Thanks for another wonderfully informative lighting instruction video with the Z6ii. I can confidently say Marissa is now my favorite model I’m aware you’ve worked with in this series! 😂
I had the great experience of apprenticing with and assisting Monte Zucker from 1972-1974. At the time he wrote the column on wedding photography in the PPofA’s magazine Professional Photographer and taught hundreds of other pros at conventions and private classes. He did not have a studio. His then unique style for shooting weddings was to take the posed portraits of the couple and parents by the light of any available north facing window at the home of the bride and wedding location using backgrounds he painted himself, one in the style of Rembrandt in dark earth tones and a second in light cool pastels in the style of Monet for the solo portrait of the bride. He suspended the background on a single stand in the middle so it could be easily rotated around the subject when changing from full-face, oblique and profile views. Fill was provided by a folding square silver Reflectasol reflector on a weighted rolling stand with wheels which was actually a medical IV pole he had modified to hold his reflector and off-camera flash. The portraits taken with that set-up had the look of Old Master paintings because the same lighting was being used. The fact they were not taken with studio lights allowed him to enter them in PPofA print competitions in the “Candid” category instead of “Portrait” resulting in a lot of wins when he started using this style back when wedding coverage switched from B&W to color. The switch from B&W to color is what inspired his other claim to fame-using off-camera flash when recreating the ceremony and all the reception photos which gave them the look of studio lighting. He started doing this for technical reason. The dynamic range of color print paper is much shorter than B&W prints making it impossible to correctly expose both the white wedding dress and black suits with single flash on camera which had been the norm for wedding coverage. From his studio lighting training with NJ photographer Joe Zeltsman in the 1960s Monte knew the solution to the DR problem was to use FILL flash to lift the shadows and then overlap an off-axis KEY light to create the 3D modeling. What Zeltsman did in his studio to create FILL similar to diffuse skylight was mount a bank of four flash heads from the ceiling of his studio aimed backwards at the white wall and ceiling flooding the space with diffuse light without the creation of a second catchlight from the fill in the pupil of the eye. Because the FILL was always the same distance from the subject and quite far away: 1) the exposure was always the same, and; 2) the inverse-square fall-off was very gradual and front-to-back on the face and body. What Monte did was use a custom made bracket to place his FILL flash 16” above his TLR Rolleiflex f/2.8 camera which had an eye level pentaprism. The Fill was raised so the head shadow it would create fell out of sight below the shoulders and it created a flattering “butterfly” pattern similar to the photos taken with the centered beauty dish in this lighting demo. We also always elevated the camera above the eye line of the subject to avoid shooting up their nose - most tripods place camera too low relative to face to avoid that. Asked why he used a Twin-lens camera instead of a SLR Hasselblad he provided a common sense answer. The mirror of an SLR blocks the viewfinder when the photo is taken and you can’t detect if a subject blinked. I learned to watch the eyes as the flash fired when started shooting receptions with an identical camera / flash. Electronic flash and photo-cell triggers were still relatively new and in 1972 when started he was using Graflex flash heads attached to a huge 410V battery pack the size of motorcycle battery we carried on the hip with a strap around the shoulder. The off camera flash was mounted on the same IV pole used for the reflector with the battery sitting down on the wheeled base allowing it to be rolled around easily with one hand. It was triggered by a simple optical Wien photocell which meant as receptions we had to ban “Uncle Saul and Aunt Sophie” from taking photos with their Instamatics which would trigger our off camera flash. Prior to getting the job with Monte I had taught myself the Adams Zone System which was based on always printing on #2 grade prints by changing the negative development time based on the contrast of the lighting. I realized immediately Monte was doing the same thing - fitting the range of black suit to white dress - onto the color prints by changing the contrast of the scene with the lighting ratio between the FILL and KEY. FILL is need for digital flash photography for the same reason: the dynamic range of the camera can’t record a scene illuminated with a singe off-axis flash with detail on the darkest shadows when highlights are exposed correctly to preserve separation between solid white and specular reflections on the white objects. I had used off axis flash before working with Monte. My first camera was a Nikonos II underwater flash I’d bought in 1969 to document my SCUBA diving adventures and I’d equipped it with a tethered flash I would hold at arms length which used flash cubes. So I was also already familiar with setting flash exposure via guide number and the inverse-square law. Because color negative film must be “exposed for the shadows” this was the approach used for setting up the dual flash lighting baseline: 1) set aperture to f/8 for desired DOF 2) using only the single power FILL flash centered over camera find the distance were black suits were recorded with detail (e.g. 11 feet) 3) add identical single power KEY flash overlapping FILL placed 45° to the side of the nose for ideal 3D modeling, moving it until the white highlights were exposed perfectly (e.g 8ft) The same approach works with digital sensors to EXACTLY MATCH the contrast of the lighting to the dynamic range of the sensor. When bought my first Kodak DC290 digital in 2000 I used it with a pair of single power Vivitar flashes the same way gauging shadow and highlight exposure by using black and white towels on a stand which created very easy to see spikes on the histogram and texture could see in the playback to gauge when exposure in both shadows and highlights was optimal. When I bought a set of four Alien Bee studio lights and all the modifiers used in this video I set my lights the same way, with the towel target, before my subjects set foot in front the lights. What I realized starting from a baseline of using unmodified flash is that the perception of “HARD” or “soft” with respect to shadows isn’t just a reaction to how parallel vs. diffused the light rays of a source are but a combination of factors: 1) amount of FILL and tone of the shadows, 2) rate that FILL and KEY fall off per inverse square, 3) direction of FILL, 4) presence or absence of AMBIENT or SPILL FILL from flashes bouncing off ceiling and walls. I realized Monte was able to create very “soft” looking lighting in his dual unmodified flash photos simply by adding more FILL flash to make the shadows on the faces lighter then having his photo lab “burn in” the shadows where needed. He never showed the clients proofs, only custom printed and matte lacquered 10” x10” custom dodged and burned prints. In the early 2000s after getting the Kodak digital I started experimenting with DIY flash diffusers and sharing my results on photo forums and my web site: https//photo.nova.org/DIY01 trying to “pay forward” what I learned and encouraging photographer to try Monte’s centered-fill-on-bracket dual flash approach for event and candid shooting and used centered Fill instead putting it opposite Key which as pointed out @ 35:00 here creates a very unnatural crossed-shadow pattern. We only see one key light shadow (from the sun) in nature. I came to appreciate how much spill fill contributes in good and bad ways. The first thing I noticed when starting this video was way the very large dark room with high ceilings. The results the typical hobbyist will get in their living room with 8’ - 10’ ceilings, light colored walls and windows will be much different why I like to say in lighting, like StarTrek, space is the final frontier 😂 I suggest experimenting outdoors at night with modifiers where there is no “spill fill” then compare results indoors to see and understand how spill fill changes things. I designed my DIY diffusers with an adjustable top flap so they could be used direct or split between direct and bounced fill.
I wanted to add a simple way to wrap one’s head around inverse-square fall off I learned from Monte. He systematically shot from distances of 16, 11, 8, or 5.6 ft. with FILL flash at that distance over camera on the bracket. The off-camera KEY flash was placed at 11, 8, 5.6, or 4ft respectively which alway kept it 2X or one f/stop brighter than the FILL, the ratio needed for a full range of detail from black to white. Exposure change by one f/stop as the camera and lights moved in and out, which was changed via aperture which on the Rollei had click stops at f/stop intervals. Our baseline was shooting from 11ft @ f/8 with KEY flash at 8ft. Moving in to 8ft I’d close aperture to f/11 and wheel the off camera flash into 5.6ft. Positioning the off camera flash without modeling light is simple. Stand behind it using the stand like the front sight of a gun and move it until a precise oblique view of the subject’s face is seen and the light will create a perfect “mask” of highlights on the front of the face. They you just walk back and shoot the face in that light full, opposite oblique or opposite profile exactly the same as posing at face 45° to a north window to get the same flattering mask of highlights on the front of the face and then walk around the face with the camera using a stool if necessary to keep the camera lenses above the eye line to hide the nose holes. It was “slap forehead” simple when Monte showed me those techniques the first time, why he became such a popular teacher at large gatherings like PPoA state conventions.
I have a question for Daniel or whoever would like to answer with knowledge: I have Minolta and Polaris light meters but I am interested in knowing if when taking a light reading with a light source called Flash, continuous light or sunlight, the reading that the light meter makes will be the one that we should use in a modern digital camera or will we have to make adjustments of half or a whole step or the measurement that the light meter indicates? In other words, do light meters from the analog era work just as well with digital cameras? Thank you for your kind response.
Seth is the man!!!!! He can fix anything
What a model! Highest praise and respect.
Fun to watch...good team work...very informative
Thanks for another wonderfully informative lighting instruction video with the Z6ii. I can confidently say Marissa is now my favorite model I’m aware you’ve worked with in this series! 😂
Marissa is very cool. She’s such a fun model😂👍
I had the great experience of apprenticing with and assisting Monte Zucker from 1972-1974. At the time he wrote the column on wedding photography in the PPofA’s magazine Professional Photographer and taught hundreds of other pros at conventions and private classes.
He did not have a studio. His then unique style for shooting weddings was to take the posed portraits of the couple and parents by the light of any available north facing window at the home of the bride and wedding location using backgrounds he painted himself, one in the style of Rembrandt in dark earth tones and a second in light cool pastels in the style of Monet for the solo portrait of the bride. He suspended the background on a single stand in the middle so it could be easily rotated around the subject when changing from full-face, oblique and profile views. Fill was provided by a folding square silver Reflectasol reflector on a weighted rolling stand with wheels which was actually a medical IV pole he had modified to hold his reflector and off-camera flash. The portraits taken with that set-up had the look of Old Master paintings because the same lighting was being used. The fact they were not taken with studio lights allowed him to enter them in PPofA print competitions in the “Candid” category instead of “Portrait” resulting in a lot of wins when he started using this style back when wedding coverage switched from B&W to color.
The switch from B&W to color is what inspired his other claim to fame-using off-camera flash when recreating the ceremony and all the reception photos which gave them the look of studio lighting. He started doing this for technical reason. The dynamic range of color print paper is much shorter than B&W prints making it impossible to correctly expose both the white wedding dress and black suits with single flash on camera which had been the norm for wedding coverage.
From his studio lighting training with NJ photographer Joe Zeltsman in the 1960s Monte knew the solution to the DR problem was to use FILL flash to lift the shadows and then overlap an off-axis KEY light to create the 3D modeling. What Zeltsman did in his studio to create FILL similar to diffuse skylight was mount a bank of four flash heads from the ceiling of his studio aimed backwards at the white wall and ceiling flooding the space with diffuse light without the creation of a second catchlight from the fill in the pupil of the eye. Because the FILL was always the same distance from the subject and quite far away: 1) the exposure was always the same, and; 2) the inverse-square fall-off was very gradual and front-to-back on the face and body.
What Monte did was use a custom made bracket to place his FILL flash 16” above his TLR Rolleiflex f/2.8 camera which had an eye level pentaprism. The Fill was raised so the head shadow it would create fell out of sight below the shoulders and it created a flattering “butterfly” pattern similar to the photos taken with the centered beauty dish in this lighting demo. We also always elevated the camera above the eye line of the subject to avoid shooting up their nose - most tripods place camera too low relative to face to avoid that.
Asked why he used a Twin-lens camera instead of a SLR Hasselblad he provided a common sense answer. The mirror of an SLR blocks the viewfinder when the photo is taken and you can’t detect if a subject blinked. I learned to watch the eyes as the flash fired when started shooting receptions with an identical camera / flash.
Electronic flash and photo-cell triggers were still relatively new and in 1972 when started he was using Graflex flash heads attached to a huge 410V battery pack the size of motorcycle battery we carried on the hip with a strap around the shoulder. The off camera flash was mounted on the same IV pole used for the reflector with the battery sitting down on the wheeled base allowing it to be rolled around easily with one hand. It was triggered by a simple optical Wien photocell which meant as receptions we had to ban “Uncle Saul and Aunt Sophie” from taking photos with their Instamatics which would trigger our off camera flash.
Prior to getting the job with Monte I had taught myself the Adams Zone System which was based on always printing on #2 grade prints by changing the negative development time based on the contrast of the lighting. I realized immediately Monte was doing the same thing - fitting the range of black suit to white dress - onto the color prints by changing the contrast of the scene with the lighting ratio between the FILL and KEY. FILL is need for digital flash photography for the same reason: the dynamic range of the camera can’t record a scene illuminated with a singe off-axis flash with detail on the darkest shadows when highlights are exposed correctly to preserve separation between solid white and specular reflections on the white objects.
I had used off axis flash before working with Monte. My first camera was a Nikonos II underwater flash I’d bought in 1969 to document my SCUBA diving adventures and I’d equipped it with a tethered flash I would hold at arms length which used flash cubes. So I was also already familiar with setting flash exposure via guide number and the inverse-square law.
Because color negative film must be “exposed for the shadows” this was the approach used for setting up the dual flash lighting baseline:
1) set aperture to f/8 for desired DOF
2) using only the single power FILL flash centered over camera find the distance were black suits were recorded with detail (e.g. 11 feet)
3) add identical single power KEY flash overlapping FILL placed 45° to the side of the nose for ideal 3D modeling, moving it until the white highlights were exposed perfectly (e.g 8ft)
The same approach works with digital sensors to EXACTLY MATCH the contrast of the lighting to the dynamic range of the sensor. When bought my first Kodak DC290 digital in 2000 I used it with a pair of single power Vivitar flashes the same way gauging shadow and highlight exposure by using black and white towels on a stand which created very easy to see spikes on the histogram and texture could see in the playback to gauge when exposure in both shadows and highlights was optimal. When I bought a set of four Alien Bee studio lights and all the modifiers used in this video I set my lights the same way, with the towel target, before my subjects set foot in front the lights.
What I realized starting from a baseline of using unmodified flash is that the perception of “HARD” or “soft” with respect to shadows isn’t just a reaction to how parallel vs. diffused the light rays of a source are but a combination of factors: 1) amount of FILL and tone of the shadows, 2) rate that FILL and KEY fall off per inverse square, 3) direction of FILL, 4) presence or absence of AMBIENT or SPILL FILL from flashes bouncing off ceiling and walls. I realized Monte was able to create very “soft” looking lighting in his dual unmodified flash photos simply by adding more FILL flash to make the shadows on the faces lighter then having his photo lab “burn in” the shadows where needed. He never showed the clients proofs, only custom printed and matte lacquered 10” x10” custom dodged and burned prints.
In the early 2000s after getting the Kodak digital I started experimenting with DIY flash diffusers and sharing my results on photo forums and my web site: https//photo.nova.org/DIY01 trying to “pay forward” what I learned and encouraging photographer to try Monte’s centered-fill-on-bracket dual flash approach for event and candid shooting and used centered Fill instead putting it opposite Key which as pointed out @ 35:00 here creates a very unnatural crossed-shadow pattern. We only see one key light shadow (from the sun) in nature.
I came to appreciate how much spill fill contributes in good and bad ways. The first thing I noticed when starting this video was way the very large dark room with high ceilings. The results the typical hobbyist will get in their living room with 8’ - 10’ ceilings, light colored walls and windows will be much different why I like to say in lighting, like StarTrek, space is the final frontier 😂 I suggest experimenting outdoors at night with modifiers where there is no “spill fill” then compare results indoors to see and understand how spill fill changes things. I designed my DIY diffusers with an adjustable top flap so they could be used direct or split between direct and bounced fill.
I wanted to add a simple way to wrap one’s head around inverse-square fall off I learned from Monte. He systematically shot from distances of 16, 11, 8, or 5.6 ft. with FILL flash at that distance over camera on the bracket. The off-camera KEY flash was placed at 11, 8, 5.6, or 4ft respectively which alway kept it 2X or one f/stop brighter than the FILL, the ratio needed for a full range of detail from black to white. Exposure change by one f/stop as the camera and lights moved in and out, which was changed via aperture which on the Rollei had click stops at f/stop intervals.
Our baseline was shooting from 11ft @ f/8 with KEY flash at 8ft. Moving in to 8ft I’d close aperture to f/11 and wheel the off camera flash into 5.6ft. Positioning the off camera flash without modeling light is simple. Stand behind it using the stand like the front sight of a gun and move it until a precise oblique view of the subject’s face is seen and the light will create a perfect “mask” of highlights on the front of the face. They you just walk back and shoot the face in that light full, opposite oblique or opposite profile exactly the same as posing at face 45° to a north window to get the same flattering mask of highlights on the front of the face and then walk around the face with the camera using a stool if necessary to keep the camera lenses above the eye line to hide the nose holes.
It was “slap forehead” simple when Monte showed me those techniques the first time, why he became such a popular teacher at large gatherings like PPoA state conventions.
Yay! First to click on. 33 seconds! Lovely surprise!!!
Is there a video for a critique session? How do I submit a photo for the critique?
I have a question for Daniel or whoever would like to answer with knowledge: I have Minolta and Polaris light meters but I am interested in knowing if when taking a light reading with a light source called Flash, continuous light or sunlight, the reading that the light meter makes will be the one that we should use in a modern digital camera or will we have to make adjustments of half or a whole step or the measurement that the light meter indicates? In other words, do light meters from the analog era work just as well with digital cameras? Thank you for your kind response.
Seth is almost as famous as Daniel now 🙏🏼
Daniel wants to have a talk outside the store!
Farm Bacon egg toasted sandwich with cheese your choice of sauce