In this video I'm going to demonstrate for
you guys how I set up a three light
photo shoot, to shoot some beauty
portraits in the studio! Welcome back to
The Breakdown my name is Miguel Quiles
and I'm here in the studio today with
miss Anna, and we're going to shoot some
portraits in the studio today, using
three lights, and I'm going to break down
exactly how I'm going to set up these
lights for you all. Right so, let's go
ahead and let's talk about this lighting
here. Our main light that I'm going to be
using here is a Profoto D2 head, and I
have this inside of a white beauty dish,
and I've actually put a grid on this
beauty dish, because I want to
concentrate the light just on her face,
and I'm going to have this centered above.
So this is going to be the main light.
Behind I actually have a Profoto D2 inside
of a 4 x 6 softbox, and this softbox is
actually being shot through a 6x6
Lastolite scrim, and what this is doing
is it's actually triple diffusing the
light that's coming out of this softbox.
All this is doing is just bringing up
the ambient light in this shot, and
creating an interesting catch-light in
her eyes, immediately below this, which
I'm going to be shooting from here. I
actually have a silver reflector and I
have it sitting on this table. My goal is
that I want to try to get a little bit
of a catch light on the bottom of her
eyes, and so this is going to be what we're
using to add even more fill to her eyes,
to the bottom of her jaw, so it's going
to be perfect.
Let's go ahead and take a look at this
third light, which is a Profoto D1,
and what I've done is, I've actually put
barn-doors on this particular light, what
I'm trying to do is to concentrate,
because she's going to be standing here and
I kind of want this light to just kind
of hit on the side of her face, and maybe
give her a little outline on the side of
her jacket. And this light, what I'm going
to end up doing is, just so that you guys
can follow along, and recreate this on
your own. I'm actually going to set this
shot up, one light at a time, so you guys
can see how I build up my lighting. So
before we do that, let's talk about the
camera, and the lens that we're going to
use. Just so that you guys are
aware of what I'm using. All right, so I
have with me here in the studio, the Sony
a7r III and I have it paired up with the
new 24-105mm f/4 G Series lens, and this
is going to be what I'm going to be shooting
in the studio with. It's actually a
really nice lens to be able to shoot
portraits, because I could shoot the wide
shots at 24 if I desired, or I could
shoot a very tight close-up shot, which
if you follow my work on social media
you know, I love shooting those very
tight shots. I'm going to be triggering all
of these lights using the Profoto air
remote. Now, I will say this because I've
have had people mention in the videos
that 'well, you're using these really
expensive lights'. As a professional this
is what I choose to use, however I will
tell you that whatever lights it is that
you have, whether they be Profoto
lights, or if you have some other brand
of lights, understand that the principals
are going to be the same. So you really
want to look more towards where the lights
are positioned, more so than exactly what
the brand is of the lights that are
being used! So with that little blurb
being said, let's go ahead and let's talk
about how we're going to set up these
lights and start shooting. So when we are
shooting with 3 lights, what I would
advise is that you set these up one
light at a time, so that you make sure
that each light is doing what you
intended to do. So the first light we're
going to set up, is the main light, which
again is this Profoto light, with the
beauty dish in the grid, and we're going to
go ahead, and we're going to take one
shot. Here I'm going to zoom in nice and
tight, so we could see, and beautiful. So with
this first shot, I'm going to throw it up
on the screen. You're going to see exactly
what this main light is doing, and you're
going to notice that the background is not
very red, you're also going to notice that
the shadows are pretty deep. So that's ok!
because the very next thing that I'm
going to do, is I'm going to turn off this
main light, and then I'm going to go ahead
and set up this rear light here, and this
light right now, is set to a 7.8
and your power is going vary so
it's going to depend on your lights and
the the position so you're going to have to
play with that to taste. You could meter]
it out as well, so if you have a light
meter that will help you out, but right
now we're going to take a shot, very nice,
perfect! And so now I'm going to throw this
one up on the screen. You're going to be
able to see that, now this shot went from
being dark where the background was
really dark, but we're getting a really
flat light which is okay. You know some
people might look at it and say 'wow'! This
is great, we could just shoot it this way,
but now that we have the main light and
the fill light set up. Let's go ahead and
let's set up the backlight, so we can add
a little bit more interest, a little bit
more separation from the backdrop. All
right, so I went ahead and I turned off
this fill light, and so now both of the
main in the fill light are both turned
off, and now I'm going to go ahead and turn
on this backlight, which again has fun
barn doors on them. Turn that on, and all
this is going to do, is to basically add
a little bit of a separation from her in
the backdrop, add a nice highlight on the
side of the head, so I do want to make
sure that this is pointed directly at
her head, and usually what I do is stand
in the same line, just to make sure that
it's actually facing the right direction,
which it currently is. Perfect so let's
go ahead and shoot, and this one is again
just the backlight, and we'll take this
shot. Fantastic.. all right.. so I'm going to
throw this shot up on the screen, so now
we have just that little kind of
separation light in this shot, and now
because we have everything looking the
way that I want it to look, turn on the
main light. Turn on the fill light, we're
ready to go. So let's go ahead, let's turn
everything on. Let's start shooting now,
one of the nice things about using a
system like this, is that I could
actually power each individual light off
of the remote, so I have the backlight
set to group B. I have the main light set
to group A, and the fill light set to
group C, and if at any point in time I
decide that I want to add more or less power,
I'm able to do that from the remote. So
for example I'm going to play back this one
shot. The highlights on the back of the
hair are looking really good actually,
going to boost that up just a little, so
I'll go to the B group,
and we're good. Take a little sidestep in
this way, very nice, perfect, great, I'm
going to play this one back. Yeah, that looks
awesome, perfect. Little sidestep in again
this way
very good, I'm going to stand on my apple
box, very good, excellent, great, we'll
shoot a couple of vertical shots here,
and again with the 24-105mm. I'm
actually changing the focal length here,
so I'm shooting this at 105mm, however I
can kind of shoot this wide as well. I
love that, very nice, great, excellent, love
it, love it, love it, a little bit, there we
go. Perfect! So I hope that this kind of
gives you a little bit more insight into
how I set up my multiple light shots in
the studio. Had a lot of fun today, and I
thank you so much for modeling for me,
and make sure while you're here, that you
subscribe to AdoramaTV, they have a lot
of great videos that are coming out all
the time.
Also make sure you subscribe and
actually check out the Adorama Learning
Center, where they also have more great
content for you to check out, and while
you're here make sure that you follow
her on Instagram, she has a lot of great
photos, some of which we've shot,
hopefully we'll get to shoot some more
in the future.
But make sure you follow her on
Instagram her information is in the
description below. Last but not least, any
questions that you guys have, also leave
those in the comments below. I want to
make sure that I go back and fill in any
gaps that maybe we forgot to talk about!
So thanks for watching The Breakdown, I
will see you all in the next episode!
Bye everybody!