be a field
full of waist-high grass! But they've
mowed it very recently, and this is the
only bit we could find. So this is going
to be our shot here, and I'm going to try
and make this look like a field of grass.
So let's talk about lighting. If I'm
going to add light, I want it to improve
the picture, but maybe this light is
absolutely perfect, and the best way to
find that out, is to take a test picture.
So let's get a shot like this, see how it looks.
Jade are you ready? Okay here we go.. and
as you can see, it actually looks quite
good at the moment. We've got sort of
overcast lighting, so we've got lovely
soft light on Jade. It's fine, it's quite
safe. So I'm going to add some light into
this scene, and it's going to be light I'm
in control of, and it's going to come
from the flashpoint Explorer 600, but
before I actually use the light. I need
to work out how low I can take the
ambient light, because if I can add some
drama by underexposing the ambient light,
I can then fill in the shadows using the
flashpoint light. So let's see what we
can do here. I'm going to set my camera to
manual mode. I'm going to dial in f/11 and
I'm going to go for a shutter speed. My
flash sync speed of 250th of a
second, ISO 200. Let's take this shot!
Here we go Jade.
And as you can see, that looks slightly
underexposed, but I can get even more
drama out of the sky by closing my
aperture today, a little bit more to
f/16, and now we have a very dark
underexposed shot, and that might seem a
little bit crazy, but in fact that's
exactly what we want to do. If I can
under expose the ambient light, I can
then add in my own dynamic light here. If
we switch it on, get it a little bit
higher, and then we can get a flash meter
and just meter this out. So remember, I'm
shooting at f/16, that's how much light I
need to come out of this flash. Let's
meter it and see what we get, and I'm
getting f/8 so not enough light is
coming out of the flash to expose Jade
correctly. I just need to adjust the
flash up in power slightly. Meter it
again I'm on f/16, so there we are, the
flash matches my camera. Let's take a
shot like this, see how it looks,
and that it's really good. I got some
really dramatic light that I'm in
control of, and it looks a lot better
than just the ambient light on its own.
So with that in mind, let's add some
style to this, and get some shots
Jade you ready? Okay here we go.
We use two types of props for this shoot,
the first was a large piece of red
organza fabric, that's lovely and
floaty. Jade could hold it, or we could
pin it to the back of her dress.
Jade did her own hair and makeup in a
vintage style, so we added a vintage
camera to complete the look.
Now it's always a really good idea to
try and do as much as you can, in camera
to get the picture the way you want it.
But you have to accept that occasionally
there are things that post-processing
can just do a little bit better, and this
is one of those cases in point. So let's
have a look at the picture, here's the
picture. I want to edit and by large I'm
reasonably happy with it, but the base
here looks just a little bit on the
bright side. So I'm going to darken that
area down, and I've also got a sky that's
gone a bit gray, and I'll explain that in
a second. So let's just go back into
Camera Raw. I've already done a few
basic edits here, that Camera Raw is a
great place to do this, because I want to
adjust the exposure and the white
balance. So let's deal with the exposure,
along the base. Now I could use the
graduated filter, but that will give me a
very obvious straight line. I could use
the radial filter, but that will give me
more of a vignette. The tool of choice
for me is the adjustment brush, and I'm
going to change just the exposure. So
everything is reset, apart from exposure.
I'll take it down to - one and a half
stops, and then with a middle-of-the-road
brush size, I guess I can just paint
randomly, and the key word here is random,
because we don't want it to look too digital
and straight, you want a little bit of
randomness in here, because that's what
nature does. Once I've painted this in, I
can adjust the exposure to get it just
the way I want it, and I reckon probably
round about there looks good. Now the sky...
as I was taking the pictures, I could see
the blue sky disappearing, and being
rapidly replaced by a gray sky.
Ah the worst sort of sky... just flat, and
gray. Luckily I got just enough of the
blue to make a bit of blue behind the
model and the rest, well let's have a
little look. So I'm still on the
adjustment brush, I'm gonna click on the
new adjustment brush, and this time I'm
just going to adjust the temperature. So
let's just bring the temperature down a
little bit, not that much maybe, just a
little bit down, something like that, and
we'll just pop a little bit of blue up
there, too much and it would look really
weird. Not enough and you'll barely see
it. There's just a matter of trying to
tie the two blues together, and that
looks actually about right. There's no
magic to this, sometimes it either works
or it doesn't.
So there we are, that's the, the basic
edit done, but the bit that's perhaps I'm
not sure about, and I don't know whether
I want to remove it or keep it. It's the
leaves in the top right corner. So let's
remove them, and then make that call.
Now I'm going to use,
the Spot Healing tool. No.. let's use the
Patch Tool. I reckon the Patch Tool is
great, because I can draw over the area. I
want to Patch and I'm going to do a, an
accurate-ish drawing, doesn't have to be
perfect, but something like that. You
missed a few bits, lets hold the shift
key. Add in any areas that we've missed,
and I missed a little bit down there as
well, so once I've drawn my reasonably
accurate selection, all I need to do is
to move my cursor inside the selection,
and then I can drag that patch area to
an undamaged part of the picture, or at
least as much of it as I can find and
let go, because you'll notice there is a
large area of the cloth there, but I'm
hoping... YES... that Photoshop can deal with
that as well. It's remarkably good at
that. I used a structure of one, a color
of three, different settings will yield
different results, and maybe a little bit
more fine-tuning. There it is, there's my
final picture completed. Well that went
really well, despite the fact we didn't
have much long grass. Jade absolutely
nailed the shots, and it looks fantastic.
Now if you've enjoyed this video, don't
forget to leave me a comment below, and
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I'm Gavin Hoey thanks for watching.