Practice English Speaking&Listening with: 4 Shoot Through Umbrella Tips: Take and Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey

In this video, I'll show you how to use a

shoot through umbrella to create four

different looks in a small home studio.

Hello I'm Gavin Hoey and you're watching Adorama TV

brought to you by Adorama, the camera store

that's got everything for us photographers

and today I'm back in my small home studio

and I'm gonna show you how to create

four different looks

but using just one shoot through umbrella.

They're the type with the white, translucent fabric

and it's a sort of thing you might get as your very first

light modifier. It was for me.

It was this one right down here.

It's well over 20 years old and it's still going strong.

Now they come in a wide range of sizes

from small up to in my studio, this one here

which is a 60"/1.5m across wing-like umbrella.

That means it's slightly cropped so in my

small home studio with limited ceiling height,

I can get it just that bit higher and it makes a bit more

sense when I'm using a speed light

with a rectangular front.

At this point I'd normally say let's get a model in and

get shooting, but we're not quite ready because

we need to set up the speed light and umbrella.

Now the speed light is on a 20mm zoom but it's the

distance from the speed light to the umbrella

I'm most interested in.

If you have it too close to the surface

you'll find you have a surprisingly small light source.

However if you have it too far back

well then light can go past the edges and

that can cause problems too.

The best thing is to photograph

the surface of your umbrella and then

adjust the distance until you have most of it

filled with light.

Once you've got that,

put a little mark on the shaft of your

umbrella and then you can quickly

set it up again in future.

Now remember light from a shoot through umbrella

goes in two directions it will go through

but it will also bounce off

and light that bounces off will bounce

around your room and well let's just say

these umbrellas aren't the most directional.

But with that in mind they

are still really good light modifiers.

So, let's get the lights set properly.

Let's get a model in.

Let's get shooting.

So to help me out today I've got the amazing Charlotte.

Charlotte is going to be the model for this shoot and the

first setup with the umbrella that I'm

going to do has the umbrella set way over there.

In fact it's so far away you can't actually

see it in the video.

But trust me it's around about 12 feet from the model.

Now having the light that far gives the light some

interesting properties so I've already worked out

the metering I know what that is.

All I need to do is take a shot so if Charlotte you're ready?

Okay let's take a test photo

Here we go.

And when I do that we can see a couple of

interesting things let's start with the

shadow behind Charlotte there is a

definite shadow there but the edges are nice and soft.

Then there's the exposure across the scene.

It's really even.

Now the reason for those two things are all down to the

distance of the umbrella.

The further away I put it the more even the exposure

becomes across the scene.

But the further away I put it the smaller it is relative

to the size of Charlotte

so the harder the shadows become.

However that evenness is really good news if you've got

a subject that moves around so children,

animals, that kind of thing.

Or if we want to just shoot Charlotte but not

have to remeter.

Which is exactly what we're going to do.

So Charlotte if you're ready let's take a few pictures.

Here we go.

That's great

Do you want to lean back against the wall

right behind you?

So as you can see Charlotte can move pretty much

anywhere in my studio and the exposure,

the lighting, everything stays the same

and I can move around which is really handy.

However this is a very safe light.

It isn't exciting or dynamic.

We can do a little bit better than that.

So for the second look I've moved the

umbrella much much closer.

In fact now it's about 4.5ft from Charlotte more-or-less.

That's gonna have an impact on the style of light but

also the exposure so let's work that out.

Remember I'm shooting at f/4

I haven't changed the power from before.

Charlotte, I'm gonna pop this near your chin.

But at this distance it's gone up to f/9

So more than two stops more light.

I can wind the power down using the transmitter until I

get to f/4 and we're good to go.

Okay let's take this shot and see how the

pattern of light has changed.

Okay Charlotte here we go again.

Great

So this time the shadow next to Charlotte is

much much softer compared to the first setup

and that's because the umbrella is that much closer and

therefore it is relatively larger in size.

However there's no real deep dark

shadows anywhere across this scene because

the shoot-through umbrella is bouncing light all around

the room and to a certain degree,

it's filling the shadows with light.

So with that in mind, let's take a few pictures

and see how they look.

Charlotte are you ready?

Okay here we go.

So my third lighting position is with the umbrella

really really close to Charlotte.

In fact it's so close that I run the risk of it

appearing in my frame or worse stabbing Charlotte

which is not something you ever want to do.

But one of the advantages of a shoot through umbrella

is you can get the light that close to your subject.

Now that will have a couple of impacts on

the look of the shot but also the exposure.

Now remember I'm shooting at f/4 so let's see what

we're getting at the moment.

Charlotte I'm gonna pop this new your chin and I'm

getting well f/8 so two stops extra light .

I can dial that down take the same

test again now we're back to f/4 okay so

the light's correct let's see how it looks.

I'll take a test shot.

Here we go Charlotte.

That looks absolutely fantastic.

I love the light on Charlotte.

When you have your modifier this close

it always gives great wraparound lighting.

However if I go out a little bit then I would see

the edges of the umbrella.

Looking at the background

that's interesting too because the umbrella

being such a wide spread of light

so I'm lighting both Charlotte and

the background with the single speed light.

So the umbrella has lit Charlotte perfectly

but because it's so large and close to the wall it's also

put some light on that right hand background.

If I want to do a wider shot I'll need to do

a little bit of work in Photoshop but

there is one more way that you can use

this umbrella and speed light to get a

very different looking picture

and it makes use of the one thing I said not to

do right at the beginning of this video.

Because I'm gonna slide the umbrella

much closer to my speed light.

So now this is a really small gap between the two.

That's gonna have a couple of impacts.

The first one is now much

further away from Charlotte than it was before

so I'm gonna move this a little

bit closer a little bit lower down

and of course it's gonna affect my exposure

Get it back to f/4 there we go perfect.

Okay let's take a test shot. Here we go

Effectively I've reduced the size of the umbrella

by just lighting a small part of it.

That's made the light a bit harder on Charlotte

but also means it's not going to light

the background so much.

That's gone darker but it's not completely black

because once again the shoot through umbrella

is bouncing light

around my studio and a tiny bit will

always reach the background.

It's all down to the distance between

this speed light and the surface of the umbrella.

The closer they are the harder the light.

The further back they are the softer the light.

Shoot through umbrellas are probably the

cheapest light modifier that you ever

buy but they are incredibly versatile.

For example, this one comes with a black

outer cover transforming it into a reflective umbrella.

We'll cover those in another video.

Now if you've enjoyed this video or

you've got any questions,

leave me a comment below.

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I'm Gavin Hoey.

Thanks for watching.