Hey this is Daniel Norton, I'm here in my
studio in New York City with Mackenzie
and today we're gonna make some portraits.
We want to explore kind of
hard light versus soft light.
We talk about it all the time as photographers,
so I thought I'd kind of make a hard
light and a soft light portrait with the
same model, in the same location, with
the same flash, and we'll see which one we like.
Hopefully both.
Right so here we go.
I'm using my Profoto A1 which as you
guys probably know is a small like
on-camera type flash or speed like type flash.
It's got inch and a half head so it's gonna be hard.
I have it up on a stand so I can control its direction.
I'm gonna have her look
towards it so we can shape the face nicely.
Now what I am doing is I have a
second one on camera.
This one I am just
using as a trigger so this one's not gonna fire.
So we can see that I'm
looking using the modeling light.
Put your chin up a smidge, good.
Here we go.
See what that looks like, nice.
It's got a good punchy light, right.
Shapes her face, she really can handle light,
makes her eyes look great.
You know you got a lot of extra dark
shadow here, but also it's the
specular highlight, the kind of light
part is a little bright for me, so I am
actually going to diffuse it.
Now this diffuser dome doesn't really make the
light softer because it's not really
making it larger, but it does scatter it
and make it more diffused.
So this should help us a little bit with our highlights
and I am in TTL so it'll compensate automatically.
There we go.
We can see how that lowered the contrast right,
in the highlights.
That's basically the difference.
That is diffusing versus softening, right.
We didn't make the light any softer.
We just made it more diffused.
No shadow is the same.
So that looks pretty good.
I would love to get a
little more detail on the shadow and we
can get that simply by bouncing a little
bit of light, little fill light in there
and I'll just use a reflector for that.
This is the Lastolite Halo Compact.
We're gonna use silver because we're using kind of a
punchy light so why not continue with that feel.
Bring it in as close as I possibly can to
maximize its effect.
Yeah, there we go.
A little bit of separation right.
We've got
dark dark shadow filled in a bit
you know, and you can play around with this
is much as you like.
I'm gonna move it a little more to the front.
We'll take one more.
Kind of scoop it around. Try not to kill you with it.
I'm gonna back it off a little so it's not so much
but I'm gonna kind of get a different direction.
Yeah, that's better.
You know because sometimes if you use
it especially with a silver reflector if
you kind of get it too directional, what
ends up happening like happened here, is
you kind of have this like filled in
one spot, where here it's much more even
but it's filled in all over.
You see the difference there guys.
We can see almost
like the line where it stops.
So be wary of that especially with silver reflectors.
So that's nice right we got a
nice hard light shot, we like that
one so we're doing good so far, right.
So now how do we make the light softer?
In order to make the light softer we need
to make it bigger, right.
Bigger equals softer.
So I'm gonna take
this light and I'm going to go like this
and I'm going to take my,
what I was using as my reflector, I'm going to now
use as my key.
I'm basically going to bounce
the light off this reflector and make
this my key light.
Look towards the light for me.
The reflector light.
A little bit less.
Good good good, there you go.
Alright not too bad, right but I see
something here, right.
What's happening is although I kind of
kind of like it, it's not really I wanted.
We're getting a little bit of kick from
the flash which is creating a little bit
of a hot area here because what's
happening is some of this flash, right
remember it's kind of going like this.
So I happen to have, look how convenient, I happen
to have there, that's what I put all the
accessories all at once on the camera, I
was gonna use it. Now we're gonna use
this like a flack basically.
So hopefully that'll give us a little bit more even
although I I kind of like that, sometimes
you like the thing that you weren't
already planning and you know that's life.
Let's try that.
And again because I'm using TTL,
there we go, because I'm using
TTL, actually I'm even gonna go like this,
it's automatically compensating the exposure.
Oh yeah, see what I did there was I
turned it out of a bit guys so we got a
little more shadow on the side of her
face, because remember soft doesn't mean no shadow.
It just means soft shadow.
So we've got hard and soft, right.
The two sides of Mackenzie
and both from basically the same light, right.
We essentially have one light.
I'm gonna squeeze in here.
I think I'm taking your spot.
I'm taking her spot.
We have the one light, right.
The one small light source,
but we're modifying it to make it softer
by adding stuff to it. You could add a
softbox let's say for instance, but I'm
using the same modifier that I use,
because the concepts are the same, right.
No matter what tools you're using you
can use a softbox, an octabox, umbrella,
reflector, it's all kind of the same right.
You're making the light bigger, it's gonna make it softer.
Now would I have
more control and be able to do more
funky things if I use a softbox?
Yes, but can I make soft light with just
the speed light and the reflector?
Yes, and I can do both, I can make the hard
light and the soft light to make two
different looks for my model really
really quickly, really fast, right and the
more it looks you do the more
you get paid, right.
So if we get that extra.
So guys I'm gonna put Mackenzie's
information in the description you can follow her.
Be sure to follow me Daniel Nortan Photographer.
Follow Adorama TV, ring the bell.
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and I'll see you next time on set.