How to mimic sunlight in the studio – The Lighting Series #3
Dec 8, 2018
Stefan Kohler
Stefan Kohler is a full-time retoucher. He’s from Germany and likes bacon. In the last years, he built up a broad community around his retouching classes at the Infinite tool’s website.
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While this picture has kept me busy for a long time; it’s actually pretty easy!
The goal was to create a summary picture. But it was December, and we shot inside the studio. Here’s how we did it.
The lighting series is a comprehensive lighting guide. We talk about flash photography, lighting, posing, color, and walk you through a series of lighting setups. Some will be simple, some complex, but in the end, they are all tools to add to your photography toolbox. Here is a complete list of the lighting tutorials.
Lighting equipment
- 1x normal reflector with color foil (1/4 CTO) on a 500Ws monoblock
- 2x Striplight with color foils (cyan and green) on 500Ws monoblocks
- 1 reflector (foam core board)
Lighting setup
I looked at a lot of pictures and I have to say: sun-drenched models against a perfect blue sky aren’t that common. But, there’s nothing like a challenge. What I did notice was the light in the bathroom after a shower: it often has a color gradient, and the sunlight coming in is extremely hard.
It’s something you can recreate relatively easily in the studio.
The background effect was created with two transverse striplights: the sunlight is simulated by a hard-hitting normal reflector. A reflector plate made of styrofoam brings some light back into the shadows, which brings some more definition to your model’s hair.
To give the model a beachy feel, we spritzed her with water from a well-washed perfume atomizer. The more that you pump, the larger the droplets will be.
The Individual Light Sources
The main light
The reflector
The background
Color Mixing With Light
To illustrate the effects of color mixing more clearly, I have used blue and yellow slides. In the photo, the gels were cyan and green.
No overlap
If there is too much space between your colored stripes of light, you get a dark patch. You don’t want this: it doesn’t happen in the sky.
The colors should merge smoothly without mixing too much.
As the colors mix, their color values add up. In the blue-yellow example this is more obvious than with the cyan-green version in the actual photo. Cyan is 50% green, so the color will simply shift further towards green if you overlap too much
Downloads
For the pictures in the article, we used the light simulation Set.A.Light 3D. You can download the lighting setup and try everything for yourself. You can also download this series as a free ebook.
If you’ve never worked with Set.a.Light before, you should give it a try! There is also a free demo version on the website, which you can use to open these setups.
Stefan Kohler
Stefan Kohler is a full-time retoucher. He’s from Germany and likes bacon. In the last years, he built up a broad community around his retouching classes at the Infinite tool’s website.
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4 responses to “How to mimic sunlight in the studio – The Lighting Series #3”
And how to make it still look like Fake Studio Light :)
Marco Peixoto you wouldnot be sure if you havent see backstage .
Trust me I would. It looks like Movie Lighting simulating outdoors. In fact its pretty noticeable.
It’s lacking light from the sky. In the real world, the sky would add some slightly blue light that’s very diffuse shining from above. Bouncing blue light on the ceiling might work.