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Create Great Images with One Light

Create Great Images with One Light

Posted by Broadway Camera on 2013-10-31

As an amateur photographer or a professional starting out in their photographic career, you may not have access to studio lighting or the budget for a set of strobe lighting. During my photographic studies, one of my instructors made a point of showing us that you do not always need expensive studio strobes to create images that look like they were shot with a full set of flashes. Yes, using studio lighting is much easier, takes less effort and time to get the desired effect, but if your budget does not allow for the lights, there are a few things you can do to create great images with one light.

I took this photo in a studio on a black background with my camera on a tripod. I turned off the lights in the studio so I could have a much longer shutter speed. My Nikon flash was set to a lower power setting so I could fire it a couple times in one exposure without overexposing any areas of the guitar. It took me more than a few tries to get the look I wanted, and I had to blend multiple images together in Photoshop create the desired effect.


Paint with Light: This term is usually associated with trails of light streaking around an image, or words written with a flash light using a long exposure. You can also use a similar technique for photographing products, buildings, cars, pretty much anything that doesn’t move using one off camera flash. While the camera is on a tripod, set a shutter speed that will give you enough time to fire the flash multiple times around the object or space you are photographing lighting it from the angles you want. This is not a perfect science so you will have to check after each photo to see where you need to add or change. You may have to take multiple photos with the flash at different power settings depending on the look you are going for. If you are taking multiple exposures, you will need to combine the photos in a photo editing software of your choice.

Light Tent: If you are taking photos of a smaller object on a white background, probably the simplest and inexpensive way to get evenly lit photos is to use a light tent. Made of translucent material, the light tent will diffuse harsh direct light and create a large even light source for your photos.

Bounce Flash: To create a nice large even light source with just an off camera flash, rotate the head of the flash toward any wall, ceiling, or white surface to bounce the light from your flash off of. This will give a nice even light to your photo, especially in situations where there is very little or poor quality ambient light.

Use a Reflector: When shooting portraits with one flash, it is difficult to fill in some of the shadow areas with light that the one flash cannot simply do. Hold a reflector where you would have placed your second flash and use it to bounce light back into your photo, lightening up some of the shadows and creating more of a dynamic light on your subject.

Having the proper gear for the job or project you are working on will always make it easier and your work more efficient, but the above tips may be useful when the right gear just isn’t available to you. There are many different ways to create an image and the process doesn’t matter. What matters is the outcome of your efforts shown in your photographs.

This photo was taken using one Nikon flash fired by a wireless flash trigger attached to the camera. I set my shutter speed to its fastest flash sync speed so I could take out all of the ambient light around the basketball court. In the first photo, I lit the basketball from above with the flash and used a reflector to bounce the light on the underside of the ball. For the second and third frames, I lit either side of the basketball hoop with a flash on a boom arm. After I was satisfied with the photos I had taken and needed, I combined them in Photoshop using layer masks and making small tweaks to get the desired effect.


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Photos and written by Corey Bradder