This article appeared in the November/December 1999 issue of PT. To purchase this issue and receive this and other valuable articles in this issue, CLICK HERE: Ship within the U.S. | Ship outside the U.S.

November/December 1999

A lamp in a reflector is such an ubiquitous artificial light source that it’s our first thought when considering studio lighting. Its self-contained design is handy and efficiently bright, but this lighting equipment has photographic limitations. Unless it’s removable, the specular/diffuse quality is fixed by the size of the reflector. Reflector size inhibits or prevents use with lightbanks and makes it less efficient to bounce off or through umbrellas—the reflector blocks too much light and gets in the way of centering. In my experience, specular/diffuse modification with a lamp-in-a-reflector is too inhibiting to make it my basic, one-light tool.

As I see it, if you have limited funds, you can’t beat the versatility of a mini-light. Since its size is hardly bigger than the lamp itself, it fits easily into light banks and readily accommodates umbrella use. Its inherently high specularity gives me that light quality option whenever I want it. As a nice bonus, the mini-light is so small it fits in my camera bag, handy as a Swiss Army knife. An umbrella and collapsible light stand will fit easily next to my tripod in its tubular carrying bag.

	Figure 1. A Basic studio-type Light–One brand of quartz mini-light with a white, translucent fabric umbrella attached.
	Figure 2. Diffuse Lighting with a Mini-light and an Umbrella–The “birth” of millefleur beads and the composition of genealogical mementos were lit by a 2¥3-foot lightbank suspended about 3 feet above the tabletop. The colors of the beads were gently, but significantly, enhanced by the reflection of a small mirror positioned close to the camera’s line of sight. Conversely, a small black card “reflected” its void from the camera viewpoint to enable the unblemished capture of the shiny, hand-tinted tintype. Adding local brightness with reflectors and reducing local brightness with shading devices provides significant lighting control.

Why umbrella?
The light bank is the professional photographer’s standard studio lighting tool. Makes sense. Light banks come in a bewildering array of sizes and shapes to slickly illuminate the coolest space-age gadget or the most mouth-watering cuisine. They can put sensual reflections across the sleekest motor vehicle or delicately caress the most enchanting feminine physiognomy. But if you, like me, have a more limited photographic budget than the pros, we need versatility, portability and economy before all else. Furthermore, we don’t have an assistant to wrestle the light bank together and apart when on location.

However, if we pay careful attention to its proper use, we can get nearly equivalent results using an inexpensive, lightweight, collapsible, translucent fabric umbrella. I prefer a white, translucent fabric umbrella to an aluminized one. In my experience, an aluminized umbrella does not give brighter illumination; it merely throws a brighter hot-spot of central illumination that may produce some pictorial advantage, but usually doesn’t.

However, the translucent fabric offers a distinct advantage. When light is directed through it, it can be placed as close to the subject as you wish without poking someone’s eye out. True, the umbrella’s metal ribs degrade the slick, smooth pane of illumination inherent in light banks, but our camera lens’ depth of field usually throws the shadowy degradations on mirrored surfaces out of focus. Another advantage of shining light through an umbrella is that the subject is comfortably shielded from the mini-light’s heat; an especially nice feature with kids.

Safety
Efficient indoor artificial lighting historically required heroic brightness. In the old, old days explosions of magnesium powder rendered even the stout faint-hearted, and always left enough enveloping smoke to make second attempts doubtful. Flashbulbs were much safer, but I still remember being the highlight of Homecoming when I stood up to record the featured entertainment for our school’s newspaper and the 22 flashbulb in my Speed Graphic exploded like a cannon shot.

Don’t think today’s electronic flash is foolproof. It can deliver a lethal electric shock when misused. The heat of a quartz lamp must be respected, too. Always make sure the protective shielding is properly in place and the light stand safely secured. I always route the extension cord under the light’s tripod. This lower center of gravity makes tipping over the light less likely.

				Figure 3. The diffuse quality of a mini-light through a translucent umbrella imparts a nice sense of dimension; light-colored walls add ample ambient light. An extra benefit when using tungsten light vs. flash-on-camera is the opportunity to make exposures quickly, thus having more chances to capture a spontaneous expression. 400 speed daylight transparency film was used with an 80A filter at 1/15, f4

Quartz lamps of 500–750W draw a lot of current—5 to 6 amps. Most houses today have 20 amp circuits but 15 amp is still common. Don’t ignore the possibility of blowing a circuit breaker or overloading a line that already has significant draw potential. For example, a starting refrigerator briefly draws a lot of current.

An unexpected problem with the prolonged use of quartz lamps in close proximity can be sunburn. Quartz lamps emit some UV. An example might be copying, where you can get absorbed in a full day’s work in close proximity to the quartz lighting source.

Examples using a studio-type mini-light
Kids and pets make terrific subjects for photography. Their spontaneity, however, can make us grumble in frustration. It’s tough enough to capture their activities with auto-focus and available light but usually there’s not enough brightness. Flash-on-camera can be too harshly specular and recharge times can be irritatingly long. Try bouncing a 750W quartz mini-light off the corner walls and ceiling in a small room. This provides very diffuse illumination with a gentle light and shade relationship. The advantage of this technique is that the pet or youngster can move freely and still be in a large area of good brightness. For example, in the central area of a 10 ¥ 12 bedroom, using EI 400 film, exposure is about 1/60 @ ƒ/4. (A mini-light in the same location, but bounced off or shined through a 27-inch translucent, white fabric umbrella produces almost exactly the same exposure. Doesn’t seem likely does it? However my meter did not vary by even 1/3 stop.)

Portraits, as shown in my previous article, can be done effectively with an umbrella modifying the tiny mini-light into a versatile diffuse source. There are pictorial advantages. Direction control is less precise with a diffuse source, the subject can be more animated with less photographic concern about shadow precision, and blemishes and wrinkles become less prominent.

Why specular/diffuse control is important
The significance of specular and diffuse lighting control often is overlooked in lighting texts. This is not to say one is better than the other. Each is an important lighting quality that can be precisely controlled to achieve compelling and interesting effects. There is a useful progression of specular/diffuse effects between the most specular point-source to the most enveloping diffuse source. This may be worth discussing in a future article.

Objects are rendered with greatest realism when using a moderately diffuse source, such as an umbrella or light bank, because the smoothly flowing light and shade relationship depicts form with maximum clarity. This is the standard lighting set-up for all product photography in the slick catalogs that fill our mailboxes.

Conversely, specular lighting distorts realism because its patterns of sharp shadows tend to visually compete with the actual form of the illuminated objects. Specular light also generates a form-distorting sharp line of demarcation between light and shade on a rounded object because the light rays are tangent to only a tiny portion of the curved surface. Specular lighting is better suited to revealing textures on broad surfaces. For example, we usually prefer a sunny day for scenics and architecture.

Furniture catalogs use specular spotlights to highlight the textures and grain of their products. Many lamps are used with their placement meticulously controlled to avoid form-distorting overlapping effects. Furniture form is controlled not by lighting, but by careful placement to show perspective from the camera’s point of view.

Theatrical productions use specular lighting to direct our attention to specific areas of the stage. Exhaustive rehearsing is needed to place the actors in exactly the right spots. When performances contain continuous action, such as circuses and ice shows, the lighting technicians must rehearse constantly so they can follow the action.

Specular lighting can reveal texture on the most subtly irregular surface. Two good examples are detectives reading information on a page under the one on which the information was written, and archeologists reading badly weathered stone inscriptions by skimming specular light across the surface or waiting for the sun at a precise time of day.

Because diffuse light does not cast sharp shadows, precise light placement is not an overriding concern. For example, table-top product photography normally is done under a semi-fixed, suspended light bank placed 3 to 4 feet above the table like a low ceiling. Usually, the lights are fastened to the end of an arm on a light stand that is counterweighted with a sandbag. The stand is located behind the table. This set-up is so basic many pros leave it untouched for months. One studio I visited in New York City specialized in food photography for packaging. Food stylists were careful not to bump the light to avoid dislodging its accumulated dust!

Access to such a set is easy from all sides. There’s plenty of room to locate reflectors and subtly enhance portions of the objects being photographed. This is where the real lighting art takes place. For example, to obtain sparkling beer in a glass, a silvered card is cut, hid directly behind the glass, then angled upwards to reflect the full impact of the overhead source through the bubbling beverage. After the glass is sprayed with a fine mist to convey its frosty refreshment, other reflectors are placed to one side or the other until the condensation glistens. The single, overhead diffuse source never moves; it’s the ballet of reflectors that adds the pictorial punch!

Directing a mini-light through a translucent umbrella of similar size achieves virtually the same diffuse result provided by a light bank. The trade-off for its economy and portability is the sometimes shadowy presence of the umbrella ribs. This is not a problem unless the object being photographed is highly mirrored as seen from the camera’s viewpoint. Incidentally, I see no reason why an umbrella cannot be designed so it stays open without metal ribs touching the fabric. Any engineer should be able to figure this out. The advantage is having the light bank’s perfectly smooth pane of light with the umbrella’s easy portability.

	Figure 4. The beach motif was made indoors with a mini-light placed about 20 feet away. Its sharp shadows impart a visual feeling of late-day sunlight. In the second version, cast shadows introduce an environmental atmosphere. Virtually anything can be used to cast such shadows. In this case, a wire basket and chair were moved between mini-light and set until their cast shadows looked supportive.

Color balance
3200K tungsten lighting can be used with daylight film. If the film is color transparency, use a deep-blue 80A filter and two stops more exposure to compensate. An equivalent color gel also can be placed in front of the light. If you anticipate extended tungsten use, use tungsten-type 3200K film. If the film is color negative, “fuhgid-aboud-it”. Color neutrality is easily achieved during printing; even mini-lab processors usually adjust printing balance automatically.

Casting shadows
Consider for a moment a recent classic old movie you’ve seen. Lighting in old movies is different because the commonly encountered artificial, specular lighting of the day (diffuse fluorescent lighting didn’t exist) is romaticized. Distant street lamps cast long shadows; a swinging cellar lamp’s sharp shadows may syncopate to threatening music; or moonlight’s filigree of leafy shadows gently caress a young couple’s rural stroll. Movie directors knew these commonly experienced effects carried emotional weight, but film was far less sensitive so they could not be captured as available light. The typical solution was removing the fresnel lens from a giant 10,000 w/s “Brute” spotlight and letting the brilliant, but extremely tiny, electric arc project the sharp shadows. Movie technicians made special cut-outs in plywood screens to produce a variety of abstract shadow patterns. The shadows were used to break up almost any expansive flat surface into a more visually dynamic environment. George Cukor used this method in so many of his outstanding films that these lighting accessories came to be known as “cookies.” Today, films rely less on this visual technique because broadly diffuse fluorescent lighting dominates contemporary indoor situations, and sharply cast shadows have become a cliche narrative device.

Figure 5. The play of sharp, specular lighting effects can be fascinating. These glass objects were moved and rotated until an appealing arrangement occurred.

Still, many illustrative photographers use this technique. It’s an easy way to add visual interest, suggesing an environment that really doesn’t exist. Think for a moment about the dancing shadows from a fireplace or the clean play of light in a sun room broken up by multi-pane windows, plants and other objects. There’s a fascination and freshness about such lighting situations that can stimulate every photographer’s creative juices. When these things happen try to figure out how you might re-create them in a photo. Like a dancer getting inspiration from sports action or an author finding a voice for a character by listening to everyday conversations in a cafe, such a mental exercise can add zest and fun to your own studio light photography. No special tools are needed. Grab a lace doily or pull a leafy plant over and observe how its intervention between your subject and the specular mini-light adds visual interest. Frame the scene in the viewfinder and notice how the abstract patterns suggest a larger environment. It takes time to achieve a good effect when you’re struggling “to make something happen.” With patience, you’ll be rewarded.

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