Original subtitles

So we've talked about reflectors in general, now

I want to be a bit more specific

on a particular device that I'm very proud

of because I actually invented it.

Now some people that may have come up

with this idea before maybe made their own

makeshift mega reflector 360s, but I actually had

the foresight to actually create it and make

it a product and it's now sold all

over the world and I'm very proud of

that.

And what is it?

Well we've already talked about a five-in

-one reflector, so it's basically depending on what

size you get, but let's say you've got

a 40 inch diameter reflector and usually it's

a five-in-one where you basically have

black on one side, white on the other,

you unzip it, you have got silver and

you've got gold and then you've got the

diffuser.

Now what happens if you added a hole

in the reflector?

And I know it sounds crazy but why

would you want a hole in a reflector?

Well sometimes when you hold a reflector that's

so big you can hardly see what's happening

with the light on the subject, it's very

awkward.

And you want to be where that is

to be able to see what's going on

and that's very tough.

Sometimes you have an assistant with small wingspan

and they can't see anything, it's very, very

tough to handle.

So the charm of the Omega Reflector 360

is that because it has a hole in

it, let me show you now the diverse

way, like the very unique way that this

actually fits.

First of all, let's show you a photograph

of Rainey.

She's backlit with the sun.

Okay, so I can't really get the exposure

perfect because of course we've got sunlight on

the back of her head.

If I expose for her too much, as

in I get the detail that I want

in her skin, then we're going to get

the wrong exposure on her hair and vice

versa, it's going to be a little bit

of an issue.

The minute I put the Omega Reflector up

to her face, then now what's happening is

we've got one light source being the sun

reflect off the reflector and deflect back on

her face, giving us this sort of beautiful

flood of light.

So we're ricocheting sort of quite evenly right

around, again if we liken light to water,

it's coming right behind her, hitting it and

then flooding back and ricocheting back on her

face.

And what we get is a pretty incredible

stunning result because the light is, the water

so to speak, is hitting her entire face.

We've got these incredible catch lights in her

eyes and if you go closer, it's just

exquisite, just absolutely beautiful.

Again, now let's see with maybe a couple.

So now you've got a couple, you've got

back lighting and the minute I put that

reflector up, this is no retouching on this

behind the scenes photograph, you can see the

glow of light on their faces and it's

just simply exquisite.

It's one of those shots that I would

do usually at the start of every shoot

or on location shoot because brides just feel

amazing in it.

You think about what's been popularised these days,

people see ring lights, taking selfies and makeup

artists using ring lights and everything like that.

So that kind of light is very common

and has come into the consumer, call it

visual vernacular, like they understand what that kind

of lighting does.

It wraps around and makes everyone look really

pretty and beautiful.

So you might say, all right, well the

Omega reflector is a 15 in 1, you've

got the normal 5 in 1 use and

now that we've got the mini reflectors and

we can Velcro them off, then what does

that do?

How can we use those mini reflectors?

As in I call them the hole in

the donut, I love that.

So I leave the main unit behind, now

I have a mini reflector.

The cool thing is that I can actually

illuminate the face and not the body.

So in this case, I've got our model

here with no, it's open shade, you can

see that the lighting is not that directional,

it's open shade, it's not that great.

There's no mini reflector, there's nothing on him

on the left hand side.

With this one, now you see even a

bigger catch light in his eyes because there's

a white mini reflector illuminating his face but

not his body.

Watch what happens when we get from a

white mini reflector to a silver.

You can see how much more contrasty it

is.

He's actually quite struggling to keep his eyes

open because now we're dealing with a very

small light source and we said in earlier

segments that a small light source is very

contrasty, sharper shadows, sharper highlights as in it's

deflecting water off this reflector and it's stainless

steel so to speak and then giving us

that sharper contrast.

Watch what happens when we go from silver

to gold.

Well you can see the fact that there's

a warmer tone more on the right than

there is the left.

There's the same amount of contrast, it just

depends on what look you want to go

for.

Now let's look at the groom here in

open shade.

Now let's look at him actually with a

black cutter as in cutting away light with

a mini reflector.

What that does, even though that we're in

open shade, the minute you bring something close

to the groom's face, especially black, it's going

to cut away light because the light source

now is open shade, it's just all the

light in front of him.

There is a direction, it's usually up there,

so his chin is up a little bit

but then we bring that black side up

and then we cut away and that's how

we get literally from nothing to a bit

more depth and dimension or we call it

modelling of the face.

Now let's have a look at this.

So for example we've got Rainy here in

full sun, she's struggling to keep her eyes

open, there's no diffuser, there's no nothing.

You've heard me say it, I love shooting

in the sun, it's not a problem but

if you want a softer look, something a

little bit prettier, then if you open up

the Omega reflector, what's inside is the diffuser.

So you put the diffuser over her and

you shoot nice and close and there's a

huge difference between that and that.

Okay, beautiful.

Also what else can we do with this?

Well if you have the reflector on the

black side and you basically want to create

shapes and some really interesting sort of designs

on a person's face or a particular environment,

you can actually allow the sun to travel

right through the hole of the reflector and

in this case this is full sun, she's

just closing her eyes, but in this case

I've got the black side of the reflector

without the hole in the donut so to

speak, creating that beautiful luxurious sort of curvaceous

sort of shape around her eyes and this

is a behind the scenes shot as you

can see it there as well.

So it actually is a very very versatile

tool that has become a staple among many

photographers, so check it out.

Alright, so this one here in particular, this

is just full sun and then you can

see how the sun, the highlight on her

face, the highlight on her bust, it's very

very bright.

What happens if I wanted a bit more

detail in her dress but wanted full sun

on her Well no problem, we can actually

just use the diffuser part of the Omega

reflector, take the hole out so now we

have the diffused, the full sunlight coming through

the diffuser and then we've got the actual

light travelling through the translucent diffuser giving us

sort of some light, some softer light that

we're exposing for this rather than getting that

sort of that deep contrast that we had

before.

Can you shoot multiple people with it and

can you shoot it without an assistant?

Well of course you can, it's simply having

either a wider angle lens, in this case

we've simply just got a reflector arm and

you can just use one light source, so

in this case we've got the sunlight behind

these two girls, it actually hits the back

of them, hits the actual reflector and then

goes back on them for that beautiful look.

Okay, so now let's look at sunlight coming

through a window, this is not retouched, this

is just straight out of camera, light coming

through a window and typically I would have

for this shot maybe got her to look

out towards the sun, maybe eyes down or

anything like that, but what I do is

I actually put the actual diffuser next to

the window and I diffuse her and now

we've got this beautiful soft box, in other

words we're filtering the strong, harsh, contrasty, powerful

light through this strainer, let's call it, or

a sponge, whatever metaphor that works for you

and now we're softening and spreading and broadening

that light.

Now how did I get that diffuser on

the wall without an assistant?

Well the cool thing is with the Omega

Reflector you actually have a suction cup with

a hook that you can attach to a

piece of glass, so in this case included

in the Omega Reflector, the suction cup goes

in the glass, you pull it down, you

hang the actual reflector and that's how we

get that beautiful diffused look as you can

see in the unretouched behind-the-scenes photograph

here of Rainy.

All right, well how else can we use

it?

Well once you understand those various ways that

we can use it other than the typical

way you use a reflector that we showed

you in the earlier segment just talking about

reflectors in general, in this case I've got

the sunlight hitting the back of the cushion

here, I'm hitting the actual reflector and I'm

shooting through the hole to get this look.

So it works out to be a very

beautiful soft quality of light and it's, I

often liken the shooting through the Omega Reflector

as combining the effects of a beauty dish

and a ring light with the natural nature

of a reflector.

So we've got a reflector, ring light and

a beauty dish sort of practically all in

one but it ends up making skin look

absolutely flawless and how did I do it?

Well there's the unretouched behind-the-scenes photograph,

sun pretty much pouring through the window, hitting

the reflector, me shooting back through it and

then that's how you get that beautiful quality

of light.

So it's a very, very easy and affordable

way to get into some beautiful lighting perhaps

other than what's existing around you.

In this case in that same room, in

fact our bedroom, the sunlight was actually hitting

the ground and I just posed Jamalette here,

I posed Jamalette actually lying down and we've

got a pretty nice quality of light there

as well but then I just simply use

a diffuser on her and she just looks

incredible and that was simply diffusing the light

through this translucent diffuser and then now we

get that beautiful glow of light which absolutely

looks amazing.

So remember the Omega Reflector is awesome, this

shot it looks like a complex setup, arguably

probably two or three light sources, in many

ways it sort of is because we've got

the sunlight from behind, hairlight, backlight, it hits

the reflector, the reflection in her eyes it

makes it look like two light sources, basically

it's her head blocking away the light coming

from to make a complete ring.

So then if you want to see how

that was done, I got Melissa to just

take off a couple of leaves from one

of our plants, that added a bit of

texture, we've got the reflector on an arm

so it can be just used automatically with

no human being involved, light hits the back

of her, I shoot through that hole and

then I get that beautiful look and feel.

Now can you use this reflector, let's say

with a strobe, could that could that work?

Well of course it can.

This shot was taken with one strobe with

a big softbox, so it was a five

foot octabox and it was right behind her,

she goes right up against it and of

course now I've got a complete white background

which is beautiful, but then if I put

a white reflector in front of her, the

light's going to flood the back of her,

give her that beautiful little edge light that

we talked about, hit the reflector, go back

on her face and now we've got that

edge light which is going to be brighter

than what reflects, of course it is, but

you get this incredible fashionable look and incredible

catch lights which mirror the shape of the

pupil and so on.

And depending on the way you turn the

face and everything like that, we get this

gorgeous quality of light, again it's just coming

from right behind her, it's giving us that

beautiful edge light, that little tickle of light

on her bust.

I love the fact that it's all on

the nose rather than just the tip because

then that will feel like a mistake and

again that edge light's going to be brighter

than your, you know, what ends up being

that main directional light from the front, but

you can just get a gorgeous feel and

quality.

Now what I ended up doing, the very

first test shoot that I did with the

Omega Reflector was actually photographing a girl with

freckles.

So I wanted basically freckles to emulate, let's

say damaged skin or pimples or something like

that.

Now I love freckles so don't get me

wrong, this is not about being personal to

this girl or anything like that, I chose

her deliberately to emulate blemishes of skin and

how the Omega Reflector would correct that in

camera with no Photoshop.

So with this case, so all we simply

basically have here is the light behind her,

the Reflector's way, way, way, way away from

her, so you get in to see it's

quite flat, there's not much direction, but the

minute I put the Reflector up, it looks,

she looks amazing, there's no retouching done whatsoever

in this particular photograph.

In this next one, I want to show

you what we did is we actually got

a flash from behind her, one speed light

hits the back of her head, hits the

Reflector, goes back on her face, and then

again we get that particular look.

So that gives you an idea of exactly

how we did it.

Now at night we ended up actually getting

hair and makeup done, so we got makeup

on her face, and we thought how do

we use this with flash at night and

then with skin with makeup.

So we isolated this background, this is like

somewhat of a Christmas lights in a tree

in this building, we had one speed light

hitting the back of her, hitting the Reflector,

going back on her face, and then I

get this look.

So you can see the actual, the hole

in there, and then that bottom part of

that, the catch lights in her eyes is

actually her, so her head fits within that

hole, so to speak, of that particular, that

catch light, but you can see again this

is not retouched, there's all hair on her

face, but she had some makeup done and

that's why her skin looks a little bit

cleaner.

Probably one of the best examples I can

show you regarding the Omega Reflector is this

guys.

So here we have Rainy, beautiful girl that

you've seen on previous shots here in this

segment, that this is basically her in our

pool in the backyard here, and we've got

the sun behind her.

The problem is I want the richness of

this blue tone come out, but if I

expose for her face this is going to

go whiter, lighter.

If I expose for that highlight this is

going to go darker, well what do I

do?

Well I simply use the Omega Reflector.

I have the Omega Reflector with the hole

in between her and me, I have the

sun behind her, and then now we get

these beautiful photographs of her in the pool.

Now how did I do it?

This is the behind the scenes, again no

retouching on these, we've got the light hitting

the back of her, I'm shooting through the

hole, but that shows you what it is.

Now for those of you who are very

doubtful, who are probably doubting me and saying

well Jerry these are all retouched, well some

of the actual final shots are retouched, made

more liquefied than anything else because of the

nature of her swimsuit and things like that.

The behind the scenes ones are straight from

the camera, I wouldn't retouch those.

So what I thought I would do is

actually show you a screen capture of the

raw file.

That is the raw file, that's the NEF

file and as you can see, there's a

bit of hair that I retouched on the

side, you can see the swimsuit on her

bust just sort of came out a little

bit, so we pushed that in afterwards, but

that is the quality of light that we

get from the Omega Reflector.

So guys hope you enjoyed that, please don't

think this is as a glorified promotion, I

simply invented a product that I wish that

was out there and it just wasn't, and

you could certainly emulate this by literally cutting

a hole in your own reflector, but you

don't get the advantage of all the homework

that I did with the diameter, the hole,

the actual mini reflectors that can be used

independent of itself, but check it out, it's

really affordable and an easy way to get

great qualities of light, so easy at your

fingertips.

So enjoy guys.