Lighting How To

The studio lighting genie is not going back into the bottle anytime soon and LED light sources are finding their place in more and more camera rooms. Clever and versatile lighting systems such as Rotolight’s new Anova V2 and their compact RL48-B battery-powered portable lights are part of the reason why.

If you’ve ever shot portraits in front of a seamless white background or a cyclorama, you’ve probably had to deal with pesky background shadows. They’re fine if you’re going for a dramatic look in your portraits, but what if you wanted something cleaner as your background to draw attention to your subject?

The fun video below from The Slanted Lens -- with support from Tamron, Dynalite, and Roscoe—features host Jay P. Morgan and actress Jodie Sweetin of Full House fame, as they set up for a crazy photo shoot.

Pro photographer Anita Sadowska has been photographing professional models for much of her career, so, naturally, she has a thing or two to say about how it’s done. In the below video, Sadowska offers her tips, tricks and advice on how to capture gorgeous shots of professional fashion models.

In the below outdoor portrait photography from Ed Gregory of Photos in Color, he explains how to balance flash with low ambient light to create professional-looking outdoor portraits that pop. In the video, Gregory walks you through how these portrait lighting techniques work to help you improve your outdoor portraits.

Anyone can take a decent photo in good light but how to you fare when the lighting is extremely harsh on your subject? In the below easy photo tutorial, Rachel and Daniel from Mango Street give you some handy advice on how to shoot great portraits in bad light.

Shooting portraits on location with a wide aperture can result in some great images, but if, like me, you want to underexpose the ambient light for a more dramatic effect, you’ll quickly realize there’s a problem with shutter speed and off camera flash.