lighting

Much to the surprise of many, photographing athletes doesn’t always mean you are a sports photographer. Truthfully, I don’t know much about sports at all.

For decades, there’s a piece of gear that I’ve always had in my camera bag. This would be a handheld light meter. I feel I’m in the minority these days by still using a handheld light meter and that’s too bad this is so.

V-Flat World has launched a new series of 360-degree diffusion Light Cones for product photography in partnership with Karl Taylor. This new set of lighting modifiers may look like a dog cone of shame, but demonstrations show they work remarkably well to eliminate reflections.

Westcott has announced the new L60-B 60W Bi-Color COB LED, an "ultra-portable" 60-wat bi-color light designed for video and photo content creators.

Aputure has announced the $199 MT Pro Pixel RGBWW Mini Tube light, what it calls the first-ever one-foot-long full-color mini LED tube.

Let’s talk about wedding photography flash and what you need to know. Shooting with flash can be intimidating if you’re just starting out but it can be freeing the more you know how to use it. There might be times when you need to use flash and there might be times when you choose to use flash.

Westcott recently released its third version of the popular specialist tool, the Eyelighter. If you happen to be a working headshot or portrait photographer, there is no way you haven’t seen it, thought about buying it, or even had it in your shopping cart at some point.

I’ve used poly-boards, bounce-boards, and even white sheets and white walls as lighting modifiers to soften the light in the past, but arguably the quickest and most efficient way to instantly achieve beautifully soft light, is the V-Flat.

The period of time when the sun is just below the horizon is commonly referred to as “blue hour,” and comes directly before or after golden hour depending on the time of day. While most people know about golden hour’s benefits for photography, blue hour is often left out when thinking about optimal lighting conditions.

Profoto has announced the Connect Pro, its latest generation trigger that is capable of controlling 100 channels that each host six groups: three for TTL and three for manual control.

The use of strong and complementary colors is an ever-growing trend in photography. Many modern advertising campaigns feature bold and contrasting colors in order to draw your focus to the product or message they are trying to sell. One way to create such vibrant color in your own images is by using colored gels (also known as color filters, filter gels, lighting gels, or simply gels).

If you’ve been outside during a nice sunrise or sunset, chances are good you’ve heard the term “golden hour.” It’s one of the best times to do many types of photography and a beautiful time to be outside. This guide will help you understand golden hour, when it happens, and how to make the most of it through various types of photography.

Portrait photographers use a myriad of different lights and lighting styles to achieve the results they desire. I’ve seen great portraits done with 10 lights, and even greater portraits done with a single light. The best photographers can do both and play around with lights like tools in their toolbox to create something unique.

Though it can fit in the palm of the hand and is extremely light, the Nanlite Forza 60C has a huge amount of power. This Chip on Board (COB) LED light packs a powerful array of LEDs that can illuminate a subject with up to 12,810 lux at one meter.

Litepanels has announced the new Gemini 2x1 Hard LED light panel. It offers the brightest focused beam available in its class and can illuminate a subject with up to 20,000 LUX of light at three meters but is still lightweight enough to mount to a drone.

If you’ve decided to take the next step in your photographic lighting and purchase some studio strobes, then you will need to ask some questions about what kind of images you’ll be creating in the studio and what the best lighting for those particular subjects is.

Photographer Karl Taylor and artist Ethan Davis both created the same still-life scene of an Apple Watch. Taylor used traditional photography techniques while Davis created one using only computer graphics. Which is which?

Fill light is one of the unsung heroes in the photographic industry, yet the fill light in basic three-point lighting can be just as important as the key. Getting it right can make your images look much better.

In the two-plus decades I’ve been a photographer, finding the right light modifiers for the varied work that I did was a challenge. In the small community I lived in, my subject matter ranged from commercial photography to weddings and portraits. Each subject required its own type of lighting.

Small Rig has taken the successful point-source LED design of the RC120 and amped it up to create a new light that is even brighter without sacrificing its lightweight and compact design.

What are the most important features you look for when buying a flash? Many photographers consider the amount of power a unit has to be the most important, but there are a few other specifications that are just as important, including flash duration. In this article, I will break down exactly what flash duration is and how it works.

Aputure has announced the LS 600D LED point source light, a scaled-down version of its LS 600D Pro. It packs the same punch, but drops a few of those "pro" features in exchange for a more approachable price.

Profoto has announced that it has acquired StyleShoots, the makers of hardware and software solutions that completely eliminate the need for a camera crew and deliver finished e-commerce fashion photos through an automated, robotic photo studio.

One of the biggest challenges for a photographer learning how to light with an off-camera flash isn't necessarily the type of lights they have but rather learning how to control it.

Creating an evenly lit background can be trickier than one would think, but is a skill that every photographer should master. But with the right equipment and knowledge, it gets much easier to capture a pure white, black, or colored gradient background in-camera without the need for heavy Photoshop cleanup in post.

I occasionally like to do some light painting with strobes. To make that easier, I ripped off the legs of an old light stand so that it is just a handheld pole with a light. I also wanted to be able to control my camera with a remote when holding the light so that I can operate my camera on a tripod and do everything without an assistant.

For many years I’ve played with the idea of recreating various lighting looks that many of us may know and love from the natural world around us.

I purchased some of the new compact and foldable Godox softboxes (e.g. AD-S60S, AD-S65W, AD-S85S, etc) for my Godox AD300 Pros. They work just fine but I wanted to use the magnetic color gels from my AK-R1 kit with them, so I decided to design my own gel holder compatible with the AD300 Pro.

bitLighter is a new continuous and focusable "flashlight"-like light source for photographers and videographers that has managed to reach over $90,000 (over 900%) of its initial $10,000 targetted goal on Kickstarter.

Slite has announced a new portable LED light panel that is incredibly powerful and boasts 16 million colors despite its super-thin form factor.

When is the best time of day to shoot portrait photos outdoors? Should we shoot only during the golden hours and avoid midday altogether, or is it better to use the brightest daylight hours to take our portraits with a few simple light modifiers? In this guide, we explore the best times of day for outdoor portraits.

After I published a story on sunglasses for photographers, I got a ton of emails asking how I lit the series. So, while on the road for a recent photo shoot, I took some time at my AirBNB and wrote out how I approach what is called "split color lighting."

In November, Nikon entered a lighting partnership with Nissin and Profoto, leading many to believe Nikon was exiting the lighting game. Even if that is eventually the case, Nissin's new Nikon flash shows high prices are here to stay.

Light shaping tools are very expensive. What if you could take any object and turn it into a modifier? That would save you a lot of money as well as give some unique results. In this article, I will share some everyday objects that you can turn into light modifiers to get different looks.

Profoto has announced the new Clic Softbox Octa, a collapsible and magnetic octagonal softbox that is compatible with the company's A and C-series strobes as well as with any other Clic light-shaping tools.

Image Color Transfer is a free, browser-based application that allows a photo to be color graded to match the color of another photo, similar to the "Match Color" feature found in standalone photo editing applications.