All language subtitles for 08. Reflectors and flags.mp4

You should never underestimate the
power of reflectors for your photography.

They are one of the most important
accessories that I can recommend.

Now let's take a look at some of the
common ones before we move on to some

of my home made ones.

This

is a standard

pop open laster, like silver reflector,
on one side,

white reflector on the other side.

Now you can get these reflectors

in gold

and white as well as the silver and
white version.

And you can also get them in a variety
of different sizes, from small discs or

small triangles that can fit in your
camera bag up to this larger size.

But even this larger size folds up to
quite a compact size, which makes it

great for taking out on location,
working with natural light, or working

with studio lighting, and bouncing it
into these reflectors.

So that's one that you may have seen
before and be familiar with.

The next one is this try reflector.

Now a tri reflector is very useful in a
studio environment.

You put your model in front of the tri
reflector,

and if you're using lighting, like a
beauty dish or a paralite or something

coming from the top front, you can
bounce that light into this reflector

panel, up into the shadows under the
chin.

And you can also angle

the side reflectors so that they catch
some light to illuminate the sides of

the face.

And you can adjust the intensity

by adjusting the positions of the try
reflector.

You can also adjust the intensity by
angling and raising or tilting the tri

reflector itself.

So in a studio environment, for beauty
images, this is one of my favorite reflectors.

And you'll see us using this reflector
many, many times on our beauty lighting demonstrations.

The tri reflector also folds up nice
and compact and disconnects from the

lighting stand.

So you can store it away.

As you can see here it's just attached
to a standard lighting stand.

Now let's move on to other forms of
reflectors that I use.

Well.

In product photography, I often use
mirrors.

These are acrylic

mirrors so that they don't

break.

We don't want any bad luck in the
studio, although we break lots of

things regularly.

The acrylic mirrors are fantastic
because they're just a perfect mirrored

surface.

But they're made of plastic, and that
means you can bend them.

You can do all sorts with them.

They're lightweight.

So if you're using clamps or magic arms
to angle them and hold them.

They're nice and light as well.

These can be particularly useful for
beauty shots, for angling one of your

studio lights, bouncing a little bit of
a catchlight onto your model

by the same token.

You would also use reflectors in plain
white, this size as well.

And the most common material that I use
for that

is what I call

foam board.

It may go by different brand names, but
essentially it's got a very

four or five millimeter thick layer of
foam, the same sort of foam that you

get on food cartons,

and then it's covered with a surface of
paper or card in a pure white.

It's very, very light, but it's
actually quite rigid.

So it's a very good reflector.

An assistant can hold it, or you can
bracket it.

You can use the cocoa clamps and attach
it onto

an arm as well to grip it in position.

So these sheets are carved, or foam
card foamboard are fantastic.

They come in many different sizes, so
even up to much, much bigger sizes, and

actually bigger than this.

So you can use these

four, much

larger full length work if you want to,
because they come in bigger sheet sizes

than that.

However for full length work.

There is something else that you'll
find useful.

Let me just pop those down.

And that is what we call polyboards.

Now, polyboards are insulating poly
styrene that's used in building house

projects for lining walls, lining
floors.

And this is available from builders,
merchants and suppliers.

The polyboards

usually actually come in an eight foot
by four foot size.

Sometimes I cut them down a little bit
if they're a little bit too big for

storage.

And they make excellent reflectors.

They're very rigid.

And you can build

v flats, or what we call corners.

So you can put two polyboards together
and illuminate into them.

So we'll be demonstrating

lighting using polyboards as well.

The other advantage with the polyboards
is that you can paint them.

And as you see with this one it's
painted black on one side.

So you can actually use them as a
negative fill to reduce light

down a full length shot, or to create
areas to shade light flagging, like

blanking light out.

So painting them black.

Remember, paint them with water based
emulsion paint,

because if you paint them with

spirit based paint, then it may cause
the polystarine to melt.

So polyboards are a fantastic accessory
to any studio, whether it's a portrait

studio, product photography studio.

One of the things you will need,
though, is a supporting stand to hold

the polyboard.

Now, these are just metal stands that
I've had made at my local metal shop.

I've seen photographers using
bikestands.

I've seen photographers using
elbrackets screwed

into blocks.

There's all sorts of ways of making
something vertical that's the right

width for a polyboard.

But these I had made up because they're
nice and heavy, and they give us good

support.

So your local metal shop can make
something up for you if necessary.

Now, other useful reflectors I spoke
about mirrors.

But another one that I really like is
polished metal.

The polished metal sheets are, again,
they're rigid, but they're light, but

they're also bendable.

So you can actually focus light off
them if necessary.

You can get them into more awkward
positions because they twist and bend.

So again, you can clamp them onto your
grip arms with the cockle clamps and

twist and bend them to suits.

Or I use this regularly for product
photography.

Another form of white reflector that
you can purchase

if you want something that's a little
bit heavier and a little bit more rigid

than the phone board.

Is this, I think there's one called
fomex, which is like a polyurifhane

plastic typeboard,

commonly used by signwriting and sign
maker companies.

So you can pick this up quite cost
effectively.

And it's fairly rigid, fairly strong, a
little bit heavier than the phone

board, but again, makes a great
reflector.

Other reflectors that a very simple is
colored card.

I use colored card

for reflecting colored light on two
product shots.

You can get gloss, blue, you can get
silver, you can get gold, you can get

reds, greens, all sorts of colors.

You get these from art shops.

These cards are fantastic for adding
little catchlights of colors into the shot.

Now, while we're on the subject of
reflectors,

I touched on it briefly

with the

large polyboard, the black side.

One of the things that we need to think
about is negative reflection on what we

call negative fill that's, where we're
trying to suck light away, or blank

light out, to

stop light hitting one side of your
model or your subject, so that you

create more shadow and shade on that
side.

And I do that by using the black phone
board.

So this is just like the white foam
board, same material, same core, but

it's covered in a black mat card either
side.

So we can use this to flag lights.

And when we say flag lights, we mean to
create a shadow to create a shade.

Sometimes when you light

a subject or you light an object, the
illumination is good, except there

might be one area that's getting too
much light.

So you can put a flag carefully
positioned on an arm to create a shadow

in one area.

Or you can create stronger shadows
across

faces on models.

As a matter of fact, let's bring up a
couple of shots now to show you

examples of where flags can be used.

So you can see in this example how I've
used strong shadows

across the model,

full creative effect.

And I've created the shadow, in this
case

by using two flags to

create the l shaped shadow running, or
the v shaped shadow running across the

model's forehead and body.

This particular example is actually
from this course.

You'll see me undertaking this chute
later.

And here I used a single flag to create
this shadow across the model's face and

body and also across the background.

I used a similar flag in this shot,
again, just creating a shadow across

the model for creative effect.

So those examples showed you exactly
how you can cut the card

shape.

The card use a combination of cards to
actually create shadows in your shops.

And then finally,

the other

flag, if you like that I have.

Here is what I call the window mask.

Now the window mask is actually

designed, or I make these for my studio
to use as a more effective lens hood to

reduce lens flare.

Often you're working in a studio with
light directed towards you, towards the

camera, and you don't want that light
getting into the lens causing flare as.

It reduces the contrast of the image,
degrades the quality of the picture.

Now the lenshood on your camera is not
always effective at reducing flare if

it's pointing the cameras, pointing
directly towards your lighting.

So what we do is we cut out a mask that
is the same shape as the format of our

camera, so either a 35 millimeter
format, or a medium format

recording sensor shape, if we're using
the media format camera.

And then we position

this mask in front of the lens of the
camera, get it at the right distance to

the point where you cannot see the
mask.

But then you are shielding most of the
light that's coming from your

backlighting and preventing it from
causing flare very easy to make.

Just simply a Stanley or a craft knife
to cut out the shape to match the shape

of the recording medium that you're
working with.

So that covers some of the common
reflectors that we use.

So remember, it's not only about the
last delight reflectors, the pop open

reflectors or the trire reflectors that
you can buy off the shelf.

Many of the reflectors that we use are

actually home made, or

pieces of plastic and metal, or card

or builders merchant materials that
work perfectly well.