Hi, this is JP Morgan today on the slanted lens we're gonna talk about continuous light versus strobes
I have some very distinct opinions about this
I'm gonna share you those opinions without holding back anything and I'm gonna show you a couple examples
But let's talk about the two sides of JP's personality when it comes to constant light
versus strobes
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Have a side of my personality that just loves constant light and the reason I love it is because I love video
I love working in that video world. So there's some real advantages to constant light. So let's talk about what they are
Number one is it's easy to see what you're getting when you light with them
You turn on a light you see exactly what is you're going to get there's no question about it
You see your light as you move it you can see how high how low where it drops the shadows
It's just very easy to work with because you see exactly what you get
That's why most people gravitate to constant light when I say constant light it could be tungsten lights
It can be you know, any kind of light source. That is you turn it on and it's on in a constant manner
So it's been just recently we get a bones mount on this constant light source that allows us to put any kind of modifier on
It you can put soft boxes. You can put beauty dishes
You can put anything you want on that in the still world
You have a light and you modify it in the video or film world for years
It was you had 20 different types of constant lights and you use the light that was best suited for what you were doing
well
we're kind of moving now to a time and that's what makes constant light so much easier to use now where you can modify a
single light source that
bones mount you can turn into a lot of different lights and that makes it very affordable and usable for an individual who wants to
Learn how to light stills with constant light working with constant light gives you a wonderful
Cinema kind of look as you if you learn how to light correctly
It's also a great light if you're doing both Stills and video
Because you have the ability to set one light and work in both those worlds. You can shoot some stills
Do your video go on and set up your next situation?
You don't have to set up two light sources to be able to accomplish both both those things
So what I'm sure you well stills in video on said I love using constant light
another wonderful look with constant light is the ability to
Do a portrait where you can allow things to blur a dress can blur as it blows in the wind as long as your person
Stands, very still face will be sharp dress will flow and kind of give you a motion look in the image
So it gives you the ability to really capture some motion in your portraits when you use a constant light source
So there's some of the advantages to a constant light source. So now let's talk about
strobes the advantages of strobes
So what our strobes strobes are very simply a power pack that delivers a flash that syncs with your camera
It's as simple as that most people start with these kind of small strobe lights here
Would you like a little speed light you put on your camera? It fires off from the hot shoe
It's just very simple to use then you have a pack and head system
what a pack and head system is is a power pack that has the power in it that
Generates that power sends it through a cable and flashes with the flash head
So you have a pack and a head then we have mono blocks. This is what most people are using today
you basically took the power pack and the strobe head combine it into one unit called a mono block and
You added a battery and lithium-ion battery. This is the best of all worlds. So now what are the pros of strobes?
What's the positive side of using strobes number one is they freeze action? You really freeze action
You don't have to worry about things boring as much because strobes can be very fast and they freeze action number two is strobes
Give you more power. There's a tremendous amount of power with these it's just so easy
they can overpower the Sun if you work with them correctly even in a room, that is completely
Flooded with outside light and very bright you can crush it
you can black box it you can make it into a dark room and give yourself a moody portrait because you have the ability to
get rid of the ambient light by using a faster shutter speed and then the ability to
overpower that with a bright strobe go to f/8 f/11 or
Do high-speed sync and that gets rid of all the sunlight in the room. It's called black boxing do it all the time
It's an easy way to give yourself a dark
Portrait maybe. I just call the black boxing. Does anybody else go about blasting with lithium-ion batteries?
They have very easy battery solutions unlike LEDs even yet
You have to pay the money for an expensive LED and then you've got to buy a battery to go on the led
So a really good LED can cost you $600
I mean you got to spend another
$300 for a battery that will run it they are super easy to modify because you've got that Bowens mount on there and they were
Made to be modified from the beginning most strobe
Strobes were made to be modified and last of all my favorite because they are so powerful. You can use way lower ISO
I don't ever want to get off 100 ISO if I don't have to that is my goal. Mm-hmm
Well, that was very interesting. But let's talk about the downside of LEDs or constant lights
Number one is they're low powered. Which means you've got to have a high
ISO and it's really difficult to work in situations where there's any kind of ambient light whatsoever
You can't get an LED big enough to be able to use outside in the Sun
you cannot use lights outside and really control the light very well with
Constant light and sometimes in order to make them work
You've got to go to a very slow shutter speed which means your person if they move very much is gonna blur
That's all you can get. They've got hold very very still. So what are the cons for using strobes?
The number one and the reason most people are afraid of strobes is you cannot see what you're going to get with strobes
There's a lot more trial and error because you've got to put your light in the right place. Take a test
Look at it say I'm not sure
Modify it soften I take a test look at it
But with time you will learn how to set the light where you should set the light what it's going to do
I know kind of where I want to put it because I've been watching the slanted lens and I know the five portrait positions and
I know exactly where to set my light. I don't have to see it
I know right where it's going to be so it gives me the ability to set things up very quickly
So it's a harder platform to learn but it can be a beneficial platform if you do learn it
Another Converse robes is the fact that you have to have some device to be able to sync them to the camera now a lot
Of stroke prep platforms like the ball house
This will come with your strobe head that goes on the camera fires them
But you've got to add others and you have to have the ability to sync with you
Strobes also can't sync at any faster than one two hundredth of a second unless you go into high-speed sync mode on
High-speed sync mode the amount of power you get from a strobe drops way down
when you're down to
at twelfth or sometimes an eighth or
Or maybe a little more on some units depending but you lose a lot of power when you go to high-speed sync
but it becomes a negative because you
Can't really go above one two hundredth of a second unless you do something special with your strobe or have a strobe that allows you
To do that old strobes will not do that for you
Enough about the pros and cons of continuous light versus strobe light
Let's take a look at some
Images shot with continuous light and strobe light in the same position same person same shot and see what we can observe by the difference
Of using strobes versus continuous light all the continuous light segments that we shoot today
We're going to be using the 120 d2 from aperture
Which is the upgrade from their 120 d they've combined both the power block and the control module into one module
So we have simply the one module that controls everything first off. We're gonna go into a studio situation
This is a controlled situation where we have darkness in the room
Complete control the light and it really is the easiest place for us to build a test a studio environment
We're getting a beautiful at a pretty image with both of those different platforms. The difference is though the continuous slide. I'm going to
125th of a second, where's the strobes?
I can go up to one two hundredth of a second if I want
So movement on her is going to be a little bit of a problem in the continuous light where it will be
No problem with the strolls
Even though the aperture 120 d2 is a fabulous light with high output
When you modify it as much as we have you start to lose a lot of light and you may have to start to drag
Your shutter or raise your ISO to get the image you want control studio environment is great
But now let's go outside and see what a couple examples look like in the Sun for our first setup outside
I'm going to set her up the way I like to work outside and that is I'm going to have my son come from behind
Her as a trim light
gives us a nice rim on her hair and
gives me some nice kind of darker background that falls out of focus and has a great wonderful looking bokeh now outside in a
Situation the first shot we did with the LED
I think it lacks a little bit of snap and a little bit of control
Whereas when I go to the strobes now, I've got a little more control the light on her face
These are both shot at f/4
But I've had to change my shutter in order to be able to give myself enough brightness on her face with a continuous light
but with the strobe light I just simply crush the background by making my shutter a little darker and now
Nice light on her face and it gives me complete control the image
I think what strobes outside in this situation I have much more control now our last setup
I mean the light was so nice at this time of day
It was hard to get a bad image by putting our more harsh backlit Sun situation
So in this situation, she's got major bright hair with the continuous light the LED
I can bring that led and as tight as I want but I just
can't get enough light out of it in order to brighten up her face to be able to control the light and be able to
Bring that high light down on her face. Where's with the strobe?
I bring that strobe in I up the power and now I have more control
I think it's a nicer look at least it has a nice punch on her face
Whereas in one of the continuous light is just a lot more mushy
And just doesn't have that kind of snap in her face. I'd like to see
Here's my wrap-up in a nutshell if you are just going to do still photography and only still photography
I would learn how to use strobes because there are so many opportunities when you're doing weddings and a big roomful of people
Throw the strobe in the corner at nighttime. It'll give you a nice rim light
There are just times when strobes make it so much easier to get a good exposure now if you're going to do video and stills
learn how to use
Constant light you're gonna want to try to use constant light as often as you possibly can
Sometimes you can't use them to do it do both Stills and video
but when you can
Set up your light get a great light with that constant light and then shoot both the stills and the video and then move on
to your next shot above all good light is good light regardless of what you use
so hopefully this gave you enough information to be able to decide what's best for you and what you're going to shoot and you'll make
That decision then learn how to use them become proficient with them
Don't be afraid of them shoot a lot understand them and be able to use them quickly and it'll make it
So you're a professional photographer. So just get out there and make some great images and keep those cameras rolling. Keep on clicking the
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