Page 24 - Fuse Magazine - Volume 41 2018

s K I L L s

STEP bY STEP STuDIO LIgHTINg bASIcS

1

Get set up
a typical home studio kit includes two heads,
stands and modifiers. The flash is triggered
either with a sync cable or wireless triggers.
once the heads are on their stands, attach the
sync cable to one light and set the other to
slave mode so that it goes off when it detects
the first flash.

2

adjust the power
Most studio heads have a control that lets
you increase or decrease the power – on this
elinchrom head the setting runs from 2 to 6,
and each number is a stop difference. You can
also change the distance between the light and
your subject to adjust the effective light power
– halving the distance, for example, quadruples
the strength of the light.

3

attach a modifier
To control the quality and spread of the light,
studio lights can be fitted with a variety of
modifiers and accessories, such as the softbox
and umbrella that you can see here. The
modelling light – a constant bulb next to the
flash bulb – will give you an idea of the effects
of each modifier.

SoftboxeS or umbrellaS?

Both these modifiers diffuse throw light everywhere, and it spread is narrower and you
and soften the beam from bounces off nearby surfaces. have more control over the
a studio light, but there are Portrait photographers tend shadows. They also produce
subtle differences. Umbrellas to prefer softboxes, as the attractive catchlights in eyes.