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Other Lessons

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Basic Portrait Indoors

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Basic Product Shot

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Basic Product Up-Close

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Glamour Shot
with the HalfDome2

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Olympus C-740:
Depth of Field Portrait

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Olympus C-750:
Basic Start-Up

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Olympus D-560:
White Balance Indoors

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Olympus E-1:
Basic Start-Up

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Olympus E-1:
A Closer Look

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Panoramic

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Resolution

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Shooting a Basic Headshot

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Techniques for Shooting Jewelry

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Two-Dimensional Artwork

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Simple Tricks for Consistent Portrait Lighting

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Soft Lights for Dramatic Results

Soft light is created when a light source (sun, light bulb) becomes diffused. Because diffused light renders people and objects in smooth tonal transitions, it works very well when taking portraits. Soft light is often present indoors where the ambient light of the sky comes in through a room window. Window lighting can make for great portraits, particularly when the walls are bright enough to reflect back into the subject for a fill light.

(Click on any image below for an enlarged view.)

Window light, however, is photographically limited in a few ways. Often times, there is not enough of this ambient light for a decent camera exposure. And because window light is both unmovable and dependent on the position of the sun, it is difficult to modify or control this transitory light.

This lesson will demonstrate how to create and modify portable soft light for custom indoor portraits.

In preparation for this lesson, we brought our hair/makeup stylist, on location to style our 15 year-old model. It's important to have a stylist on the set of a portrait shoot. While you are focusing on lighting, camera settings and getting your subject to interact with the camera, a good stylist focuses on the details of the shot. They will watch for stray hairs, bunched clothing, positioning of props and elements in the background. In short, stylists can help to make the difference between a good shot and a great shot.

Our shot concept was to capture our model as though we had just come upon her working on her laptop in her room. This simple bedroom worked as an ideal portrait spot (figures 1 & 2).

As our stylist worked on making model's clothing, hair and makeup, we went about setting up the lighting equipment for the room. To start, we set up an Basic Starlite Kit to be used as our main light. This diffused light source would serve as our "window light". First, we inserted the four metal rods from the SilverDome softbox into the holes of the connector. We then attached the Starlite body to the connector and inserted a 500-watt bulb (figures 3, 4 & 5)

(Note: Because the Starlite bulb is encased within an outer glass tube, the oil from bare hands will not cause the bulb to break when hot.)

Once our model was prepped, our stylist led her to our shooting spot. We set up the tripod and mounted an Olympus E-10 digital camera to it in the vertical position.

We set the shooting mode to Manual Exposure, set the ISO to its lowest setting (80), set the focus mode to Manual Focus, and set the Resolution to SHQ.

For comparative purposes, we decided to take a shot with the built-in flash of the camera activated. We set the White Balance to Daylight and too a shot. Notice that while the flash helps to fill in the shadows cast from the window light of the room, it also flattens out our model's features and casts sharp shadows from her arms (figure 6).

Next, we attached the front diffusion face to the SilverDome and connected the Starlite body to a Litestand with casters attached. (The casters help to make subtle positional adjustments to a Litestand.) We switched on the Starlite and positioned the unit slightly to the right of model to render subtle shadows across her face. The stylist added a laptop and cell phone to the set as fitting props for a teenage girl. Props like these are good to use in portraits so long as they don't draw the viewer's attention away from the subject.

We made a Custom White Balance setting to match the color temperature of the Starlite Kit, set the aperture to f/8, set the shutter speed to 1/60th of a second, and took a shot. We then set the camera to playback, and reviewed the exposure of the image on the camera's LCD (figures 7 & 8).

(One of the advantages to shooting digitally is that you can always ensure a good exposure on the spot thanks to the LCD.)

Though the result shows improved lighting on our model, the light from overhead has now brightened the background, again minimizing contrast. To keep this overhead light more directional, I attached a set of grids to the face of the box. This accessory helped keep the background from being hit, while maintaining a soft light on the subject. After the stylist came in to make some final adjustments to the hair and makeup, I took another shot (figures 13 & 14).