One Light Is All You Need

on July 11, 2018

Provided you have two lights...and you nearly always do.

The two-light set for studio work is extremely common. Elinchrom, Profoto, and lots of other lesser makers produce kits that start with just this premise. They might work on mains or battery, but the makers envisage you using a main and a fill for most of what you do. They provide light modifiers like umbrellas, softboxes, reflectors and snoots to help you do it.

Oddly enough, few provide a three-head kit straight up - mostly you add this later when you want an indoor hair light. And from there on you can add as many lights as your wallet and the wiring will withstand. Of course, you rarely need them, and the best lighting teachers will take you in hand and gradually whittle down your setup until you have...

One light.

Be smart. Before you clap the light stands together and beetle off out of the studio, learn to use the second light that you have - the one you don't get in the kit:

a. The wall. This is the reflector that nearly always somewhere near, and nearly always a lot bigger than the ones you buy in the shop. It's not as portable, mind, and you cannot angle it as easily as a folding piece of cloth, but then again you don't have to buy it. Beware the colour it might put onto your subject but feel free to pose near it and use it for a fill.

b. The ceiling. The other wall - the one above you. Here you can be in luck as more than likely the ceiling will be a light colour - unless you are in a 70's nightclub. Bounce the light you paid for onto the ceiling and let it be bigger and softer.

c. The folding reflector. Anywhere from the size of a pocket handkerchief to the mainsail on the Cutty Sark, the folding reflector can be the saviour for indoor and outdoor shoots. You can get free-standing ones that are a pain to manage and hand held ones that are a pain to manage. If you have an assistant to do the wrangling, you can transfer the pain. Remember that wind is not your friend.

Note that even tabletop shoots for products or macros benefit from reflectors, and if the whole thing is static, you can build up quite a network of light bouncing from surfaces as humble as sheets of mounting board. Be creative and you'll find reflector stands in every kitchen drawer.

d. The casual light. By this I mean the car headlamp or the furniture lamp - or the ambient lighting of a room. The modern camera with the high ISO performance can make use of illumination that you'd have scorned a decade ago. You might have to fiddle with the White Balance, but that's just a matter of controls these days - rarely of a filter.

e. The sun. You may pay for this in sunburn, but no-one else hits you up for a fee to stand in the sun. It's a pretty constant White Balance if you shoot at the same time of day, and you get an additional fill from the open sky. Some people have even had the revolutionary idea of using the sun for the main and the flash for the fill...

A few years back it was trendy to supply a hammerhead flash with two tubes on it - one for a big bounce and one for a forward fill or eyelight. Haven't seen that in studio monoblocks myself, but you never can tell what designers may reach for to be different.

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