*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with David on Instagram and Twitter @DavidBergman. LATEST UPDATE: David opened up new IGTV episodes where you can ask him questions live! find out more at http://www.AskDavidBergman.com
In this quick tutorial we would like to ‘shed light’ on a technique called “on-axis fill”. Photographer David Bergman and AdoramaTV shares his thoughts on how to use on-axis fill to enhance your pictures without changing the overall feel.
Mr. Bergman explains: “I’m using one flash in a softbox, and have it up into the side, which is a pretty traditional look. I like the way this looks with the light all coming from one side, because it’s really dramatic. It creates strong pitch black shadows on the other side of his face.”
“What if I actually wanted to see the rest of his face and clothes, but don’t want to lose all of that drama? This is where fill flash comes in. Fill flash is simply a second light that I’ll add in to lighten up, or fill in the shadows. That’ll let me see what’s going on in there now. I can put the fill light on the opposite side of my key, but check out what that does.”
“It actually changes the whole feel of the image, and I don’t want to do that. I like the way I had it, and just want to lighten the dark areas a little bit, so I can see them. So I’m going to put my fill light on the same axis as my camera lens. Which really just means the light is coming from the same direction that the lens is pointing. You can get close enough by using a big modifier like an umbrella or a softbox, and put it behind you, or right over the camera. I’m going to do it with a ring-light, which is as on-axis as I can possibly get.”
“The other thing to consider is intensity. If I power the fill anywhere near the same brightness as my key light, it’s going to wash out all the shadows, and give me a boring flat photo. So the idea is to power the fill way down, so that it just begins to fill in those shadows. There’s no rule for this, but two or three stops underexposed is a good place to start. I’ll usually turn off my key light and test just the fill, so I can really see how much light I’m getting from it, then I bring the key back in.”
The idea here is to still have shadows, because that creates the depth, shape, and drama, but if I don’t want them to be completely black, I’m going to dial in some on-axis fill to taste, and get exactly the look I want.”
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