Right, let's start with the most obvious thing about three-point lighting.
You're gonna need one, two, three lights to make this work.
And they don't have to be the same light.
I'm actually using different lights. These are all from Flashpoint, they're all from Adorama.
But they're different flashes, because we're going to use them in a variety of different ways.
The key is three points of light in your scene.
They're gonna hit your background or your model in different ways to create different looks.
And the easiest way to explain it is just to get going.
So, I think we should get a light set. Actually, let's get three lights set.
Let's get a model in and let's get shooting.
There's my light stand. Haha!
To help me out today, I've got the amazing Chloe!
Chloe's gonna be the model for this photo session and before we start,
it's worth mentioning one thing: there are no set rules when it comes to three-point lighting.
But, there are some fairly firm guidelines.
And of course, it's all gonna start with my camera settings.
So I've gone with a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second,
I've got F8.0 for a reasonable depth of field,
and ISO 200.
And no flash gives me this. No picture. The one thing you're definitely gonna have is a key light.
The one thing you're definitely gonna have is a key light.
So, this is gonna be my key light. I've gone for a nice large softbox
with a Flashpoint XPLOR 300 Pro as my light source.
And I've placed it a fair distance away from Chloe, at least in my small home studio.
This isn't gonna be where it stays but let me show you what we get, just as a starting point.
So, this is our first light of three,
and from where it is here, it is perfectly okay.
There's nothing wrong with this lighting position whatsoever.
But for the other three lights to really be seen in this tutorial and this lighting set-up, I'm gonna move this light a lot closer.
So, the light is now quite a lot closer, it's changed my flash power.
We were at half power back here but now 1/8 power which is good news for my flash.
And it's good news for the photo as well because it's gonna create a little bit more shadow on Chloe's face.
Let's take a test photo, here we go!
And sure enough, we've got shadow on the opposite side of the flash
which is where we're gonna see the extra lights.
But as another point to note, the background is also just slightly darker.
We will deal with that in a bit!
So for the second light of our three-light setup, I've got a backlight also known as a hair light.
Because it is a light that is at the back of Chloe, and it's gonna light Chloe's hair.
So the clue is in the name.
But in fact, it's not gonna be just Chloe's hair, it's also gonna do her neckline, her shoulders, her arms,
it's gonna put a rim of light that is on the opposite side to our key light.
Which is why I was so keen to get the shadows in the first place.
Now, how bright should that light be? I've gone with two stops underneath my key light.
So that is metering at F4.0.
You can do it by trial and error and just see what you like.
I've also got it in a strip box. You can use any light modifier or no light modifier.
As I said at the beginning, there are some firm guidelines, but you can make it your own.
Let's test this out and see how it looks. Okay, Chloe, here we go.
This is the result of just that backlight.
It puts that little rim of light around Chloe and is doing exactly what it's designed to do:
separating her out from the darker background.
If I turn the key light back on and mix the two lights together, this is what it looks like.
We've got key lights on Chloe's face. We've got the backlight on her hair, her shoulders, and her neck.
All in all, this is working really well except for that background which is just a little bit dark and plain.
So the third light on my three-point lighting is gonna be this one. Now, you might have noticed, I've actually used different lights.
I've got an XPLOR 300 [Pro], I've got an eVOLV 200 [Pro], and this is an XPLOR 100 [Pro].
You don't have to do this, it just makes life a little easier when you're looking at the video description to work out which light is which.
So the eVOLV 100 [Pro] is gonna be my background light.
It's actually got the lightest job to do. It only has to put a bit of light on the background here.
But how much light does that want to put out?
Well, once again, I've turned the other two lights off. I'm not gonna meter this one, I'm gonna do it by eye.
Here we go...
That is, I think, a little bit on the bright side.
So, I'm actually gonna take it down two stops, and if I go from 1/16 power, 1/32, to 1/64.
And I think that's going to be just enough light because when I turn on the other lights and combine the three, it looks like this.
Just that nice little halo behind Chloe's shoulders to separate her out.
We've still got that hair light and we've still got the key light.
And that is our first way of doing three-point lighting set up!
So, I think we should take a few photos like this.
Chloe, are you ready? Okay, away we go.
There's always some post-processing with the final images.
But getting the lighting right in-camera really minimizes that.
In fact, really all I did with these images is apply a little bit of a color-toning effect to it.
So as an alternative way of doing three-point lighting, I've changed the background light.
No longer is it a background light, it's actually going to be a fill light.
The hair light and the key light are gonna be exactly in the same position.
But the idea with this is it's gonna give a softer look to the lighting on Chloe's face.
But the position of this fill light is kind of important.
Now, I've got a fairly small softbox.
And the positioning of this is gonna be fairly central. Just off to the side, something like that.
And the height is gonna be slightly higher than Chloe's eye line when I'm looking at it.
In fact, that's how I've set all of my lights.
When I look underneath, I can see Chloe underneath my lights.
There's a really important reason I've gone with this setup.
And I'm gonna show you by just taking a picture with this light firing on its own.
I've set this up so it is two stops underneath the power of the key light.
Again, that's something you might want to change, but this is how it looks.
Okay, Chloe, here we go.
And what I'm looking at here isn't the quality of the light or the brightness or anything.
I'm actually looking at the shadows that it's creating.
What I don't want is for my fill light to create hard shadows.
We only want shadows to come from the key light,
the fill light is there just to soften the shadows down a little bit.
So if you're seeing really hard-edge shadows, you either need to get a bigger light source
or maybe bounce it off a wall or a ceiling just to give you that softer look.
Just gotta be a fill light, remember!
Okay, let's turn the other lights on, and see how this goes.
It still has that three-point look but as I said, it is much softer on Chloe's face than it was before.
The only thing I'm less keen on is the background which,
for the background we're using today, is now looking just a little bit dark.
What I've done is I've positioned the key light right back where we started.
Now remember, right at the beginning,
I wasn't keen on the lighting position here because it gave more light on the background than I actually wanted.
And that's what happens if you have a light that's more distant,
the inverse square law kicks in and it's gonna lighten not only Chloe but also the background.
And in this case, where there is no actual background light, it's a three-point lighting setup, then it's gonna do two jobs.
So, here's how it looks.
We have that great soft lighting on Chloe, we have a brighter background.
All in all, this is a nice, safe, and clean lighting setup.
Perfect for corporate headshots or anything where you want a softer look.
And I think that's everything set up. So, Chloe, if you're ready,
let's take a few photos like this. Here we go.
The key light is putting really even light on the background and that might work for many situations.
But when it came to the post-processing on the final images, I put just a subtle vignette on that background.
Just to help to define it just a bit more.
You'll find three-point lighting used all over the place, and not just in stills photography.
In video, it's very popular as an interview lighting.
And although there's no set rules on how to do it, you will find
that basic combination of three lights is used in a variety of different ways by so many different photographers.
It's pretty much everywhere!
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I'm Gavin Hoey, thanks for watching.