Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Kenji Tachibana Skylight & Portrait Lighting 20 slides

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Recommended light source L ighting Goal: Draw any subject with soft and easy to work with Skylight. It does an elegant job of drawing skin and most other subjects. And it also produces modest tonal range which allows the subject more freedom of movement. That means that the subject face direction can change without seriously affecting the lighting. Skylight is the recommended Assignment light source. And it’s the Sky only portion of Daylight. And Daylight is the combination of direct sunlight and the blue skylight.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Recommended light source S kylight: Only the blue (cyan) part of the sky… The large light source area of the sky makes the light quality velvety soft, which makes for easy drawing of any subject with light. or photography purpose. The gentle gradation of tones also makes for beautiful soft-edge cast shadows. And the mild blue (cyan) color shift is easy to neutralize in the lab work process.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Recommended light source S kylight: Warning… Skylight is good but open sky is not. Try to make your skylight look like the example image to the right. In the example, most of the sky is covered with natural elements that block the light. Only about 40% of the scene is open to the sky. And the light blocking elements does not have to be natural. It can be buildings or combination of tree branches and buildings.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Recommended light source S kylight: Not cloudy either… These student ‘light source’ shots show the NOT recommended peak-a-boo cloud cover lighting. When the sun is hiding behind the cloud, the light source can look soft like skylight. But, when the sun comes out, the lighting becomes way too harsh.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Recommended light source S kylight: Via picture window 1 These 2 student example shots are both under exposed. Both need from EC +.7 to The first window shot shows an excellent light source example. The second example is poor because only a sliver of the picture window shows the sky area.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Recommended light source S kylight: Via picture window 2 These 2 light source shots are better in terms of showing the light source scene. But the picture window in both are way over exposed. And since the window is the subject, it must be correctly exposed. The shots also show that the camera position was too far from the picture window.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Recommended light source S kylight: In both examples, I like the way that the natural elements are being used to control the single source light. The first location is more ideal and I like the fact that the camera position (via tripod) can be seen.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Warning L ighting: Avoid… 1.Multiple light sources. Especially if they are of different types - don’t mix cool skylight with warm indoor light. 2.Using direct sunlight because the harsh light can easily create distracting, hard, or ugly shadows. 3.Using indoor incandescent or fluorescent light are also hard, harsh, and usually poor color. 4.Shooting late at night. Having ample light level is important to creating high quality digital images. Low light level shots tend to produce unwanted digital noise, poor color, and low contrast.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Do these things L ighting: Do it right… 1.DirectionUse 3/4 side light on most subjects. And sidelight is based on the end-effect on the subject’s ‘face’ direction. 2.CoverageLight to show important ‘facial ‘detail but to avoid highlighting the ear. 3.HeightPosition the light higher than the camera and the subject. Talk about the wedding ladder story… 4.DistanceThis is irrelevant with natural light but light distance becomes very important in indoor artificial light situations.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Not recommended A rtificial Light: Don’t do it If your story calls for an indoor shoot, use Skylight coming through a picture window, broad source. And be sure that the subject stays within 2 to 3 feet of the window. Be sure that at least 80% of the window is showing the unblocked sky from the subject’s point of view. Even with natural light, the illumination level drops off quite rapidly as the subject moves away from the window.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Beautiful light P icture Window Light: Recommended in Art 115 Controlled window light is excellent for both people and product shots. But it takes skilful mastery over light and your tool. This excellent student example was shot using window light. It helped her to use a DSLR which allowed for increasing the ISO (chip sensitivity) by 2 full f/stops to 800. Compacts are limited to ISO 100 when high image quality is required. But ISO settings can go from 100, 200, 400, 800, and faster. Many Compacts often have ISO speed to 400. But the faster ISO settings are mostly for marketing purposes.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angles D iagram: Side view The translucent yellow triangle area resents the desirable light angle range. The light source height is also above both the subject and the camera. facing directly at the camera.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angles D iagram: Top view In this diagram, the subject is facing directly into the camera. The translucent yellow triangle represents the desirable light angle range. It also gives some of the lighting position names. Facing t the camera.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angles D iagram: Cheated front In this top view, the subject’s face is cheated slightly camera left. The font light is also cheated off to the same camera left side. Example shot in the next slide…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angles E xample Image: This example image shows what a slight ‘cheated-front’ face shot looks like. The catch light was minimized because the subject was really the skin on the face. For a portrait shot, the catch light would have been increased by lowering the front light height.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angles M ore Example Images: Cheating the light is designed to give form to the face without putting any important facial details into shadow.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angles P eople Shot: Side light The now familiar cheated front diagram is on the top right. The new side light diagram is on the bottom left and notice that the face is also aimed more to the side. The head angle is also called ¾ instead of cheated front. Example image is on the following slide

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angle ¾ Light and Face: Angles If your strongest interest is in shooting people, it would benefit you to try these specific head and light angle shots. All the example shots so far have been done with studio lights. But the Same lighting effect can be achieved using window light as demonstrated by the ‘bloody face’ student example….

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Skylight: Lighting position and angles C onclusions: Lighting position and head angle have names. Try to learn them and use them in your class or team oral assignment report. Trying to remember head and light angle names during a shoot will interfere with the flow of the shoot. Do your shoot using the ‘Feeling’ side. Do your shooting prep homework before and after the shoot using your ‘Thinking’. Thinking is good for solving technical issues. And ‘Feeling’ is good for making fast ‘it works’ type decisions. Hopefully, you will have questions during lectures or reading slide show materials. Please write down any questions to get answers during the ‘Open Topic’ Q&A which should happen at the end of each class.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End