if you could only have three light
modifiers what would they be, I'll give
you my answer on today's episode of...
Hey everybody welcome back,
of course as always I'm David Bergman
answering your photography questions.
Today's is from Jake S. and he asked if
you could only own three flash modifiers to cover all
styles of photography, what would they be?
Oh boy, okay, this is a tough question,
only three flash modifiers to cover all
styles of photography.
well of course look it's kind of
impossible to cover all styles with only
three flash modifiers, but if I had to
pick three to cover about 90%, I would
want to make sure that I could work in
the studio on location, and get different
kinds of light, and you know just have
enough variety to do whatever I want, so
my first light, I really had to think
long and hard about this, and my first
light is gonna be a nice general soft
light, and here is what it is, this is the
faux tech soft lighter, I love this thing
for a number of different reasons, it's
affordable, its lightweight, its small, it
folds up really easily and travels
really well, lots of photographers use
this modifier, including one you may have
heard of Annie Leibowitz, she uses this
thing a lot to give that really
painterly quality of light.
Now the thing about this is,
you can use it as a traditional umbrella
right, you can actually turn it around.
You could shoot and shoot through it, you
can shoot reflective, this cover comes off and
right through, here it's basically a
traditional umbrella.
I've got my Canon speed light in there but
but that gives you already two looks,
you can do shoot through or reflected, but
the key is really when you put on this cover on
here, this modifier this diffuser on the
front, and it kind of turns into a big
octave bank at this point.
It's a nice big round light when you turn on this
diffusion, it's really soft and you can
use it with a bunch of different lights.
You can use it with Profoto lights, or
Bowens Mount lights, I've got again my
speed light in there, so it really works
with a lot of systems.
So that's gonna give me a lot of variety,
and a lot of different things I can do with it.
So we're here in the studio today with Rosie.
Hey Rosie, how's it going, she's
been nice enough to sit in for this
portrait, so I can demonstrate the way
these different lights work, and so I've
got her sitting maybe six eight feet in
front of a white backdrop, and then this
light another 8, 10 feet from her, and
what's gonna happen, it's such a big
broad light source, I could have her
moving around and really not worry so
much about hitting her at exactly the
right spot.
We have her sitting still now
just for simplicity but she has a lot of
space to move around.
If I go ahead and shoot a picture you can
see also she looks beautiful, and you can see now
that's on just a nice big over... I've got
it sort of almost Rembrandt light off to
the side a little bit, not quite, but um
this gives me just like I said, a lot of
options, I can move her around, the light
is soft, it's pretty, soft light is good
for covering up, you know any kind of
blemishes, things, she has perfect skin so
we don't have to worry about that, but
for someone who does, it's really a nice
soft light, so that is my that would be
my first go to light for just about
everything.
Also because it's such a big
source, it's also lighting the background
because I have it kind of far away from
her and background if you if you watch
my videos about inverse-square law, you
know how that works, and it gives me a
lot of ability to get different looks,
and different kinds of light.
Now light 2 -
What am I gonna do for light modifier number 2.
What am I gonna do, what I like to
use is something complete opposite of
what that was, so in that case I'm gonna
use this thing right?
Here this is the magnum reflector from
Profoto, now this is a parabolic reflector,
and you can use it with big studio lights
like Profoto.
Other brands do make a similar Parabolic
Reflector like this, that they're called
different things.
The Profoto 1 is the magnum,
but you can they make smaller
ones that work with speed lights, and
with other brands as well, but here's the thing.
This light is a hard punchy light,
it's really dramatic, this hammered
coating on the inside here.
It's got lots of little mirrors in there that
make it really bright, and really efficient,
for, you actually get one more stop of
light out of this thing than you do with the
Profoto zoom reflector.
You could also use other modifiers on
here, grids, barn doors, you can put a
diffusion sock on the front which will tone down the
specular highlights.
If you want I don't know if I was allowed
to use any of that with this question,
so I'm just sticking with the bare Magnum.
So you could even back this thing way up,
and put a warming gel on it, and it would
almost be like sunlight, so let's go ahead
and make a few pictures of Rosie here.
All I'm gonna do is, pop this onto a light
stand here, and we've got this thing all set up and
ready to go,
and I'm gonna raise this up out of
the frame, just to get that nice hard
light looking down on her.
There we go, right about there,
perfect, and now what I'm gonna do is,
swap my transmitter, because I've got the,
that's a Profoto,
so just to keep it simple,
I'm putting the Profoto transmitter on my
camera here, and my settings actually are all
the same.
I have everything set up perfectly,
how I want it, so now because
she's wearing this really elegant you
know top, wears her shoulders are almost
showing a little bit, I want to do like a
film noir kind of a look, an old
Hollywood picture, so I'm just gonna have
Rosie, if you can just look up to the
light a little bit, maybe put your arms
up by your shoulders a little bit,
perfect, just like that, and let's make a
couple frames like that, boom, that looks
great, we're gonna do one more, just like
that, perfect, so you can see how different
that picture looks right, and it gives me
such a different quality of light, it's a
much harder light, the fall-off on her
the shadows, on her face happens really
dramatically, and really fast now I could
put a like a reflector on the other side
or a foam core whiteboard underneath,
just to kick some light back in there.
But I was told I could only use three
modifiers, so I'm following the rules and
not using that, so therefore that other
side of her face is going to go really
dark shadow, and the background is really
dark, almost black in this case, because
that light is far away, and the way it's
aimed so those two light modifiers
together give me really a lot of
different options.
That a lot of unique looks that I can get
just from those two modifiers.
Now the third one I really
struggled a bit with, what I was going to
do there.
Obviously I could pick more
light modifiers to work with in the
studio strip lights or reflectors or
those things, but I also cover a lot of
events outside the studio, and you might
be a wedding photographer, or a lot of
times I'm backstage with a band, and I'm
just doing run-and-gun situations, or
things like that, where I'm moving around
quickly, and I'm shooting on camera flash
and I'm just bouncing that light, usually
off the ceiling or a wall, well my favorite
modifier for that is this, right here,
so this one's called the mag bounce, and
what this does this really increases the
spread of the light as opposed to using
just your regular on-camera flash by
itself, and so it spreads it out a little
more but it's also
really efficient and pushing the light
forward, this by far is the best one of
the most efficient light modifiers I've
ever used for on-camera flash, now they
also make one called
the mag sphere, and it's sort of a
rounded one that pushes the light in all
directions, if you know you're gonna have
a good ceiling, and like white walls
around, and you want the light to bounce
all over the place, that's the one to use,
but this one is the one I really prefer,
the mag bounce, because a lot of times,
so I do the artists, I'm on tour with I do
his meet and greets backstage, or he
meets fans and I never know what kind of
ceiling I'm gonna have, so I use this
thing, my light looks the same my
pictures look the same every single
venue, every single day, so by far this is
my favorite one, now the way that
works is, you take your on-camera flash,
you have to have one of these things,
this is the Mag grip, you put this thing
on top, it's a little hard to get on there
because it's really tight, but once
you get it on there, that thing is not
going anywhere, and there are magnets in there.
That's why the company is called
Mag Mod, and once you get that thing on
there, you can just stick that on there, and
that will hold really really well.
You put that on your camera, you shoot with
it pointed straight up, and all that
light comes forward.
So I really like to use this thing,
I'm not gonna shoot pictures with this
right now because this really is for a
run-and-gun kind of situation,
and doesn't look great in the studio.
You could take two of these and
put them on light stands to do more of a
studio portrait, you can put gels on them,
you could you know use as many of them
as you want, but that would be my third
choice, because of those run-and-gun type
situations, so really it's next to
impossible to pick only three light modifiers,
but I think those three would
cover just about every kind of situation
I could come up with.
So let me ask you this -
- What do you think you would pick?
- What are your top three light modifiers,
if you could only have three on a desert
island?
- What would you do?
So that's my question to you,
answer in the comments below.
It's really impossible to pick three,
but I think those three would be really
good to go with,
thanks so much for asking
that question Jake, I really appreciate
it, don't forget of course if you have
your own photo question go to
AskDavidBergman.com
and I will pick all the best ones and
answer right here,
also I do my own live concert
photography workshops.
Hopefully you can join me throughout the
United States during the year, at a
workshop go to Shootfromthepit.com
Finally you're already here on ask...
excuse me
Ask David Bergman on Adorama TV.
I hope you're a subscriber to Adorama TVs
YouTube channel.
Thanks so much for joining me.
I'll see you back here next week on
Ask David Bergman.