Lighting

Butterfly lighting has long been a “go-to” setup for fashion close-ups as well as other portraits where one wants to emphasize cheekbones and frame the face in shadows from below the chin.

Nanlite's six new Forza LED spotlights and two PavoTube LED tube lights feature changes that significantly improve them.

Paul C. Buff has announced a new 500Ws compact and lightweight battery strobe called the Celestial, which features a bright LED modeling light, a built-in wireless receiver, and support for high-speed sync (HSS) and TTL shooting.

If you’re looking to make your photography stand out it’s time to get creative with light. The longer I’ve been a photographer, the more I’ve come to appreciate good light. Good light makes my job so much easier, but interesting light makes my job more creative.

SmallRig has been aggressively pushing into the video lighting market with its series of LED RC lights and shows no signs of slowing down with its RC 350 and RC 450 COB LEDs.

Photographers who shoot portraits are likely familiar with Rembrandt-style lighting as well as other styles such as loop, butterfly, and so on. This is especially true if you have taken a lighting class or have been reading up on the subject. You may be using this specific type of portrait lighting in previous images and might not even realize it until reviewing later. (Ask me how I know).

Zhiyun has announced a pair of new LED lighting tools that are designed to bring studio-quality light in a compact package. The M40 is a pocket-sized LED panel while the F100 is described as a handheld "light stick."

Elinchrom has announced the Elinchrom FIVE, a new 522Ws active-charging, battery-powered, portable, off-camera monolight that lets users work equally well in the studio or on location.

Canon has announced the new Speedlite EL-5, a powerful and portable flash unit for advanced photographers that's the company's first flash designed for the Multi-Function Shoe found in the latest EOS R mirrorless cameras.

British LED lighting manufacturer Rotolight has announced a new Indiegogo campaign for Pro Editions of its most successful photo and video LED lights - the NEO 3 and AEOS 2.

Most photographers don’t have an unlimited pool of money or a vast unending studio to collect and hoard gear in. For this reason, it’s especially important to choose gear and accessories that allow them to get the most bang for their buck, like a simple large white backdrop.

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.

Godox has announced the Lux Junior on-camera flash, a $69 retro-inspired strobe for Fujifilm, Canon, Nikon, OM-Digital (Olympus), and Sony cameras.

Profoto has announced the A2 monolight off-camera flash that is about the size of a 12-ounce can of soda. The small and portable strobe is billed as ideal for supporting location shoots like weddings, awards ceremonies, or other events.

Nanlite has introduced a new bi-color LED spotlight called the Forza 150B. It offers flexible color temperature adjustments in a compact form factor and precise fan control to keep the light cool and quiet during all-day shoots.

There can be a lot of gear-envy among photographers when they see others with tons of expensive camera gear, lighting equipment, and modifiers. It is also all too easy to say that you can’t be creative because you don’t have access to a particular light or piece of equipment.

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).

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.

Rotolight has announced a set of new parabolic softbox umbrellas for the AEOS, NEO, or any other similarly sized LED with the promise of its ability to produce high-quality soft light.

Rotolight has announced what it says is the world's first electronic "SmartSoft Box" for its AEOS 2.

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.

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.

Aputure has announced the LS 600c Pro which aims to push the film industry cheaper without sacrificing quality by comparing it to current RGB industry standards.

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.

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.

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.

What is a photograph? There are many different ways to answer this simple question, but in basic abstract terms through the lens of lighting, every photograph is a combination of highlights and shadows. The only reason we see depth and dimension is in fact shadow. Understanding shadows is crucial in growing as a photographer.

The Cooperative of Photography, also known as COOPH, has shared four simple ways photographers can add additional visual interest to images by creatively using affordable lighting sources.

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.

What kind of lighting do you use as a portrait photographer? Softboxes are great and popular, but that also makes them potentially overused and boring. If you want to spice up your portrait lighting, you can look into expanding your toolbox beyond the softbox and into other kinds of lighting.