Portrait Photography Studio Tour: Strobes; Reflectors; Softboxes; Beauty Dishes; and Backdrops Video Lecture | Capture like a Pro: Digital Photography Tutorial - Professional Skills

hi I'm Kurt and I'm Chelsea Knowles and
today we're going to show you around our
home studio we're going to be talking
about the lighting equipment that we use
the backdrops things like reflectors but
we're not going to cover things like
tripods lenses camera bodies we do that
elsewhere a broken stunning digital
photography so it's about more
information check it out there first I'd
like to talk about the backdrop system
you can see here we have a white
backdrop this is a vinyl backdrop white
backdrops are important for high key
photography high key photography is
where most of the picture is white now
we do a lot of stock and commercial
photography and high key photography is
really important for those formats you
can take a look at some of our pictures
that we've done on a white backdrop now
it doesn't mean the pictures necessarily
always used on a white backdrop but
white backdrops are very easy for
designers to replace so they can fill in
their own background behind this white
backdrop I have two other backdrops I
have a black backdrop used for low-key
photography and a green backdrop the
green backdrop is used for what we call
green screening you can put somebody on
a green backdrop and then easily replace
it now portrait photographers will
probably have a variety of other
backdrops they'll usually have like
canvas backdrops that are painted like
blue and gray I don't do a whole lot of
that work so what I do instead is I'll
use the green backdrop and then I will
replace it with whatever sort of
traditional backdrop somebody would want
you'll notice that my backdrops are
attached to the ceiling up here with a
mounting system that I got from B&H this
allows me to use these to easily raise
and lower different backdrops so I can
switch between them usually when you buy
a backdrop kit it comes with light
stands that hold it up high enough for
you to use and I use those for years
they work ok the problem with it is
sometimes you get a little kid in your
studio and they'll run around and they
might grab it and one time they pulled
it right down and it came crashing down
it ruin the backdrop it made a huge mess
and not lights down so I really prefer
to have it screwed in you're not going
to screw it in you can put some sandbags
on it and it's better than nothing
one of the most exciting elements of our
studio are the lights these are our
video lights we use these with most of
our videos not today but they're also
known as cold lights there are LED
lights so they don't get too hot when
you plug them in and they have these
barn doors on them so that you can
direct the light this is a strobe light
and we use it as a background light so
you pointed out the backdrop and light
it up we use it we usually use it for
our high key work because even the
whitest background turns gray when you
take a picture if you don't focus a
background light on it you'll notice
here that there are two light bulbs
there's a center light bulb and then a
ring light bulb are on the outside one
of them is used as a modeling light so
you keep a softer light on the whole
time and then the other one is a strobe
light it fires going to take a picture
this light is our hair light I need the
flight all the time because of my dark
hair it has a snoot on it right now to
direct the light so it doesn't fall onto
the background this light right here is
called a beauty dish right now we have a
sock on it to make the light softer and
more diffuse but let me take that off so
you can see what it looks like the
beauty dish has a diffuser inside that
bounces the light back and then out
around this bulb it's more direct light
than let's say a softbox but it's still
really flattering and soft we also have
a grid for our beauty dish you can see
right through it
this um it focuses the light more so
you'd probably want to use this if you
were doing a low-key shoot and you had a
black background if you didn't want the
light to spill on to your background and
turn it gray instead of whack
this is our large softbox it's a lot
like our beauty dish that has soft light
but it's even softer the biggest
difference is that the transition
between shadows and the highlights in
the picture are going to be softer
whereas the beauty dish is going to have
a harder lines and not as smooth of a
transition another thing I'd like to
show you is our studio fan it's just a
common household fan but it's great for
adding some movement in a picture if you
want your models hair to move a little
bit this is another light modifier that
we use it's called a strip light it
works a lot like our large softbox but
it's longer
longer and it's narrower so you get
light cast evenly on the whole body if
you're doing full body work every light
in our studio is connected to a light
stand i lights and is like a tripod with
a really long center column you can see
the legs extend out like this and then
the center column extends up to four or
five feet some light stands are taller
than others
all nightstands have a common connector
up here and you usually attach some sort
of adapter to it now many lights will
connect directly to this if you want to
attach something else to it
for an example flash or an umbrella you
would do something like this you can see
this is a hole here that I can run the
post on a reflecting umbrella through
and then I could attach a flash here to
fire into the umbrella light stands are
good for more than just lights this
little platform is one of my favorite
accessories because if I'm shooting
tethered which means my pictures are
going right into a PC I can put my PC
here and then myself or an art director
can review the pictures as I'm taking
them you know to get feedback and be
able to make adjustments to it this is
another one of my favorite accessories
this just clamps on to the side of a
light stand or tripod or anything else
this particular one has a hot shoe but
it's a really just a tripod mount that I
could touch anything to I want to show
you one other feature this particular
light stand has casters on it wheels and
these wheels make it much easier to move
the light stand around the studio this
is a power pack that we use the speed of
Tron Brown line it's about the most
basic power pack you can get but frankly
I've never needed anything else I
learned to use it and it's always gotten
the job done for me so I've never felt
the need to upgrade the way you trigger
a system like this is through a sync
cord now I have the same cord attached
to a PocketWizard wireless system the
other half here is attached to the top
of my camera this allows me to fire the
strobes wherever I am in the studio this
corner over here is dedicated to our
sundries we have everything from spare
batteries to flashes to the tape measure
you're seeing a lot of our Fitness
shoots we have our underwater housing in
here and my face
a drawer is the prop drawer where you
will find everything from steel wool for
our night photography and light painting
to this prop gun in this last corner we
have all of our collapsible goods this
is a collapsible diffuser I'll use this
when I'm outdoors and put it between the
Sun and somebody that I'm photographing
and basically it just casts a nice soft
even shade on the person and kills the
hard light that you might get from the
Sun closely related to that are
reflectors now reflectors like this will
bounce the light back where as the light
travels through a diffuser the reflector
is used to bounce and shape light so
somebody could stand on the opposite
side of the Sun from a subject and kind
of curve this to bounce the light to the
person notice this is gold covered so
this is going to send back a nice gold
reflection which makes somebody look
like they have a little bit more of a
tan and they actually do you can see the
opposite side here is just white so
that's going to cast back a nice diffuse
light this unzips to reveal another
reflector you can see one side of it is
a little bit more of a reflective white
and the other side is silver which is
going to reflect a neutral light back I
want to show you one other thing on this
diffuser notice that it's attached to
the stand here it comes off of course
but this stand allows me to attach it to
a light stand normally you would have an
assistant holding it but if you're
working alone or if you just don't have
enough hands on the set you can put this
on a light stand and not have to worry
about it now behind me I have several
other bags and these each contain
portable backdrops so if I'm working on
location maybe I have to go into a
business to do headshots for several
different executives I can bring one of
these reflectors in and set it up it
actually unfolds to be about eight feet
high at about seven feet wide and even
has a fold out to cover the floor so I
have three of these I have a green one a
white one and a black one and that
handles us about all the different needs
I might have for on location backdrops
so that
that I hope that seeing our home studio
I hope you figure out what equipment
he'll need if you take out portrait work
or any other studio work yourself and
you don't need to use our exact
equipment every photographer finds a
little bit different mix that suits
their needs perfectly if you liked this
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answer any questions that you might have
thanks