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Roberto Valenzuela: Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

Lesson 15 from: SkillSet: Best of Lighting

Sue Bryce, Scott Robert Lim, Mike Fulton, Tony Corbell, Clay Blackmore, Mark Wallace, Zack Arias, Joey L, Felix Kunze, Joel Grimes

Roberto Valenzuela: Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

Lesson 15 from: SkillSet: Best of Lighting

Sue Bryce, Scott Robert Lim, Mike Fulton, Tony Corbell, Clay Blackmore, Mark Wallace, Zack Arias, Joey L, Felix Kunze, Joel Grimes

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Lesson Info

15. Roberto Valenzuela: Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Sue & Felix: Shoot: Natural Light Portraits - Maisie

21:30
2

Sue & Felix: Shoot: Natural Light Portraits - Katie

25:45
3

Sue & Felix: Shoot: Natural Light Portraits - LaQuan

15:36
4

Sue & Felix: Shoot: Studio Light Portraits - Maisie

39:40
5

Tony Corbell: The Power of Light Part 1

18:50
6

Tony Corbell: The Power of Light Part 2

37:39
7

Tony Corbell: The Power of Light Part 3

23:58
8

Scott Robert Lim: Live Shoot - Natural Light

1:21:40

Lesson Info

Roberto Valenzuela: Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

now you guys let's go ahead and get creative let's play a little bit okay where's um bobby can I get my entire gear please all my flashes all my year we're just gonna rock here right now please you can sit on the edge of this look atyou freaking awesome look at you guys just like okay uh let's see I have one of you sit in the middle you see how her niece this's not opposing class but here I go you know my head can stuff okay just got her nicer this way so you wantto do her knees the opposite way okay so go ahead and take a seat there there isn't one she's not at the top is because we don't want to make it too cliche like top top medals who how did you come up with that so you want to keep it you would not grab the order and destroy it make it order and then destroy it okay okay we have alan is closest to the light source but then way have her blocking completely blocking the light on hence and then we have katie on her own not being illuminated at all and not only that not only she bei...

ng blocked by two people now she's also the farthest from the light so before you even turn on the first last year already in trouble already in big trouble see we're all my speed lights right here you go beautiful can I get another soft box set up like the smaller one this one over here let's put it by katie now you see these hats and stuff doesn't remind you of like a new orleans kind of bohemian behemoth kind of feel to it so why don't we just totally rocked that totally changed the room into a very new orleans kind of like mardi gras style thing and we keep it totally chilled and cool so that light on the lighting on them will be beautiful but the leading in the back and we very moody you guys good she's in the fun is just like funded and heck like you can just totally rocket you know so let me put that flash and we turn it on here so this soccer first of all this backwards so we're going to make sure it's not backwards that would be helpful we're gonna put this on slave did you grant this flash from this is a new one a stone that okay so we have a there ale that's off books we're going to put this one we're going to put this one on b we're going to put this one on see now for you guys watching on the internet it's not scary I'm only keeping everything to channel one if you're in a situation where you have lots of channels and cell phones and things going on you can change the frequency of the channel to so but let's not waste time with that channel group egg bc the and you can put multiple flashes for a group so I can grab my triple threat that's I'm so cool like triple threat baby get out of here I got the triple threat I can put triple threat and I can gang all my flashes together like it's totally like getting it out like the ladies love it you know I was just about to say he's geeking out now like when katie sees me doing this you're just like wow I want to date that guy nothing could be sad people it's all right here it's over okay actually this is a five eighty extra so I'm gonna get rid of that I don't even know who this is can I get another six hundred is right there there there all right so I'm gonna put this's a this will be my master so this will be I don't know who came up with masters and slaves like that's like really weird what's that you got three six one five eighty is that right cool so the whole bohemian you can't help eyes going going out the window very quickly but we can still try so let's see I'm gonna put this is gonna be a this is goingto be b and we put that flash from their put here please bobby and then I'm gonna put this group and I'm gonna put it in c roberta couldn't she use the five eighty and just put it on manual and have the slave poppet to whatever no because I'm not using optical transmission I'm using radio transmission and they're not by course compatible and I don't have enough fucking wizards to do it all money also we have to do it this way so it doesn't work cannon is very smart they made it known backwards compatible you have to buy everything again so it's beautiful okay so we're going to put jail on this using our rogue jail stuff no keep dokey way don't have uh gonna pull out this stuff look at all this stuff from rome thiss guy so what is that guy this is just a jail back if you really want to attract the ladies like when you're at work bust out this dude you see this little guy it looked when you put your flash there and then you put this crazy thing and you walk around like that you don't have to say a word like everybody would just be like what's your number now that's what it's like having a puppy it was it's like having a puppy oh this puts a poppy in a hole like puppy will not even they will keep the puppy compared to this case this here so very quickly put some jails here grab the little rubber band that's in here robert van is to hold the filter in place okay that filter goes around here now we don't have enough flashes for this setup but we're still gonna have fun with it okay on we're going to use science on dh our knowledge of light to start correcting all the problems that we have the most awesome picture using limited flashes ok we're gonna turn this into a bohemian look so I don't like the white wall what color do you guys want the world to be maybe like a like a brownish or something you want to think okay yeah thank you we're going to do what we can with the other are we going to leave that pops in pops yeah we're gonna leave it yeah maybe the couches you guys like it's eric orange oh my gosh let's totally rocked the orange ok now you realize that when you put something in front of your flash that science off flash get activated which means you're now your flashes now traveling through trance it's transmitting the light through here so you're losing power okay hey bobby would you mind putting this here man I need to like set up something else but you go and there's another one this is not very inside okay beautiful what's in this box okay very nice and what's in this one this is channel can you put that flash in take this posture should be okay there is why I had him change the light is because I went that orange light toby luminary most of the wall so I needed the light source to be bigger had I just put the flash by itself and I don't mean that the warm part of it would be eliminated part of part of it will not okay so we're going to just make the light source bigger on we're going to be able to uh make that wall pretty orange now okay so I'm doing the job of three speed lights with just one just putting that light in the biggest if you sir I have good if you don't have all the tools you need you actually do you have to be more creative with all right for katie she's totally going to be dark this is not gonna work for her so we need to change the light because I only have one light left the small light books and we know the inverse square law on we know that light travels in a vacuum on we know that light picks up whatever color hits what is the best option to light off all three with only one light source because we only have white light left with that lighting from from directly from the front it doesn't matter okay yeah but that's too direct what else further away further away further away yeah we're gonna put this sucker here this is going to eliminate katie now we only have one light source so we're gonna stagger them so they all get hit by lightning you're thinking this is the mentality man this is the thought process so hands I need you to take one step forward katie goes far back and just chill your back against that against that and just we'll just be chilled like yeah look at you you need to be in between them they're your head has to be in between this so the light hits you it hits you you see what I'm saying let me see what you look like beautiful it's already done uh no we'll keep it what's this doing here this is the six hundred this's be so what's in here eh oh okay there's the sea which is what we want way now we need a main light oh we don't have a mean light so we used a big war that is the diffuser that's the main light okay so somebody just holds it pointed at that huge soft box you see what I'm saying opening is gonna spill light into my background let's try this is b okay bisa one sixty four yeah give me them fifty millimeter would you please fifty prime is right here right here take this one let me have I mean a thirty five actually but let me see if this works okay oh roberta can we move the lamp behind hans his head when we know what move that red lamp from behind hans his head yes okay guys the main light I usually put it on on group a the feel light I usually put it in group b and especially about fifty per cent of the light output as group a and group c can be whatever you needed to be to illuminate that background and that's going to be on group c because it's a background like so are huge light here is going to be a background like that see that's gonna be our b I'm the one that's pointing towards that is going to be our a ok so it's gonna be remain like okay when I go to my flash eddings make sure that they're all flash functions endings they're all going to be on manual I have group c now is going to be on manual on which one see the background like all we're doing is changing the room toe a very orangy feel without changing the white balance on them they're being eliminated by fifty two hundred k that was being eliminated by a much more tungsten light source okay if we had another light I would put another one in that direction and make it all red okay so roberto both of the flashes are facing the kickback both of the flashes are facing the kickback in the in the soft boxes they're facing straight on I think that's a good question yeah so they're facing that reflective you okay all right this is going this way boom this is not going to fire sixty fourth sees one fourth let's see what this looks like a little movement water bottling things quick test bam fire that scene oh man that's gorgeous it's like a photo they're pretty cool right every single person is illuminated beautifully every single person is now let's see we have any of you see any problems we can try to fix were you pointing that flash stores of all right that perfect do you see any problems the back is really around now pretty blown out with okay beautiful so we're going that's flash see so we're going to go toe external speed I control flash function settings and we're going teo turn down see two one thirty seconds because I did that I'm going to uh yeah that should work so flash you're the one who's too overpowering the light is coming out of bobby's flash is a and I think it's too powerful mrs b being so we're gonna go toby and we're going to bring it down to one twenty eight cents that was so sure this is let's put this one in aden group group a okay so non group a functions innings we're gonna go to group a we're going to bring it down to one sixty fourth so you can bounce that off I was going to give you more softer light the whiteboard or the wall the one because of the nature of the way light behaves because it's going to reflect on the sun is going up sources in a bounce him okay one more time just quick quick one two three okay on dh I think we have a pretty good fix on the atlanta side it's really low so that we're too dark on katie they're pretty cool no I feel like I feel like I want to make this more like reddish or whatever like I feel like it's starting to go but it's just not quite there yet so why don't we when we bust out this one now we're going to create a problem but we're going to fix it so we're gonna put red light on that wall we're gonna lose one flash but because we know the science of life we're gonna be able to fix it no problem ok so to you and others have read somewhere in their weapons ready and look what he says have stopped lost three and a half okay so here you go bobby can we put this on that one please liberta a couple people want to know how do you make the master not fire that's important because if you if that fires your ruins your whole mood if you have what you want there's a button there if you have the six hundred e x artie flesh if you go tome anyone there's ah option that says you want the master to flyer fire or not fire if you put it to not fire the flash goes from being a speed like to just being a transmitter if you say fire then it's going to be a transmitter on dh speed like okay in this case because we're losing one light to the background we're going to have to get really creative with light which is no problem because we know how light works you see so no problem at all nai katie you're not worried right you look very not worried right now which is good you feel that you have faith you know so roberto's is your idea to take that be light off of katie and use it on the background yeah okay and then I'm going to get very creative with how I bounce the light off the walls to get or offering watch you see because the thing is it really comes down to the behavior of light on dh once you see what we're going to do you'll see hato comes to kind of comes together for awesome creativity now right now we're just messing around at a real job you would have a navy and draw it out set it up until your clients to come in okay so from any more questions when you guys you guys want to discuss a little bit while we wait for that soft books let's look at the internet and see what they have to after this we're gonna I'm gonna go over my slideshow and I wantto tio I have to stay here I'll go to my slideshow and I want to show you guys some thought process photos that I took for the last part of the workshop she can I d of how the process works and how fast you'd do it it's already thank you bobby can we put turn that to point towards that well so we need to make that taller I'm pointed down just there yeah well that was like one inch higher it okay there we go I'm always doing that roberto so we need we need to figure out way lost two flashes we lost we're gonna lose down one this one we're going to actually turn down to illuminate we're going to need a couple of more people to help me one more person to help their reflected right here that wall is too far away so that light source even wants to bounce light toe that light source it's so far away is goingto shine all that light and spill it all over the wall and is gonna ruin a red and orange but if I point the flash towards this light source it's a lot closer and I can't control it so it makes sense so we're not doing this anymore we're doing this okay this will take care of it so all right bobby that's goodman this go here on this point this right out here and they were gonna point it say we have to be careful here so we want that's going on there this flash will illuminate hands and alana and then we have nothing for katie so the next one is we're going to bounce this we're going to turn it to the left to bounce against what was your name he'll bounce against alex is face on he's going to hit katie okay you know what let's put that on alex there are can somebody hold this I want you to point this right at katie flash comes on I'm gonna have this fire now I am going to zoom the head to not break the light so often I'm going to assume it to one thirty five or wanna fight all right ready guys what's your western number on that group and this was group what this one inside there it's okay it's b remember we lost three stops almost three stops of light so we're going to bring that we're going to flash we're going to make that a little brighter so it's a p r c yeah this one is okay I'm actually gonna assume this to two hundred millimeters to hit that and then that's gonna hit katie all of that just for katie see katie how special you are see was that you just pointed right this has to go full and it's gonna go and then we have a full on it looks good there and hopefully this works we should have some pretty cool everything okay we're gonna go higher on that this way thiss way okay ready one two three film oh yeah take a look at this this is not the right one look at the next one here starts to look pretty vintage okay now watch this guys let's turn this off watch this this is the difference between and okay miss go ahead and you'll show that let's compare the two let's compare look at that now let's go to tl on this flash turn up everything at zero and is going to just give you a right exposure flat there will be nothing special about it even though you're all special you guys but they're lighting just let's put that one not okay and then this compared to the vintage one not the last one not a second to last but third to last yeah I can assure you with some editing and all that that photo on the left could be very very very beautiful very vintage she looking very nice look at the balance off the orange and the red on katie but look at the light is them is hitting them pretty pretty well balanced had I not had a hot tub you read she would be pure red right so we have master again change the little my settings we'll try that master is that light green and what did I say because of that white is not there anymore that red spilled all over her and look at the difference pretty incredible how cracked how predictable it wass right that red light spilled all over katie because we didn't have that whiteboard that whiteboard is what saved her color balance because photons pick up the light that they hit so yeah um it's hard to understand all that but it's worth the time teo can we put that one and compare it to the other one that let me she is compared the other one that looked vintage e right area yeah what do you think pretty predictable right without the white card you bounced red light on katie any questions that you guys where is the remote for this thing just a review question roberto from asthma matthews I know you're talking about the joes and how do you compensate for the stops you lose you just power up power yeah I changed it from one one twenty eight to one thirty two okay because of the three stops loss and that is that the only way that you would compensate you don't have to do it that way because if you bring down your s o sorry if you bring up today so it will be a universal change because we're trying to control one light at a time we need to make a loan changes that are that are alone separated by themselves okay thank you oh yeah and just to kind of summarize the section could you for steve s summarize the set up again just kind of go through if you look at the original photo that I took with my t t o flash you can see which was flat and only there was nothing special about it we brought the vintage out of this for this looks very vintage e so we just painted it with better light to compliment a vintage feel it took a little bit off off thinking for example the war had to be done with a bigger light source to illuminate a more evenly instead of just a single speed light you saw what I did with a single spell it when I was photographing hands and katie by themselves it was just a little tiny beam remember that so you eliminate the wall we needed to have a longer a bigger space I also needed to put the lights farther away from that wall because of the inverse square law I knew that if I separate that life in the war more of the light will be split will be late even me how'd I put that light inches from that wall then the first five inches from that will will be read and then the rest will not be you were just going to go back to white because of the fall off on I put my main light in group a might feel light in groupie on my background night in group c in this case I have to bracken and lights andi I decided to use my master flash is an actual firing device on we used sarah on we used a whiteboard toe basically have those photons pick up that white and give katie a nice good look tow her instead of a red look which is nothing wrong with that is just not what we were going for okay all the uh changes that we made where local localised changes if we would have changed their aperture r shutter speed or are sort of aperture or our isa or distance the picture would have been quite different so uh susan if I want to show something on my computer but it's not unlike you know how could I do that we'll get that arrange I just want to finish with something I know a lot of people had questions about reception lighting with camera with speed lights on I want to go over someone before I leave okay but yeah let's take that picture quick I'm going to change my s o from twelve fifty two four hundred and it's going to be a universal change it would all be down okay now get this so we basically just have just looks darker overall here's another one real quick change two f sixteen and you can see because I changed the opportunities manual the light didn't make it so we click on the last photo this universal changes was here all the lights changed instead of individual ones okay okay let's see what you can do it we're not gonna be able to totally okay totally okay okay wei have time for another creative shot our way have ten minutes that's it what do you want to dio you guys want to see what happens if you put the background flashing in t ell if you do that it was going to expose for normal and it's a good throw off that color or why don't we why don't we add a separation light on alana let's try that so we can make the light bsf be a separation like instead of a background light okay so you see what is that flash that long one by itself okay this one's group a okay let's put that right behind the lana can you just kind of like hiding it's okay we're gonna go right behind alana picture phrase can't see here highlight external be like control flash function savings that was a right I'm gonna turn into a t t l but leave the other one's in manual ok it should work pretty well let me see what kind of what's her back look like he's got some white skin with a black dress that's going average it out if she had a full black dress we would that probably will not work okay could I see that and just alana should be pretty cool it with her background light and it didn't work well because off her combination of alfred take a look at that now you see how there's still too much ambient light going on in the back when I change my shutter speed to make the champion dark or something yeah I was going to ask you what would you do to make the orange and red more intense do something somebody much my shutter speed went from ninety to one eighty now we fixed it but it's a little too dark now let's put out that light on alana let's make it a lot brighter so that's a right function savings by the ways it's what I do it with my manikins you just start and you write them so group is going into manual flash and I'm gonna put out a full power watch watch what happens okay and you point that down towards her dress more like instead of like from the bottom from underneath and just kind of yeah on hide hide it from the view you just our stores like her what her dress meets her skin one two three absolute well too crazy let's bring it closer to her to her like almost touching her there you go already one two three and it's like that flash by itself is like overpowering everything so universal changes one two three and see just changing the so and changing the aperture you start to really change the way that for the looser than having to change the flash out for too much so you have all those options you see how that those other flashes and not really were doing anything anymore it's because the other light is reflecting that white light from alana's back all the way into the wall is that that's firing right yeah this point it on you go up and put it right behind her head I'm gonna lower that power just by a little bit flash duncan settings when I got away and I want to go to one over fourth one fourth hour now you can really see the difference the separation light I said now we have hands in total darkness so for killing mysterious you see that and some of the light is actually spinning is spilling into our indicated there so anyway let's take some questions I guess and then we'll go from there we took a lot of cool photos off all of you guys we tried to make this into a vintage situation using our speed lies we didn't have enough speed let's but we still can't make it work on we've got over a lot today starting from light at the science behind it to some understandings of what the flash and how it works with the groups with wireless set ups with we really went over to tea on manual on we really went over how for manual you have to keep track of four things that can change fast flash output one is your exposure one is your aperture one is your shutter speed one insurer yes oh I'm sorry notarized your shutter speed aperture I s o distance and the power from your flesh we also talked about how when light hits an object that a photon of light has three options option a the lie will transmit through the object giving you like a distorted version ofthe whatever it wass option b that photon can be absorbed by that material like styrofoam which is why people like you like it because it gives you that super soft light option c it could be completely reflected andi that's the ultimate reflection is a mere on the opposite of that will be black velvet it would be like well just suck it all out we used a black flag for hands toe craft his cheeks and make it look like a real heavy duty studio portrait but I was just thinking with one spear light on your camera on a lot of knowledge of light right on then we went over multiple flash I mean single fly shops and return possibilities you could be with thio then we did single flash with manu there we did two flashes with hands and katie appear in the wall to flash up one for the background one for them we exposed hands with split lighting we put a reflector has failed to make it up to split on we pointed the light horse katie to fill up her face with like that was a james bond picture then we added a background red light to kind of contrast with a great background and give it that volume and that death okay third and last we did multiple light setups three four four speed less at the same time all on manual on we controlled each pete light individually and we also at the end demonstrated how I s so changes can be made universal changes on then finally I put a flashing tl I pointed straight at that straight at them and it flattened the whole picture totally ruining it which is why detailed socks unless you need speed so remember this if you need speed on reliability tt lf your friend if you need control and creativity manu is going to be your friend is going to go to um there's a heck of a lot more to go on flash but that's what you have five days off lighting week five places for these five days five days of lighting week I encourage your guys to get yourself a manager I'm not joking on dh by it on the internet you khun highly shift costs like two hundred bucks the best two hundred bucks you ever spent put it on your house by some of these jails from rogue and start writing down everything you can do changes put the maybe get a male and a female I really just rocket remember that if you do all this and you do not write it down on the no pet you're basically going to forget in about three to four days okay write it down with your hand no with a computer with your head on then when you do a practice session don't practice everything in one session one thing at a time so one session can be I'm going to practice one light set up that picture of han so we took when he was sitting on the couch turned out really nice because I've done this a million times with a mannequin it's not because I was special it's not because I'm a genius he just because I have a mannequin and I use it that's it

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Ratings and Reviews

Vincent Duke
 

I am pretty new to Creative Live and this is my first purchase so for me I am loving this! So many good gems of information and having some of the repeated content from different speakers with different perspectives really helps drill in these concepts. I say for anyone who's looking for an great all around drill it into your head lighting bootcamp this is a winner. But if you're like the others here and have purchased videos from these authors before then you will probably want to look elsewhere as this is a bundle of highlights from previous sessions on lighting.

Camerosity
 

If you’re just starting out with photographic lighting (especially studio lighting), this set is a steal. I already had the set by Sue Bryce and Felix Kunze, and I’ve bought all of Joel Grimes’ tutorials. Since I’ve watched them recently, I didn’t watch their videos again. If you’re into commercial photography OR darker moods and low-key lighting, anything by Joel Grimes is well worth buying and watching. If you’re into glamour portraiture, everything by Sue Bryce is worth buying and watching (although I haven’t been able to acquire all of her tutorials yet). However, the videos by Sue and Felix are not where I would begin. The two videos by Joel Grimes in this set cover aspects of lighting that aren’t often discussed. However, most of his knowledge of lighting (from his other sets) isn’t covered in this set. If you’re thinking about going into commercial photography, Zack Arias’ discussion of how to gear up to open a commercial studio is a must-see (as are Joel Grimes’ two sets on commercial photography, neither of which is represented in this bundle). I agree with virtually everything Zack said. Although there are a couple of areas where I might have gone a bit deeper than he did in this video, it’s a much-needed reality check – with great advice before you start spending money on equipment to start a photography business – and he gives a LOT of great advice. While his lighting style and mine are very different, his thoughts on equipment for a startup photography studio (or just beginning to learn studio lighting) are right on target. (Zack’s and Joel’s videos on the business of commercial photography cover different areas, and there is very little overlap between them.) One of the reasons why I bought this set was the lighting wisdom of Tony Corbell. Tony is the closest thing to the late Dean Collins at this time (I have all of Dean’s videos on VHS tapes AND DVDs), and Tony holds nothing back. Great stuff! Joey L covers material that I’ve seen covered in many other tutorials (on CreativeLive and elsewhere), BUT he gives a MUCH clearer explanation of why he does certain things than I’ve seen elsewhere. For example, he gives more information about feathering light than I’ve ever seen in a video, and few people besides Joey and Joel Grimes (but not in Joel’s videos in this set) give as good an explanation of WHY they’re changing the position of a light by two inches. Clay Blackmore was a protégé of the late Monte Zucker, and he’s as close as we can get to learning from Monte (aka the master) these days. I have Monte’s VHS tapes, but they’re worn out, and there’s nothing to play them on. While they apparently were also issued as DVDs, the sites I’ve found that are supposed to have them all lead to 404 (page not found) errors. Clay covers both posing and lighting – and how to fit the lighting to the pose – in great detail. I haven’t watched any of the videos on speedlights. I still have about a dozen Vivitar 283’s, 285 HV’s and 4600’s that I used in combination during my photojournalism years (back in the film days), but you’re much more likely to see me lugging 1,000-watt second strobes outdoors to overpower the sun than using speedlights in studio (or on location) these days. I’ve seen some of Roberto Valenzuela’s work and tutorials, and I’d say he is the Joe McNally or David Hobby of wedding photography at this point in time. He knows his stuff. One or two of the videos are slightly dated in terms of the equipment being used, but that doesn’t make the information about lighting less valuable. Equipment may change, but the principles of lighting, the things that determine the quality of light, and the elements of “good lighting” have changed very little if at all since the days of the Dutch Old Masters painters. There’s a lot of great lighting information in this bundle for the price.

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