(If you want to watch the video tutorial go to The Slanted Lens on YouTube!)
Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on the Slanted Lens we’re going to take a look at lighting with a 7-foot umbrella. Not a shoot through umbrella, but an umbrella with a black back on it. So it’s going to be bounced light. 
We’ll start with that light right behind the camera. Then we’re going to slowly move that light around to almost a coming from behind light, which looks really fabulous. Let’s just take a look at how to light with an umbrella, everything from a very flat ring light like look to a very moody kind of directional light. So let’s get started and see what we can do.
So let’s start with the umbrella in what is considered almost like a ring light, a very flat light situation. Why would you use this? If you want a person to just have no wrinkles, clean skin. You get rid of all the shadows possible. So now this light is basically lighting around us. I’ve got it tilted slightly down. You could really even tilt this a little more flat like this. 
And that’s going to give us a very flat kind of directional light. It will wrap on her. She’s far enough away from the background that we won’t really see a shadow on the background. 
Because she’s far enough away that the shadow is going to disappear before it hits the background. So we’re lighting the background and we’re lighting her with this light. (Tamron 35-150mm Lens) 
Now look at the difference here. This is just a quick posing thought if I shoot up here. So there’s at eye level to her. But I’m going to come down now. See what it does for her legs, for her body. What a difference. It thins the body, makes a huge difference. 
So there’s that flat light in from the front. I’m going to take several shots of this here. That’s nice. All right, so that’s that kind of flat light. Now as this light goes up it’s going to slowly create more and more shadow. 
It’s the laws of light. When the light is right at the camera there is no dimension. It’s very flat the closer it is. You can’t get any closer to this than to the camera. 
And I can slide right back in here and do a couple of shots back in here. This is very, very tight to the camera. So there’s right, this is very much flat. 
It’s like a ring light. I’m getting a ring of light around the lens. It’s lighting everything on her and in the background. No shadow in the background, just very, very flat.
Now if I raise this umbrella up, I start going up, I’m going to start to see the shadow build under her chin and under her nose. And it’s going to become more directional. So let’s just go up. I’m going to go up not too far. I’m going to tilt it down just a little bit and up we go. We’ll do a couple of increments at a time. Start right there. 
Yep, it’s starting to build. The shadow’s starting to build. It looks fabulous with her there. 
I’m going to go up even further. I’m going to come all the way up to the ceiling. Now I should see quite a bit of fill and quite a bit of shadow build. I would probably want to throw a card in at this point and be able to open up the shadows under her, under her chin. It’s going to make that look good. I could put that maybe down here on the ground. It’s pretty hard when you’re in full body. 
Well let’s take a look here. There we go. I personally like this better. We’re up a little bit. I’m starting to get shadow under the nose.
What’s in my SKB case? This is my Westcott FJ400 II travel kit. I’ve got two of the FJ400 II’s in here with the reflectors on them. And then I’ve got two batteries. 
Two batteries to be able to run them. I’ve got two sets of gels that go with the different heads. I’ve got adapters to Bowen’s mount to be able to use my switch boxes from Westcott. In the back here I’ve got an entire set of grids. Each one of the sizes between 10, 20, 30 and 40. So you got four grids back in there and an empty pocket. I can put more stuff in here. 
So that’s what’s in my SKB case. That’s my FJ400 II travel kit.
If we put a stool in there really quick and just do a quick portrait with her in that mode. 
That’s a very beautiful light on her face. 
If I drop this down so I get back to that kind of ring light look, come down in here and take that shot again. 
That’s actually very pretty. I mean it’s just a really, all of her skin just glows with that light down like this. It’s wrapping around the camera. I’m up at about her eye level. So it’s just a really beautiful light on her face.
But now, back up to as high as I can get it. But because it’s so large, I mean, even though I’m up high it’s still way down to the camera. 
Also, the size of the reflector you put on this makes a big difference. You don’t want this to break outside of that umbrella. 
If I loosen this umbrella and I get in too tight it becomes very directional. 
It just fills the inside area of the umbrella and becomes too directional. 
So I want to push it out to where this is covering. And now that’s going to start to use that entire umbrella. And it’s going to soften because it starts to see around. So a quick shot here. 
That really is beautiful. If I just took and give her a small card, that small card is going to open up the light underneath her. It’s going to look really, really beautiful. 
This is basically a butterfly light at that point. It’s a large source butterfly light. 
Which makes it really interesting. Let’s see what happens now if I take this light and I get it in front of my camera. 
So when I get the light in this close what happens is I have to dial the intensity down because it’s very close to her face so it’ll be overexposed otherwise. And now the background falls out faster. 
So as I move in closer the background is going to get darker because I’m having to expose for her face. And it needs less light which means the background further away is going to become darker. 
As I move away, now I’ve got to give it more power and she and the background are a little closer to the same distance from the camera. They’re not the same, but they’re closer. And that background value comes up so it is a much different look. 
So now this, I think this is a beautiful look. I mean it’s beautiful skin. I’ve got it just slightly off to my side here. She’s holding up the reflector. We’ll shoot three or four of these. Nice smile there. 
Now I have the ability at this point I can really work with this as far as feathering. I’m going to go like this. Let’s just see what happens when I’m not aiming it at her but it’s off to the side. 
Let’s get a nice shot here and see what we get. As I swing that umbrella around the background goes very dark. And I’m still getting a beautiful light on her face. It still has very much a butterfly look. But it starts to have a little more of a highlight on the left side. Little darker on the right side. So it starts to give us that highlight right and left, or highlight to the left and dark to the right.
Now if I just keep moving this around I’m going to be almost now into a kind of, probably a loop light. 
Yep, it’s a nice loop light there. She comes around, we see the light on her face. 
Now this card here really also needs to have a card up on the right to start to open up the shadows on the right hand side of her face. And starts to open up her face. Take one with the card out. 
So you see the difference what that card is doing. The card is really opening up her face, giving us that kind of glow from underneath.
So, now we’re going to keep moving this around. Go ahead and leave the card up. We’ll leave that card up. I think this card from underneath is really nice with this large soft box. So let’s keep the white side up. So I’m going to keep moving around now. 
So now I’m starting, I’ve crossed over, I’m in a Rembrandt for sure. It’s gotten very dark. So this really has to come up over in here now. So I’m going to set this up so now I’ve got to add a fill card from the right side. So that fill card worked great when it was underneath, when the light was closer to the camera. But as soon as I move in this tight I now need to have a card to the side. 
So I’m going to turn her more towards that light and I’m using the fill light in the front here, bouncing that light back in. Now I’m going to really push this light around. The background has gotten quite a bit darker.
But I’m going to slide this light around almost behind her. Now turn into that light there. I want you to look up into it from the side. Just like that. There you go.So we’ve gone from extremely flat and very kind of ring light to very, very moody. That light has gone around. It’s the laws of light. The further we get the light away from the camera the more shadow, the more mood we get. So if we stay in this position right here, I don’t think this is my favorite.
Well it’s beautiful light if you have her looking into the light to the back. I mean, that looks great. So maybe come, look up to about right here. I’ll bring this around just a little bit. 
Turn your head just slightly towards me but look into the light. Yeah, right there, that is absolutely a beautiful light. Because it just gives us, shadow falls on her cheeks. I mean it’s just beautiful in that place.
So let’s have her stand up here now. And let’s look at what this light looks like in a full body.
Very moody and very directional. It only is going to work if we get a really good fill light in here.Now, even that’s not enough. It almost needs another light up front here. 
So let’s work this light back towards us now. 
So we’re going to come back, kind of side light. It’s going to look a lot more like a soft box. Turn towards the light. 
I think as we move back, this umbrella coming back towards us, I think we find that really the area that it works and looks the most beautiful is when we get it back to the camera. Behind the camera in a kind of butterfly position.
So I’m low here which is where I want to be. The light is just off from my left side here. And it’s above me. So I’m going to get a nice highlight. You’ll see a nice shadow underneath her chin. 
But we see it’s a beautiful light. Because it’s off to the side it gives us dimension. If we bring that reflector in close enough we should get a beautiful light, kind of a reflector on her. 
The background falls. You see basically, you see a floor and then the background takes off as a little brighter in the background. 
So you see a distinct line between a horizon line between floor and back as this comes around. But as I come back around where we were it starts to be very interesting.
This is back to where we started which I think is a beautiful place to be. I’m going to back up just a little bit. I lose about a stop of light. So as I bring this back I’m going to raise my camera up a stop.
It’s a really pretty light. We come back to where we started from back here. 
And this is probably where most people like this light to be, pretty low, pretty flat. 
And it gives us great light on her face. And the background softens. 
But that gives us a nice kind of foreground, horizon line in the background. 
But that horizon line is low and that really helps make it look right. I’d be better off to be up a little higher with my backdrop. If we go up a little higher that would be ideal.
One thing I can do is I can go to a much longer lens and scoot way back here. All right, so this is where I like a bounce umbrella. It is behind the camera. It is up high so it’s giving me a nice butterfly look on their face. It’s great for a portrait. It’s great for full body. I get a nice highlight on the face. I get a nice bright background. It doesn’t look like a ring light. It has some direction to it and I think that makes the face and the body look much more interesting. It does need a reflector, there’s no doubt. Or if you’re in a situation like this and you just can’t make this work, you can’t get a reflector in there to give you enough fill, then you put a small soft box on the ground on a very low setting. Or you bounce light into the floor to just open up the shadows a little bit in the front to be able to give you some fill in the shadow area. 
But I think this looks fabulous. Looking right here everything from full body, 
to tight, high or low. 
I think for a bounce umbrella this is a really good place to be. Very much a fashion kind of beauty light. And if you have a big group of people, perfect place to put a light. Because you just give nice even light on everyone. And it does open up the background as well as opening up the face on the models.
So let’s wrap this up. There’s no reason to shoot with a 7 ft umbrella unless your goal is to have a large soft source. So the closer it is around by the camera I think it’s nice up a little bit. I think it gives a beautiful light on the face with just a little bit of shadow. And I think that helps to look really, look fabulous. But it really softens the skin. You don’t have a lot of shadow in the wrinkles. And you can put a little soft, kind of fill in there if you need to. But at the camera and up just a little bit is my favorite spot. Some people love it right behind the camera. So it’s just, it’s a ring light. It just lights everything, background, person. So when you get into that situation where you’re trying to light the person and the background, the closer the person gets to the camera, the darker the background’s going to be. And so if you have a seamless that rolls way out you can go way out there now with a long lens. Now that background will become very dark. But if you want to light the background you keep the person relatively close to the background. And now as you light the person it’s going to light the background and it just, it’s a beautiful look. Especially if you get like a colored background of some sort or something interesting back there it’s going to look really nice. It’s a simple setup that sets up quickly and gives you a beautiful look, a beautiful portrait. So there’s a look at large 7-ft umbrellas bounced. I think a shoot through umbrella has a lot of its own qualities that are very different. We’ll do a lesson on that in the future. So you keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!
