At the Tioman lighting workshop (organised by Mr Kas Mara of Picture House Studio) last weekend, while sharing my lighting technique (and tricks), I also share some views about lighting in general.
When a photographer talk about lighting, the 1st thing that comes to people mind (especially you PhotoGeargrapher, you know who you are laarr..) is lighting EQUIPMENT such as a portable flash or a bevy of professional studio lighting gear. Yup, all man made artificial lighting.
They always forgets about the one light that is made available AND free, The Sun. When it’s not cloudy or raining that is.
What if the Sun sets, or as it happens when you’re waiting for _A_ (note the emphasise itu laarrr) sunset , storm clouds conveniently rolls over the horizon and it’s become a cloudy, what were you to do?
There’s the flash option: you can always use direct flash. Gonna be ugly tho, the direct flash thingies, if one does not know how to control the light output. For a beginner it will be bewildering to choose what setting, should one go TTL at minus 2 third EV and compensate by increasing 1/3 EV on the flash at slow shutter to get a nice mix of ambient light or go manual on the flash at 1/128 at f2.8 while using a _very slow_ shutter speed at 1/8th and let the model stands very still and praying that you’re hand held technique is solid enuff so that no camera shake is present.
Confusing, really.
However….
"Baby Light My Way..."
…by using video light, or LED, What You See Is What You Get. Since I’ve yet to use an LED light for my commercial work (to low powered), nor hot tungsten video light (battery dont last long and the red orange colour cast is such a hassle to correct during post. Nic elaaar for one or two shots but if you shoot a campaign where you shoot hundreds / thousands of shots you gonna wished you rather sleep at night than diong Photoshop work yo!) I just use a candle.
Photo Exif (for you PhotoGeargrapher out there): Canon 5D MK2, 1/60th @ f/2 at ISO 2500. Convert to B&W and added grain during post.
In a nutshell: start with available light photography dulu to “see” the light, then slowly slowly lah added light into your photography journey.