TWiP Talks: Creative Lighting and Coloured Gels with Jake Hicks

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had the pleasure of speaking to the prince of podcasting Frederick Van Johnson over at TWiP (This Week in Photo). Frederick has been releasing photo related podcasts once a week since podcasting began and I think he's on episode 550+ or something insane like that!

In this interview we discuss the importance of an audience. Is it more important for you as a photographer for your images to have a little impact on a lot of people, or for your work to have a lot of impact on a few?

We also talk about the value of social media in the current photo world as well as go through some of my personal ideas and beliefs on what makes a successful photographer today.
We also look at the importance of gear and understanding light plus a whether you're actually a photographer or an artist.

It's also available as an audio only podcast on iTunes and Spotify etc. All those links can be found underneath the video on this TWiP page.

*I apologise in advance for the drop in quality for this as Skype craps out half way through for some reason :(

Can you use your LED Modelling Lamps for Long Exposure Photography? PLUS: How to Make Your Own Modifiable Tungsten Lamp

Long exposure photography is tricky, especially in the studio when you're trying to combine multiple light sources within a single frame that have very different brightnesses and colour temperatures etc.

So although I believe this article will be very useful to many of you, there will most certainly be others that perhaps have little to no experience with long exposure photography and as such this article might seem to brush over certain long exposure lighting ideas. That is because as lot of you know, I now have an extremely comprehensive Long Exposure Portraits video that goes over everything there is to know about shooting long exposure shots and this article is designed to help those that may have very sensible equipment questions after watching it.

In the video tutorial I only use tungsten modelling bulbs, but what if you don't have tungsten modelling bulbs? What if you only have LED ones? This article aims to answer the question 'Can you use your LED modelling lamps for long exposure photography?'

First off, let's just double check we're all talking about the same thing here when we're referring to LED modelling lamps. In the context of this article I am actually specifically referring to the modelling light that comes with the studio strobes you likely already own. These newer strobes are often used for location work and are often battery operated with no direct power supply via a plug into the wall.

The LED modelling bulbs on these lights are ideal because they consume very little power which is perfect for those more popular battery operated flash heads.

Characteristics of LED lights versus more traditional tungsten modelling bulbs

Bulb Size

LED

This should come as no shock to you all but size most certainly does matter. LEDs by their very nature are tiny and that has significant disadvantages when we're referring photographic lighting. For example one of the core reasons I encourage people to upgrade from speedlights to strobes is their size. Speedlights have a tiny light source point which creates a fiercely harsh and contrasty light that is very difficult to modify in a flattering way. LEDs have exactly the same problem and in fact they are even smaller than speedlights with many strobes LED modelling bulbs being no bigger than your fingernail.

Tungsten

Contrast the tiny LEDs to the considerably larger tungsten modelling bulbs. These bulbs are not only far larger but they also protrude into the lighting modifiers thereby allowing their light to be spread far more evenly and create a much softer light. Remember that lighting modifiers are designed to work specifically with flash tubes and flash tubes are physically large and spread light all around themselves when they are fired. Tungsten bulbs do exactly the same thing so the look of the light produced by them looks very similar to the actual flash light itself.

Click to enlarge

Bulb Colour Temperature

LED

LEDs can be made to produce practically any colour light we could imagine but most of the LED modelling bulbs in our strobes produce a clean white colour. This colour is designed to be very similar in colour temperature to our flash bulbs. This makes our lives a lot easier if we are trying to mix both LED light and flash light in a single shot which is something you'll need to do a lot if you're shooting long exposure shots.

Tungsten

Tungsten modelling bulbs produce an entirely different colour of light to flash and is far warmer in comparison. If you're familiar with white balance and the Kelvin scale, tungsten produces a colour around 2500-3000 Kelvin whereas flash and daylight produce a far colder 4500-5000 Kelvin colour. This drastic difference in colour temperature becomes a major issue when you're trying to combine both tungsten and flash in a single shot and this mismatch in colour often requires you to use additional colour correction gels to match the two colours together.

Bulb Heat

LED

We just spoke about colour temperature but here I'm referring to the physical heat emitted from these two light sources. LEDs require very little power to operate as they are incredibly efficient at converting power to light and this efficiency results in very little heat being produced as a result. This means that they can be left on at full power surrounded by lighting modifiers and gels with little fear of melting anything.

Tungsten

Tungsten on the other hand is incredibly inefficient at converting power to light. If you didn't already know, tungsten light is produced by passing an electric current around a tightly wound coil of tungsten metal. The warn coloured glow you receive from that light is simply super heated metal. The tungsten metal is only used as it's one of the strongest metals around meaning it can withstand this incredible heat for thousands of hours without breaking or melting. This is great if you want to warm a small room but not ideal if you want to encase that tungsten bulb in a lighting modifier alongside colour correction gels. A constants vigilance is required to ensure you don't your gels and equipment.

Even the most durable gels will eventually warp, melt and ultimately crack under the extreme temperatures of high wattage tungsten modelling bulbs.

Bulb Power

LED modelling bulbs usually come with a fixed power but tungsten modelling bulbs can be switched out at any time for more powerful ones if needed.

LED

As I previously mentioned, LEDs are often very small in size and even larger LEDs are ultimately only made up of multiple smaller LEDs. This lack of size unfortunately does mean that there are often not that bright when compared to other photographic lighting. Also the LED modelling bulbs that come with your strobes are fixed and unchangeable by the end user. This means that you're stuck with the brightness of the modelling bulb the manufactured gave you and this can vary significantly from brand to brand.

Tungsten

The older strobes that come with tungsten modelling bulbs had to come with the ability to be replaced by the consumer. After all, tungsten bulbs die and will need to be changed out for new ones. This ability to replace them also means that we have the ability to adjust the power of the modelling bulbs we put in them. If you're old enough like me, you may remember a time before all the energy saving bulbs where we had the ability to purchase fairly powerful and extremely bright bulbs. Those old tungsten bulbs ranged from 30 watts all the way up to 240 watts which is what I currently use in my strobes today and is a very bright light indeed.

Recap

So now that we've discussed some of the key differences between LED and tungsten modelling bulbs, let's quickly recap the positives and negatives of each.

LEDs

• Small light source that results in a very different looking light when used in consecution with certain modifiers.
• Produces a very similar colour temperature to flash meaning that colour correction gels are not required when using both LED and flash in the same shot.
• Produces very little heat meaning you are able to use them for extended periods with any modifier and gel without fear of melting anything.
• Fixed modelling bulb power means you are stuck with a low powered LED light that cannot be changed or increased by the end user.

Tungsten

• Large physical size that replicates the look and appearance of the flash tube enabling you to use them with any lighting modifier.
• Produces a very warm colour temperature compared to flash meaning that colour correction gels are required if you plan on using both tungsten and flash in the same image.
• Very hot when operating at full power. This requires constant supervision to ensure you are not melting both lighting modifiers or gels.
• Bulbs can be switched in and out as often as required meaning the end user can increase the power of their modelling bulbs as required.

My Recommendations

Ultimately the choice is yours but more often than not, this situation will be dictated to you by the strobes you already have. If you have some modern battery powered strobes then they will often come with LED modelling bulbs as standard. If this is the case then you will need to bear a couple of things in mind should you want to use them for long exposure photography; namely the way that the LED distributes light around your chosen modifier and the power of the LED.

If you're using hard-light modifiers where the LED will not be diffused in any way before it reaches its destination, I strongly recommend you try and soften the light a little during the process. For example, if you're shining an LED through a straight reflector dish, add a diffusion gel to the front to soften the light a little. This will distribute the light more evenly onto the target resulting in a far more even exposure rather than the light coming straight out and not using the modifier in any way.

On the left we have an LED modelling lamp with a beauty dish reflector. You should see that resulting light casts some odd shadows onto our wall due to the incredibly small and harsh nature of the tiny LED lamp. On the right we have a tungsten modelling bulb and the resulting light shadow if far smoother. In fact its appearance is almost identical to that of the strobe flash.

The power problem is far harder to fix I'm afraid and is ultimately why I personally prefer to use tungsten modelling bulbs in my long exposure work over the LED ones.

The power difference may not seem significant and most of the time it's only about 2 stops of light difference between LED modelling bulbs and tungsten modelling bulbs. For example you could just compensate for an LED lamp being 2 stops darker by increasing the ISO on your camera from 100 ISO to 400 ISO (2 stops) and get exactly the same shot using the same shutter speed and aperture.

The problem comes when you try and combine LED light with flash. Most strobes actually produce a fairly powerful flash even on their lowest powers, so when you combine powerful flash with weak LEDs in the same shot, the flash just washes out the LED effect.

For example, your flash is on its lowest power and your LED is on its highest power but the difference is still 2 stops of light. You can't increase the power of the LED's and the only way to decrease the power of your flash any further without changing the camera settings is to add neutral density (ND) gels to your flash. It's possible but it becomes a real pain.

This long exposure image is all crated in a single exposure. It uses four heads; 2 heads are firing flash and the other 2 are simply shining their tungsten modelling lamps.

DIY Tungsten Modelling Light 

It's worth pointing out here that when I use flash and ambient light simultaneously in my long exposure images, I only use a strobe head to flash and separate strobe heads to light for the ambient. Think of these ambient heads simply as modifiable lamps, not flashes.

The model image displayed here is a great example. It uses 4 strobes but only 2 of those strobes are firing flash, the other 2 are only shining their tungsten modelling lamps.

So what if your strobes all have LED modelling bulbs but you'd like to incorporate brighter tungsten long exposure effects? Here's a very cheap and quick DIY alternative that is super easy to setup.

All you'll need is:

• Clip-on lamp
• Tungsten bulbs (of varying powers if needed)
• A bayonet to screw fit bulb converter if needed
• S-fit (your strobe Bowens/Godox/Elinchrom etc.) to speedlight L-Bracket
• Cinefoil optional

Click to enlarge

Then all that's left to do is set it up. Get your Speedlight L-bracket on a stand, attach your clip-on lamp to it and then add your required tungsten bulb power. Finally all that's left to do is add your desired modifier like you normally would to your flash head.

The best part about all of this is that you can use your strobe modifiers on this tungsten lamp. I've used a regular reflector dish here but you could just as easily use a beauty dish or soft box.

Click to enlarge

Just incase you were curious as to how the strobes modelling bulb compared to the clip-on modelling bulb, they're displayed below. Plus I've also included how the LED modelling bulb stacks up against the two tungsten lights too (once the ISO on the camera had been increased by two stops to compensate for the darker LED lamp).

Closing Comments

So there you have it, if you have some old strobes tucked away, dig them out as they will likely have the tungsten bulb for a modelling lamp and this can make your life a little easier when shooting long exposure work. If you only have LED lamps in your strobe then that's also fine, you have a couple of options. You can either shoot with an increased ISO value and simply ND or strobe lights, or you can very easily and cheaply make your own tungsten modelling lamps that can be modified with your current strobe modifiers.

If any of this long exposure work sounds a little complicated, I assure you it isn't, it just requires you to think in a slightly different way....oh and to work in complete darkness ;)

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If you'd like to learn more about Long Exposure Portraits then I have a brand new 6+ hour video tutorial that RGG EDU is practically giving away. More details can be found here Long Exposure Portraits

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PLUS: If you'd like to learn more about Long Exposure & Light Painting in person then I have a lighting workshop available on September 22nd that is specifically all about learning how to create beautiful images like these. For more details including exactly what we'll be covering on the day follow the link Long Exposure & Light Painting Workshop

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Is the Sensor or the Lens to Blame for Poor Image Quality?

Embarrassingly a few years ago I was very vocal about how disappointed I was about some of the Nikon lenses. I've been using Nikon cameras and lenses for decades and although I was very pleased with the image quality and colour rendition their cameras produced, I strongly considered jumping the Nikon ship in search of crisper, cleaner looking lenses. In fact I was so close to leaving Nikon a couple of years ago that I went through the process of hiring and testing other brands to see if other manufacturers could deliver what Nikon could not. If you're interested, here was findings as I tested the Nikon against the Sony and Fuji - Comparing the Nikon D610 vs Fuji X T-2 vs Sony A7R II

But what was my issue with the Nikon lenses?

My biggest gripe with regards to the Nikon glass was the obscene amount of flaring that was being produced in the highlights, especially when that was seen in contrast to surrounding dark areas. In fact I was so puzzled by this horrendous effect that I even thought it was designed by Nikon as a sort of 'skin-smoothing' effect to try and appeal to the portrait and wedding market.

In the images above you can see how flared the highlights are when in contrast to the darker surrounding areas. Look at how fluffy that white text on black looks!

Defining Image Quality

Before we get any further, I just want to quickly take a look at what I mean by 'image quality'. This is a term we all use regularly but I think it means different things to many of us. I think for a lot of people starting out in photography, image quality refers to the megapixels of a camera, the bigger the number, the more image quality you have. Although there is a lot of truth in this, it's filled with ambiguity. For example a lot of us really don't need any more than an 8 megapixel camera. Years ago I shot ad campaigns that were printed huge but they were all shot on an 6 megapixel camera and the shots looked fine. Conversely, we're now told that cameras on our phones have 23+ megapixels of image quality, yet the images look utter trash.

So what's going on here?

Well it's because image quality and our perception of it is made up of a few factors and both sensor quality and lens play a fundamental role in that. My 6 megapixel DSLR had a good lens and my images we lit cleanly resulting in them being able to be blown up huge. Camera phones have huge megapixel counts but they still take an image through a tiny porthole that lives in your pocket filled with 6 week old receipts, dust, fluff and old sweet wrappers. Megapixels certainly isn't everything but it definitely helps when used in conjunction with a great quality lens.

So why did I stick with Nikon?

Like I mentioned before, I tested several cameras to replace my Nikon system and ultimately I didn't leave them because I'm somebody who focuses heavily on colour and the Nikon sensor was incredible at colour rendition. The depth of the colours was superior in my opinion to other brands and that colour depth was what ultimately kept me invested in Nikon and I just resigned myself to their very odd lens flaring.

Thankfully though, I was very, very wrong about Nikon's lenses!

Clicking on the image above will take you to my article on comparing the image quality of the Nikon D610 vs D850.

Lenses are not the problem

In 2017 I was offered a Nikon D850 to replace my D610 for a price I couldn't refuse and so I upgraded my camera. Unbeknownst to me, I had just acquired a beast of a camera and trust me, I'm no tech-nerd, not even remotely. I'm a working professional and my camera is a tool to me just like a hammer is to a builder. I rarely update my kit because I don't believe that kit make me a better photographer. Because of this slightly laissez faire attitude to camera technology, I actually know very little about cameras and their modern features. It wasn't until I wrote a review last year on the difference in image quality between the D610 and the D850 that I realised just how wrong I had been about the Nikon lens quality up until that point. What the camera tests showed me was that it was most certainly not the lenses that were the issue, but in fact it was the sensor.

Comparing old and new lenses on old and new cameras

So in an attempt to share my foolishness with you, I thought I'd grab a few test shots with both the older Nikon D610 and the newer Nikon D850 just to show you how careful you need to be when considering one lens superior to another.

As you scroll down through the images below, pay close attention the highlight area on the gold sequins, look at how the area surrounding those highlights are blown out to the point of creating a flare effect.

From the images above, you should now be able to see what I'm referring to when I ask 'Is the sensor or the lens to blame for image quality?'

If you'd like to take a closer look, I've included the larger images below for you to enlarge separately.

I'll be honest, I find it staggering to me just how incredibly awful that sensor in the D610 is when compared to the newer D850. Don't get me wrong, that D610 made me a lot of money over the years and no client ever mentioned 'Hmm, what's that odd flaring?'. The camera still produces excellent results but when compered to the newer D850, the D610 shots look like it's shooting through a Fisher-Price lens!

Some of you may even be looking at these shots and thinking

'I bet Jake's got snot on the sensor or something. It wouldn't look that bad if he cleaned his camera once in a while'.

That would be a fair assessment but I also have a D600 here which has exactly the same results and I also tested other photographers lenses and camera bodies and all resulted with the same flaring effect.

Here's the shots again but a bit bigger if you'd like to click and enlarge any individually to see the results up close.

All Image taken below on the Nikon D610

Click on the images above to enlarge them

All Image taken below on the Nikon D850

Click on the images above to enlarge them

Closing Comments

I feel this image comparison should really speak for itself but I'll just pull out a couple of sobering areas for your consideration. Firstly, let's just highlight the two extremes of this test by taking a look at the image taken with the D610 with a 2007 Nikon lens versus an image taken by the D850 with a Nikon lens from 1963.

Click to enlarge

So just to be crystal clear once again on the madness that's happening here, but on the left we have the D610 using a modern lens from 2007 and on the right we have the D850 using a lens from the 1960's.

The D850 is using a lens nearly FIFTY YEARS OLDER than the 24-70mm lens on the D610!

I find it very hard to believe that you all wouldn't join me in choosing the D850 with the old lens compared to the D610 with the modern lens. And just to clarify what that old lens is, this is what Ken Rockwell said about the Nikon 43-86mm f3.5, and I quote 'The original Nikon 43-86mm is the worst lens Nikon has ever made.' Source

Granted there are other things to consider when choosing lenses beyond their simple flaring. For example in the 86mm shot above you can see the blurred edge off to the left, but nonetheless the results are still very impressive.

If you wanted to see me compare that old Nikkor lens against its modern counterparts then that can be seen here - The New the Old and the Vintage - Nikon's 'Worst' & 'Best' Zoom Lens Comparison - Ironically, those test shots were all taken on the D610 so the results would be even more impressive had they been shot on the newer D850 today.

In Conclusion

As I mentioned at the top, we're really splitting hairs here and this article is likely more aimed at those who are interested in squeezing every last drop of quality from their shots. For the most part, you use any camera or lens manufactured in the last 20 years and get fantastic results. But if you're after the crispest and sharpest files around, you may have to do a bit more research.

The biggest reason for me writing this and sharing it with you is the fact that I hear countless people talking about how important the lens is when it comes to 'image quality' and sharpness. And although lens choice is a fundamental decision when it comes to getting sharp shots, I think this exercise very clearly highlights just how important the sensor is when it comes to the image quality and sharpness. Even if you're browsing files online and comparing lenses for yourself, you really need to see those lenses results when the images are shot on exactly the same camera body.

For example, if you found an image of the Helios 85mm taken on the D850, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Helios is a sharper lens than the Nikkor 85mm if you'd see that image taken on the D610.

When considering the sharpness of a lens, be very careful of what camera actually took the shot you are reviewing. Comparing the D610 with a Nikkor 85mm image versus a D850 with a vintage 85mm lens yields results that are misleading. The Helios looks far sharper when in reality it most certainly isn't.

Nearly all lenses out there right now are excellent and spotting variances between them can be very tricky and often futile. But whatever lenses you ultimately choose to own, just be sure of how the images will look on your particular camera body to avoid any disappointment.

This article is not about how impressive the Nikon D850 sensor is but on how important all camera sensors are when it comes to apparent lens quality. If you're checking other peoples reviews of a lens before purchasing one, you need to know exactly what camera body they shot their images with before you can make any real decisions and even then I would still recommend hiring the lens and testing it on your own camera before fully committing to spending thousands on it.

Thanks for Reading

Thanks as always guys for reading this article, I really do appreciate your precious time. If something doesn't make sense or if you have any questions then please don't hesitate to message me or comment below.

If you'd like to be updated once a month with all of my other articles then feel free to sign up to my newsletter here. Signing up now also gets you a free 10 page studio lighting PDF.

See you all in the next one :)

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:WARNING: There is a high chance of irresistible temptation ahead!

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If you liked this article and would be interested in more posts like this in the future, please feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter. I publish one of these articles every week and each month I collect them all up and send them directly to your inbox just in case you missed one. Signing up now also get's you my free 10 page pdf on Studio Lighting Tips and Techniques. Jake Hicks Photography - Newsletter

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If you're interested in any of my work and would like to know more about how I created some of my shots then why not check out my workshops. Here you can find out everything there is to know about Gelled Lighting, Long Exposure Flash Photography and my entire Post-Pro Workflow. Jake Hicks Photography - Workshops

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I've also just released a brand new 22 hour complete Gelled Lighting Tutorial video. I go over everything from studio lighting setups with gels to being on location with gels plus I also go through my complete retouching and post pro workflow. For more details and complete breakdown of everything that's include check out my Coloured Gel Portraits Tutorial

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I also offer comprehensive coloured gel packs. These collections of gels are what I use day to day to create some of the most highly saturated colours around. If you're looking at getting into gelled lighting or need to get stronger and richer colours in your coloured gel work why not check out my Jake Hicks Photography Gel Packs

Colour Banding and Gel Modifiers

For those of us that have dealt with colour in any way digitally in the last decade, we are unfortunately all too familiar with the dreaded colour banding issues. If you're not sure what colour banding is, then it's the visual 'stepping' of colour that happens in digital files. It happens a lot and it can happen for any number of reasons but the most common scapegoats for colour banning are usually poor colour depth in our cameras, aggressive compression algorithms with online sites and any number of other technical failings. Although all of these are often part of the problem, I see one other major culprit of severe colour banding and that's lighting.

Lighting with coloured gels is hard. Just let me be clear on that from the start, and to that end, it's far easier to get horrendous looking coloured light images than good ones. Nearly everybody at my lighting workshops say that they are there because they tried to shoot with coloured gels and couldn't get it work, so came to learn more. There are a lot of elements that need to be working together for gelled shots to look good and that often begins with the lighting modifiers we use.

Colour banding is often used as a term to describe harsh steps in colour. Image compression and colour depths aside, poor modifier choices will also create these ugly steps in colour.

As a general guide, light falls into two categories; hard light and soft light. Hard light produces stronger colours, is easier to control, but it often isn't very flattering. Soft light conversely produces weaker colours, harder to control light when using gels but does produce a more flattering looking light.

Most people start using gels through  harder light modifier like grids and bare reflectors because the light is far easier to control. Unfortunately the down side of using these hard light modifiers is that I often see blown highlights in the gels. But blown highlights in the gels are not blown to white, they're blown to a single block of colour or their 'saturation limit'. I'll cover 'saturation limits' another day as that's a whole other issue and in this article I wanted to focus on how to avoid the issue more than explain them.

Colour banding is ugly in that it looks very unnatural. Colour never 'steps' like this in real life so when we see it in photos we aren't impressed.

What is Colour Banding?

If you've used gels with speedlights or hard light modifiers then I'm sure you'll have seen this clipping in the colours that we often refer to as colour banding. It is especially apparent when we see it on blank surfaces like backgrounds or even clothing. It's incredibly annoying and looks very ugly and unprofessional so we all try to avoid it as much as possible, but unfortunately that's a lot easier said then done. Like I mentioned earlier, older camera tech, online compression and a whole host of other things conspire to make colour banding happen, but we must ensure that we don't start the issue with poor modifier choices when we make the initial shot.

A lot of us are stuck with speedliits due to budget and I assure you a huge part of this colour banding problem is due to the lights you're using to begin with. Small lights are like hard lights and thus produce more contrast and saturation and that saturation is what's causing the aggressive banding. Speedlights are some of the hardest light sources around due to their small size but with that being said, strobes and their harder light modifiers like grids and open reflector dishes will also create this problem so let's look at how we can reduce it and it certain situations, even eliminate it entirely.

Hard and Soft Light Modifiers

Before we get any further, lets just take two seconds to clarify what I mean by hard and soft light modifiers. Hard light modifiers are generally smaller in relation to the subject, so for example grids, snoots and just open reflector dishes are usually referred to as hard light modifiers because they keep the spread of light quite direct and controlled. Conversely, soft light modifiers are the opposite and they are generally far larger in size in relation to the subject. Modifiers like softboxes, umbrellas and even beauty dishes produce this softer looking light.

Beyond their obvious larger size over hard light modifiers, soft light modifiers also do not allow any direct light to fall onto the subject. For example a softbox has diffusion built into them, umbrellas bounce the light around their surface prior to it falling on the subject and beauty dishes have that internal diffusion cone that also forces the light to be bounced around before it reaches the subject.

All of these characteristics result in the light not being as contrasty when it reaches its destination and that reduction in contrast also means a reduction in saturation.

Normally you'd be thinking 'fantastic, saturation is a plus', but that is not how we want to achieve great saturation in our lighting. The saturation level is achieved by shining a gel onto a shadow, the gels are made saturated when they leave the light, it is in fact poor light placement that ruins saturation not the modifier. But again, that's a topic for another day, here we want to wrangle the saturation to within a useable level so that we eliminate that horrendous colour banding. So to do this we would need the best of both worlds right? We would want the control and power that a hard light modifier gives us, but we would also want the soft and controlled saturation that a soft light modifier gives us. Is there such a thing?

The Solution to a Soft + Hard Light Modifier

Thankfully there is such a thing and it comes in the form of diffusion gels. Diffusion gels are essentially colourless and heat resistant thick sheets of tracing paper and they can be used anywhere that you'd use your normal gels. To show what they can do, let's look at a few examples of hard light modifiers at work with and without the diffusion gels in place.

Click to enlarge

-In the images above we can see the result of a standard open grid reflector being shone against a white wall with a pink gel. On its own it produces a very ugly colour banding grad regardless of whether it's close to the wall or further away from it. But by adding a diffusion gel, you immediately see how that ugly colour banding disappears at nearly all exposure ranges. Even when it's clearly very overexposed, it still does a great job of maintaining colour transitions.

Click to enlarge

-In this set of images we're looking at the light created by an umbrella reflector dish. These dishes are usually coated with a mirror-like silver interior to work in conjunction with the umbrellas. They are not really designed to ever be shone directly onto a surface and as a result they produce some of the ugliest colour banding around. But even with that mirror-like interior, the diffusion gel does an excellent job of diffusing the light to reduce even the worst colour banding.

Click to enlarge

-Here I wanted to show what we would normally use as reflector dish on a background. This is the far wider spread of a 65 degree dish or Maxilite as theyre often called. Even though this is what I use to light my backgrounds, they still produce a horrendous amount of colour banding regardless of whether they are close or far from it. The addition of a diffusion gel certainly helps to get it under control though and at low powers, this combination of wide dish and diffusion gel can produce some excellent and smooth background colours.

Click to enlarge

-I also wanted to include this last test as an example of how a 60x60cm softbox can eliminate colour banding nearly entirely. This softbox has two layers of diffusion, one internally and one externally. As a result, we get buttery smooth graduations in colour. So why not use this all the time? Well as a result of using a softbox to light the background, the entire room is now bathed in pink which makes for a real problem when it comes to lighting our subject.

Conclusions

So what can we take away from the above tests?

Diffusion gels would appear to reduce colour banding no matter what hard light modifier we use - Well first and foremost I think it's pretty clear to see just how powerful the diffusion gels are when used in connection with hard lights. No matter what hard light modifier we used, they always reduced colour banding and in a lot of cases eliminated it entirely.

Colour banding happens regardless of how close you are to the background - I often recommend people bring their modifiers away from the background to reduce colour banding and although this certainly helps a lot, it's not going to eliminate colour banding alone. Brining you modifier away from the backdrop and applying a diffusion gel on the other hand may well eliminate the problem entirely.

Reducing the power of the light will often reduce colour banding issues - We briefly spoke about saturation limits before and one of the route causes of this is, overexposing a gel. Often by reducing the power of the light through the gel will also reduce the colour banding issues.

Don't be afraid to double-up the diffusion - In the above tests I'm using a single diffusion gel but don't be afraid to double them up to get even more diffusion when needed. Often the doubling of gels does little to nothing, but doubling up the diffusion will certainly have an impact in this instance.

Lastly, I appreciate this is a test against a white wall and not a model, but trust me, the exact same principles apply whether it be a background or a model. Using a diffusion gel on your hard light modifiers will always reduce colour banding issues.

Where can I get me some Diffusion gels?!

Thankfully diffusion gels are fairly common but they do tend to be used by videographers a lot more than stills shooters. In the world of cinematography the diffusion gels are often simply referred to as 'frosts'. They have strong diffusion that they refer to as 'heavy frosts' and lighter diffusion that often refer to as 'light frosts'. Searching for any of those terms will yield a bunch of results.

But if you'd like to know which ones I personally use then it's pretty simple, I actually use the diffusion gels out of my very own gel packs. As a lot of you know, I sell my own gel packs, my 'Definitive' pack has all the saturated colours I use, the 'Pastels' pack has all of the softer colours I use and lastly my 'Utility' pack contains all of my colour correction gels, neutral density gels, as well as the diffusion gels.

My Utility pack contains two of the heavy frosts so that when they're doubled up they reduce practically all colour banding from any modifier. Plus they are made by LEE Filters which double coats them with heat resistant layers ensuring they last a very long time on hot lights and in my tests, these diffusion gels do not alter the colour of the light in any discernible way either. More information on these and my other gel packs can be found on my gels page here. Just scroll down to the bottom for the details on the 'Utility' pack which can be purchased directly here.

I understand that this whole article has now sounded like an advert for my gels, I even questioned whether I should include this section at all for fear of making the whole thing just sound like a sales pitch. You guys will have to make up your own minds on that but I will just say that the tests done here and their results should speak for themselves and are entirely genuine.

Whether you choose use my gels or not, I recommend you use some form of diffusion over your hard light modifiers just like I personally do to reduce or even eliminate that dreaded colour banding.

Bonus Tip: Gel Attachment

One last bonus tip as I know I'm going to be asked how I gelled my softbox in this test. Here's how I gel my modifiers with the 8"x10" gel sheets that come in my packs.

Thanks for Reading

Thanks as always guys for reading this article, I know they're often fairly long so I really do appreciate your precious time. If something doesn't make sense or if you have any questions then please don't hesitate to message me or comment below.

If you'd like to be updated once a month with all of my other articles then feel free to sign up to my newsletter here. Signing up now also gets you a free 10 page studio lighting PDF.

See you all in the next one :)

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:WARNING: Yet more flagrant use of HARD sales below!

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If you liked this article and would be interested in more posts like this in the future, please feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter. I publish one of these articles every week and each month I collect them all up and send them directly to your inbox just in case you missed one. Signing up now also get's you my free 10 page pdf on Studio Lighting Tips and Techniques. Jake Hicks Photography - Newsletter

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If you're interested in any of my work and would like to know more about how I created some of my shots then why not check out my workshops. Here you can find out everything there is to know about Gelled Lighting, Long Exposure Flash Photography and my entire Post-Pro Workflow. Jake Hicks Photography - Workshops

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I've also just released a brand new 22 hour complete Gelled Lighting Tutorial video. I go over everything from studio lighting setups with gels to being on location with gels plus I also go through my complete retouching and post pro workflow. For more details and complete breakdown of everything that's include check out my Coloured Gel Portraits Tutorial

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I also offer comprehensive coloured gel packs. These collections of gels are what I use day to day to create some of the most highly saturated colours around. If you're looking at getting into gelled lighting or need to get stronger and richer colours in your coloured gel work why not check out my Jake Hicks Photography Gel Packs

DIY Cheap Coloured LED Lighting for £20 - Lighting Setups Included

LED lights are everywhere now, and from kids toys to professional studio lighting, LEDs are being used in absolutely everything. At a photographic level there are a ton of great options to look at and a while ago I even reviewed and tested some of the more professional level LEDs from Spekular and their new modular lights (review here).

Image shot with £20 LED lighting. Lighting setup explained below.

These lights are clearly excellent and when using them and other similar high-end LED lighting you have a lot of benefits and features including, colour consistency, bright LED's, lighting modifiers and so on. But all of those features come with an understandably high price tag.

So what if you're interested in simply playing with some LED lights? What if you just want to test out some cool lighting ideas but don't want to jump in at the deep end and invest a whole bunch of money on them just yet?

Well thankfully due to LED lights being so prolific right now, there are some very cheap options and in fact you can even make your own LED lights quite easily too.

In this article I'm going to be showing you some lighting ideas that can be achieved with very affordable, off-the-shelf options and that's because LEDs are so cheap that it's practically more expensive to make them yourself. If you're still interested in the DIY option, here's a couple of pointers and places to consider.

Finding LED light strips are now very common and very easy to find. Any number of keyword searches will get you where you need to go.

DIY LED Lighting Kit

The LEDs

First off you'll need the LED light strips and they are very easy to come by. Places like eBay and Amazon are your safest and easiest options and here's a single link to some colour changing LEDS that are controllable with a remote; 5M LED Strip Lights Kit.

The thing you need to be searching for is the 'LED strip lights'. From there you'll get a whole bunch of options but keep an eye out for a remote in the preview picture as it'll show you all the options you have with it. One thing that I found when searching for these, is that 'white light' is not always a colour that comes with these as standard so if you're after playing with white light LED lighting just bear that in mind.

Finding appropriate housings for your LEDs is a little harder but anything round and translucent will do. Alternatively purpose built housings also exist.

The Housing

Next up you'll need some way of actually holding and supporting the LEDs so that you can use them as independent light sources. This is a little harder but that's only because you have so many options. I looked at a lot of translucent piping, extruded acrylics and so on, but I very quickly found that there is in fact several purpose-built housings available which saves you the trouble of going all out on the DIY nature of cutting and sawing etc. For example this Round Frosted Cover for use with LED Strip Lights is a good place to start. Have a hunt about but searching for "LED housing/channel/cover" will give you a bunch of options.

If you're after a one-stop-shop then there are a few dedicated LED shops out there.

Everything LED Related

I did also come across one site that had all the parts you need and all you simply had to do was choose the pieces you liked for your complete custom LED build. Wholesale LED Lights had a entire section dedicated to all the bits you could possibly need including the lights, the housing and even the remote controls. If you're after a one-stop-LED-shop this could be your place.

That seems like a whole lot of work!

So if like me you're thinking,

"Surely somebody out there has done all this for me already. Where the hell is their shop?!"

Thankfully we're in luck :D

In the mood for a spot of school disco and nausea inducing colour rhythm presets? Grab yourself a prebuilt LED light stick.

As it turns out, those cheesy DJ's love a good light changing metre of translucent acrylic, and for just £20 you can pick yourself one up that's all ready to go straight out of the box.

If you want to have a search about then just search "standing LED disco light" and you'll get a whole bunch of options to look at. Here's a couple to get you started though; Gear4music ADJ LED Colour Tube, or on Amazon you have Colour changing LED Standing Disco Light Stick. You get the idea but essentially you're after a metre long, colour changing LED light that preferably has something like a remote control to adjust it.

For £20, it just seemed silly to even try and make it myself so I just bought 4 of the complete LED lights which at the time cost me £60 total. You obviously don't need 4 but for what I wanted to play with, 4 of them would give me plenty of options.

The Purpose Built LED Lights

So I got my four LED lights, they're a metre long and about 8cm in width. They are powered via a mains adaptor and they are all controlled via a remote that has all the colour options accessible via a single button press, plus you can do all sorts of horrendous kids disco light patterns that any epilepsy candidate should avoid at all costs. You also have a handy feature here to increase and decrease the brightness of each colour via those sunshine up and down arrows in the top left of the remote (pic below). Although I initially thought this was not that useful, as surely I just want them all at full power all the time, but as different colours require different exposures this feature turned out to be pretty handy.

I picked up 4 prebuilt LED tubes and attached them to 4 of my light stands.

In the images above you can see that the lights are all mounted on light stands, these are my light stands as the LED lights do not come with any of their own.

What a shock! Gaffer tape fixes yet another problem.

I simply attached the vertical ones by gaffer taping the clamps that the LED lights come with to my light stands. The LED lights themselves are incredibly lightweight so there is almost no pressure or fear of them coming away from the stand once they're attached.

The horizontal light is simply attached via a Manfrotto Superclamp atop another stand. Again these lights are so lightweight that only minimal pressure is required to keep them in place.

The Lighting Setups

So now that we have our lights and have attached them to our stands we're finally ready to start shooting.

Key Light + Side Lights + Background Light

The first setup I tried was two side lights, one key and one background light.

Teal & Purple

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

The first thing I noticed was that using an LED light vertically for a key-light just wasn't working. It didn't give enough light coverage across the face in a vertical position so I quickly remounted it at a horizontal angle by simply removing the mount and gaffer tape and re-taped it at the new position. Once that was done the light was far more usable.

The next trick with this setup is using that background light to burn out the ambient colour created by the side lights. Position the model too far away and I didn't get any purple back there, position her too close to the background and the purple washes out the background light.

Blue & Purple

Next up I quickly changed the teal to a pure blue colour. There might not seem like much difference in the shots and that's because there really isn't. These LED lights show that they have a whole bunch of variety in their colours, but in reality it really is just subtle variances of Red, Green and Blue when you actually start photographing them.

The LED lights themselves claim to have a lot of variation in colour, but the reality is that they really only have the Red, Green and Blue. The variations are really only different densities of each of those three base colours once you start to photograph them.

Click to enlarge

Red & Purple

Click to enlarge

I was still playing with the colours and combinations and here I simply just changed it to pure blue on top and behind and pure red on the sides.

This quick switching of colours sounds super-easy right? Well although in theory it's really simple and as easy as pressing the button of the exact colour you want, the problem is that these LED lights are all controlled via a remote... a remote that changes ALL the lights at the same time!

This results in some awkward body contorting and hand shielding to try and just change one light at a time without changing them all simultaneously. Without removing each light from the set and taking it into another room to adjust it before bringing it back and then repeating that process three more times, the process of switching colours can be comedically frustrating at times. You can get three lights right and then whilst trying to switch the last one blue you inadvertently turn all four lights blue and the whole process starts again.

Ring Light Effect

Next up I thought I'd try a ring light effect since I had four lights. I also thought this would be a good opportunity to test out the white lighting look of the LEDs.

White Light

Click to enlarge

As you'd expect, the setup simply involves placing all four lights in front of the model in a square and then you shoot through them.

Those of you with human eyes may have also noticed something not quite making sense in this resulting image that doesn't quite match the setup. That's right the BLUE light!

So the 'white' light given off by these LED lights is very odd to say the least. First and foremost, this wavelength doesn't exist on the Kelvin spectrum so it was impossible to white balance this out in-camera.

After a lot of work in Lightroom I was able to get a somewhat pleasing skin tone but that was only with a 14,380 Kelvin Temp and a -52 Tint. As you can see here in the background though, the background and shadow areas have now gone a cool blue colour.

Cheap LED lights are horrendously bad at white lighting and is why they have such a bad reputation. Yes you can get excellent LED lighting but it costs an awful lot of money to get them. Fancy a nice white LED light? How about a 30cm by 65cm Arri SkyPanel? That'll be nearly £4500 then please!

Of course I've chosen the most overpriced alternative I could find to make my point but I think you get the idea. If you're looking to play with cheap LED lighting, don't beat yourself up if the colour looks horrendous.

All that aside, I actually quite like the colouring and incredibly soft and beautifying light this portrait has. If you're happy with this alternative look then I think you can have a lot of fun with these.

Red & Blue Ring Light

Of course one of the incredibly useful benefits of having separate lights as part of this ring light setup is that you can adjust them independently. For example in the shots below, I'm playing with red and blue; red either side and blue above and below.

With the model really close to these lights you're able to get some very interesting looks. I also experimented with varying amounts of tones and brightness on each of the lights so that I have one far softer and more muted look compared to one that is a lot more saturated.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Closing Comments

As with so many things in life, you get what you pay for. These LED lights are only £20 each and for four of them at £60 I was able to create some very impressive coloured portraits. But I quickly found some frustrating limitations that you should be aware of before you pick these up yourself and start playing.

Concerns

Brightness

First and foremost, these LED lights are not powerful with regards to their brightness. A lot of these images are shot at ISO 800, f2 at 1/60th second. To those with a bit of experience in ambient lighting, you'll know from those figures that the lights are pretty dark. In fairness most modern cameras are more than capable of dealing with those ISOs with little issue but it's certainly worth bearing that in mind.

Colour Consistency

Based on my tests with the 'white light' shots, it's fair to say that these LED lights do not excel at white lighting portraits. Yes you can make it work in post, but I'd say that I have a fair amount of experience in colour correction and it was a real pain in the ass to get the shot to look as good as it does here. I'd potentially say that these are almost unusable as white lights and whether that's due to their opaque housing or the actual LED themselves, caution is advised.

Usability

The other big stumbling block I found of course was that I couldn't easily adjust these lights independently with their remote control. Changing one light meant that you have to change them all without a lot patience. Was it manageable? Yes, but it certainly wasn't as easy as I first thought it might be. Again, I don't think this is catastrophic but patience is required.

Fun Factor

With those concerns aired, I still recommend playing with these lights, especially as I personally don't see them as a major investment. I had a whole bunch of fun playing with these and having the ability to see colour being shaped on the model in real time is very educational.

But beyond all the negative crap and workarounds, I got some killer shots that I actually really, really like. So to be fair, even if I never use these LED lights ever again, I feel like they were well worth it.

Thanks for Reading

Thanks as always guys for reading this article, I know they're often fairly long so I really do appreciate your precious time. If something doesn't make sense or if you have any questions then please don't hesitate to message me or comment below.

If you'd like to updated once a month with all of my other articles then feel free to sign up to my newsletter here. Signing up now also gets you a free 10 page studio lighting PDF.

See you all in the next one :)

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:WARNING: Hardly FREE awesome content below!

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If you liked this article and would be interested in more posts like this in the future, please feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter. I publish one of these articles every week and each month I collect them all up and send them directly to your inbox just in case you missed one. Signing up now also get's you my free 10 page pdf on Studio Lighting Tips and Techniques. Jake Hicks Photography - Newsletter

---

If you're interested in any of my work and would like to know more about how I created some of my shots then why not check out my workshops. Here you can find out everything there is to know about Gelled Lighting, Long Exposure Flash Photography and my entire Post-Pro Workflow. Jake Hicks Photography - Workshops

---

I've also just released a brand new 22 hour complete Gelled Lighting Tutorial video. I go over everything from studio lighting setups with gels to being on location with gels plus I also go through my complete retouching and post pro workflow. For more details and complete breakdown of everything that's include check out my Coloured Gel Portraits Tutorial

---

I also offer comprehensive coloured gel packs. These collections of gels are what I use day to day to create some of the most highly saturated colours around. If you're looking at getting into gelled lighting or need to get stronger and richer colours in your coloured gel work why not check out my Jake Hicks Photography Gel Packs