*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with Daniel on Instagram and Twitter @danielnorton. Be sure to follow Ashley.
Today we are going to talk about using 5-in-1 reflectors t select and diffuse light, with photographer Daniel Norton and AdoramaTV.
Daniel shares: “I’m here in my studio in New York City with Ashley… and I want to kind of show you a couple different ways we can use [5 in 1] reflector. So let’s start off though with.. getting a shot with the hard light, as if it was the sun.”
“I’ve got my Profoto B1X here, it has, it’s fitted with the OCF magnum reflector, which is a punchy kind of light, and we’re gonna take a shot. But first I want to do a frame with no flash. We want to do that just to make sure that none of the light from the windows or whatever is affecting our shot.”
“We are at f/8 at 250 of a second. I have the Magnum over here in my group A, and I also have a light on in the background, just so that it is white. “
We can see its tiny bit hot but it’s hard light, even in the studio which has a lot of white walls, or all the lights bouncing around. We can see that the that the light is, you know, got harsh shadows on her face. There’s a better exposure, okay. We’ve things going… actually it’s hard right you can see the shadow. It’s also specular, so we could see the shininess on her. So for somebody like Ashley, that might actually be okay. She has good shape to her face, some people can really take the hard light, and maybe we’re done, we could be like.. hey alright let’s have lunch… done…”
“But for most people, they’re gonna want something. Partially the shadow might just be too dark, and you want to fill it in a little bit. So that’s where the reflector is gonna come in.
I have this one here, this is a PhotoFlex one. I believe, and it has two different kinds of silver… a hard silver and a soft one. We’re gonna use a soft.”
“It’s gonna use a c-stand to hold it because I always use the most heaviest and possible for every single thing. I want to make sure the light bounces into the shadows, and you wanna bring it in as close as you can.”
“So why am I using silver you might ask? Is it because we just said on silver already now it’s too lazy to change it …that could be the reason, but actually it’s because I’m using a specular light source to shoot her.. right? I kind of wanted to feel the same, so silver is why I’m using.”
“Still the same light right? But now we have a lot more shadow detail. So it looks a little bit nicer, and that’s pretty much how people always use these things and they’re great, and you buy these five and ones and you’re like oh okay.”
“The part that I like to use a lot, is the internal part of this. The internal part of this is actually a diffuser… lights are gonna go through it and it is gonna become larger and that makes it softer. “
“We can see that we have more light on her face, and look at how nice and soft it is. You know, really there isn’t any shadow over here.”
Here are all three shots in the the comparison:
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