I picked up Kirk Tuck’s Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Studio Photography last summer, and I’ve kept it in my library as a handy reference since then. I’d give it three to four stars out of five – nice to have around but not absolutely essential.
Let’s Start with the Good Stuff
It’s clear and instructive, and it tries to build an understanding of minimalist or Strobist lighting from the ground up.
The last major chapters in the book each tackle a major part of studio work – taking portraits of people, doing still life photographs, and choosing backgrounds. None of these chapters are exhaustive, but they provide a good introduction to the topic with examples. In the portrait chapter, for example, Kirk walks you through several basic ways to light a studio portrait – one light, two light, or three lights. Great reference for someone just starting out with studio work. Keep reading…
A third tip for improving your eBay auction pictures: play around with off camera flash.
If you want to get serious about product photography and take some real nice shots of the stuff you’re selling, you need to learn how to move the flash off your camera and set up a real lighting scheme. This assumes a fairly high level of interest and skill with photography, and it probably isn’t right for someone that’s just selling one or two things. But, if you’re planning on doing some regular sales of stuff on eBay and you’re interested in off-camera lighting anyway, it makes sense to combine the two and play around with lighting your pictures. Keep reading…
One of the key elements of lighting is how hard or soft your light is. Hard light is pointed, directional, and creates harsh shadows – like a spotlight. Soft light seems to come from no where and creates gradual (or no) shadows – like sunlight on a cloudy day.
Often times, portrait and fashion photographers will rave about soft light. It looks so natural and pleasing, and often-times it is. It’s also easy to create a go-to lighting situation that utilizes soft light to quickly make a lovely portrait. But, sometimes you want to be a little adventuresome… Keep reading…
Photo by: R3markAble.
This is a cool picture, and a good example of Strobist lighting techniques. In fact, he was nice enough to lay it out all out there and explain how he did it. You can click through for the simple explanation. But, there are a few hints to help you sort it out too…
One, notice the black background and the dim lighting on the subject. There’s got to be a fill light somewhere. Seeing as the face is mostly in deep shadow, the fill has to be coming from up high – so it’s blocked by the hat. There’s a bright light on the gun itself, and the shadows underneath suggest this is coming from up high as well. It’s got to be using an attachment to control spill. Likewise, there’s a controlled light off to camera right, shooting directly at the shooter’s face (see the highlight on the cheek and the nose).
Photo by: Hyuni.
I was browsing through the “Portrait” tag on Flickr, hoping to find some nice strobist work that showed off a skillful use of light. Then I saw this picture, and I was really drawn by the pose. Stopping the action of the model flicking her hair is pretty cool, but at first glance I thought this was just a natural light shot… cause it’s got a nice muted look to the lighting.
Then, I looked a little closer and saw the flash on the light stand in the background, rather out of focus. Hmm… My guess is there’s a light to camera right (you can see a bright spot on the back of her left sleeve, as well as a shadow behind the railing). There’s also a light coming down from the left a bit – notice how the collar of the shirt is highlighted, but the rest of it drops into a gentle shadow (maybe that’s the sun coming down through the trees?). One way or the other, it’s a nice, gentle lighting scheme that fits the scene well.
Shortly after I bought my Canon t1i, I purchased a 
. Why? At this point, I’m not so sure… except for the fact that it was considerably more affordable than the 
and the 
) and my temporary acquisition of an old used flash (
), the question seems even more tough to answer: what’s the best speedlite to own? 
