DIY Diffusion Filter

I’ve been using diffusion filters on my lenses for many years, but recently LEE Filters, the brand that makes the one that I use, ceased production of them. Here’s a cheap and easy DIY alternative…

*Sadly LEE Filters recently announced that they were ceasing production of their diffusion filters AKA 'Softs’, so I looked for some alternatives.*

If you were curious about the LEE Softs filter, you can see the results of me using them here Using Diffusion Filters - LEE 'Soft' Filters

For years I’ve been making videos and presenting demonstrations using the LEE ‘Soft’ filters and now that people can’t purchase them anymore, I’ve been getting a lot of messages and questions regarding alternatives.

This article explains what a diffusion filter does and why it’s not like other lens filters you may already have.

Plus, I’ll also go over some alternative options, as well as a very quick and cheap DIY version for you to try too.

What is a diffusion filter?

There is some confusion surrounding what a ‘diffusion filter’ actually is as, many people confuse them with ‘low contrast’ filters and other similarly named lens filters. A diffusion filter, or as LEE used to call them ‘Softs’, creates a flared point of light around the light source. Imagine taking a shot of car head lamp on a foggy day, the bright part of the shot glows outwards creating a radiating flare. The distinction to make here, is that diffusion filters create flare at the source of light, compared to low contrast filters that create a far more gradual and general glow or haze of light.

I wrote a detailed article on low contrast filters here if you’re interested Using Low Contrast Lens Filters in Portraits, but essentially the example image below shows you the difference between the diffusion and low contrast filters pretty clearly.

What are the alternatives to the LEE Softs?

The good news is that you have a few options and you can either spend a lot, or not much at all to get some pretty similar looking results to the old ‘Softs’, but what does a good alternative look like?

By all means take a look around online for yourself to see what might fit with what you want, but here are a few of the popular alternative lens filter options that I’ve used in the past: Check the ‘Tiffen - Black Pro Mist’ or the ‘Moment - Cinebloom’ or even the ‘Prism Lens - FX Dream FX’

All the aforementioned filters are good in their own right, but they may even be ‘too’ good for what we want. What I mean by that is that the filters like the Pro Mist and even Cinebloom do an excellent job of scattering the light and giving us that cool ‘cinematic’ look, but we want more of a flare at the point of light over a global haze effect. To do this, we often need something a little crappier and here is where a nice DIY alternative can save the day.

DIY Diffusion Filter

If you’re after a cheap DIY alternative to the LEE Softs filter then you’re in luck, because mine only cost me £5.48!!!

All you need is a cheap UV lens filter that is the correct diameter for the lens you’ll be using, and some hair spray…. that’s it!

UV Lens Filter

I just searched ‘62mm UV lens filter’ on eBay and got a few results. The cheapest option is absolutely fine as we’re not worried about quality for this. REMEMBER: Be sure to search for a UV filter that matches your specific lens diameter.

Note: Be sure to search for your specific lens diameter to narrow the search. If you’r not sure what mm your lens diameter is, you can usually find it on the inside of your lens cap.

Hair Spray

You may already have this at home somewhere, but if not, you can buy mini cans of hairspray very cheaply.

Again, there’s nothing fancy here. I just searched ‘hairspray’ on Amazon and chose the cheapest one and its only cheap because it comes in a mini 75ml tester size. You’ll hardly need any hairspray, so the smaller the can, the better.

Making your DIY Diffusion Filter

This will take you all of about 10 seconds and reading this will take you more time than it will to make your filter.

I simply went outside, held my UV filter at arms length away from me, held the hairspray close to my chest and then I sprayed a couple of quick passes over the filter.

The aim here is to keep the spray far enough away from the filter so that the droplets of spray have time to separate. You don’t want to saturate the filter and you want to spray in quick bursts. Try spraying above the filter and letting the hairspray fall down onto it. Remember: It’s far easier to build up the effect with multiple passes compared to overdoing it in one spray.

Before and After UV Filter

Below you can see what the UV filter looked like before and after the hairspray. Like I mentioned above, the trick is to have a fine mist of dots that aren’t all clumped together and remember, you can always build up from here if you want a more pronounced effect.

Testing the Effect

You can immediately test the filter to see if its working to the desired amount. Simply find a single light source and photograph it in shot. Below you can see the results and how pronounced the effect is with just a simple squirt of hairspray.

*Click to enlarge -* Handheld LED strip light

*Click to enlarge* - Regular ceiling lights

Using your DIY Diffusion Filter in a Photoshoot

It’s up to you how you use your new DIY diffusion filter, but for me personally, I only tend to use one when lights are either in-shot, or just out of frame, like if you were using a hair light or edge light on a portrait. Without a light being fired back to the lens, you’ll likely not notice this lens filter doing anything at all.

Without DIY Diffusion Filter

With DIY Diffusion Filter

Closing Comments

It should be plainly obvious to see from the images above just how powerful a diffusion filter can be when it comes to adding a little extra interest to your shots. The diffusion filter allows for a glow of light to enter the frame and I always find this a very useful trick for studio portraits, especially if the background is very plain. You can also use this glow technique to seemingly mix colours in shots too as you can layer one coloured glow on top of another and its similar to what I’m doing here by layering the pink on top of the darker blue.

Light Placement

Play around with a few ideas, but just remember that the diffusion trick really only works when the light is coming back into the lens. Any points of light will trigger the effect and you can even see the glow of light reflecting off of the necklace in the 3/4 length body shot above.

Increasing the Effect

The only next steps here are for you to consider ways of practically increasing the effect without having to spray more hairspray on the same filter. One method that I often use is to simply stack the UV filters. For example I now have two lens filters with the hairspray on them and if I want more ‘glow’ I simply screw both filters to my lens in a stack. This is a simple solution and its very quick to add another filter at the point of shooting.

Storage

One last tip, and that’s to do with storage. The reason we’re using hairspray at all is so that the droplets will hold in place without simply drying up and disappearing, which would have happened if we’d simply sprayed water onto the filter. That’s not to say that the hairspray droplets are durable at all and you need to remember that if the surface of that filter comes into contact with anything at all, the droplets will smudge and the effect will be ruined. From here you’d need to properly clean filter and reapply the hairspray once more. With this in mind, be sure to keep your DIY diffusion filter in its box when not in use.

Good luck and have fun playing with these simple in-camera flares.

Model: Ryo Love

Necklace: LOVE ROX

Lighting: Rotolight AEOS 2 & Titans

JHP Livestreams…

If you give this DIY Diffusion Filter a go, I’d love to see how the shots turn out and definitely feel free to share them my way. One way to do that is via my livestream. I livestream every other Tuesday night via my FB Page and there I answer your questions, critique your shots, take community images into Photoshop to work on them and discuss all manner of lighting tips and techniques. I look forward to seeing you and your work there real soon. JHP Facebook Page

Thank You

As always, thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and if you left with a little more knowledge than when you arrived, it’s been worth it.

If you have any questions or comments, or if something doesn’t make sense, by all means fire-away in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer what I can. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next one.

Don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter to be sent all of these photo tips and techniques articles every month in case you miss one.

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Lighting Setup: Caustic Portrait Light

Don’t be alarmed! Yes, the title of this article may seem a little bizarre, no it’s not helping my SEO, but I assure you that there’s actually a scientific reason behind its ‘caustic’ name.

For many years I’ve played with the idea of recreating various lighting looks that many of us may know and love from the natural world around us. Sure, we can buy fancy lighting modifiers that all serve a purpose, but sometimes their look can be a little too clinical, and frankly boring. Yes, once again I’m looking directly at you, softbox users. I guess we all start somewhere though ;)

Now that I’ve ostracised half of my readers in the first paragraph, let’s see if Jake’s latest DIY lighting modifier is actually any good!

As I alluded to, many studio modifiers can be a pale representation of truly beautiful natural light and no studio modifiers really ever come close to recreating it. From the hard, direct sunlight of an L.A. muscle beach to the incredibly soft and diffused natural light of an overcast Scottish summers day, it can be tricky to truly replicate these defining daylight looks indoors.

Beyond the classics of purely hard and soft light though, there are a multitude of other natural lighting looks and effects that we can try to recreate and one of those is ‘caustics’.

We’re all likely very familiar with the beautiful light-play we see at the bottom of a pool. The phenomenon is referred to as ‘caustics’. - Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

What are ‘Caustics’?

The term caustics is used in optics as it describes the resulting look of light after it passes though specifically shaped, transparent, denser than air materials. These transparent objects are namely water and you’ve likely seen the tell-tale rippling pattern at the bottom of a swimming pool or even through a glass of water on a table.

The caustic look I was most interested in recreating was that beautiful shadow-play effect you see at the bottom of a pool when the wind catches the surface. The resulting stunning display of dancing highlights is projected on the floor beneath and its this very look that has always fascinated me.

Could I recreate these ‘caustics’ and would I even be able to do so without the use of sunlight?

Similar Effects…

Long-time readers will know I’ve played with this shadow-play or ‘textured’ light idea in the past. I’ve shone hard light through glass-blocks and even bounced light off of those silver emergency blankets. Both of these setups produced great results, but they certainly had their drawbacks. If you’re interested, I’ll link those previous articles below so you can see my ‘workings’.

Of course others have tried to recreate similar looks too and although many of them had their merits, some were simply impractical or others were not particularly flattering. Some setups I’ve seen even require the subject to lie underneath a large tray of rippling water! Yes the caustic effect was certainly visible, but having the subject lying down the whole time is not ideal and suspending a transparent bathtub of water above them is far from practical for most of us.

Along with the aforementioned examples, I’ve seen countless other iterations on the same idea of using caustics in the studio, but they all suffered from the same issue; they all lit their subjects from below!

You see, others were using a similar principle of bouncing light off of a silver sheet, but they had the sheet below the model. This meant that the subjects were now being lit by light coming from below them and this is never a good look (outside of 80’s classic horror).

The obvious and somewhat simple solution I had to avoid this very unflattering under-lighting, was to simply position the silver sheet above them to then bounce light down onto them. This solved the nasty under-light look, but I was wasn’t getting the dramatic and very distinctive caustic lighting effect I was after.

Looking to recreate a mottled lighting effect similar to that of dappled light through trees? Try this ‘Emulating Dappled Light in the Studio’ setup.

Don’t want to spend any money, but want a cool lighting effect? Try this ‘My favourite £1 Lighting Modifier’ setup.

A surprisingly simple solution…

As it turns out, to get the look I was after, I simply had to combine a couple of my old ideas together to come up with the best solution. The caustic lighting effect on water is actually fairly subtle and by that I mean the effect is lost the instant the water surface gets too broken up and rough. You only ever see the phenomenon at the bottom of a pool when there’s a light breeze. Too much wind and the effect is simply lost.

I’d previously been on the right track by using silver sheeting to create a dappled effect, but to do so, I was scrunching up my silver sheet far too much to get the proper caustic effect I was after. The solution? Don’t scrunch up the silver sheet. I did tell you the solution was simple.

Previously I’d thought that a textured surface to bounce the light off would create the best desired effect. But like the surface of a pool on a windy day, the effect was lost!

The Setup…

Many of my younger readers will have just skipped down here to the ‘meat’ of the article, and to you I say, ‘welcome’. To those that have diligently read all the way down here thus-far, you now have a better understanding of exactly what we're trying to achieve. Plus, you’ll have learnt from a few of my previous mistakes that you’ll likely now want to avoid. -I can almost hear the indecision of the ‘skippers’ as they ponder whether the 18 extra seconds of reading above will make their final shots better or not.

As always, let’s first look at the setup and then I’ll explain exactly what’s going on and how you can adapt it to get various results based on your tastes.

Click on any of the images above to enlarge them.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - AF DC Nikkor 105 F2
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture - f2.0
ISO - 50
Kelvin - 4500K
Focal Length - 105mm

The lighting design…

Now that you’ve seen the setup and some of the behind the scenes of the shoot, let me briefly explain what’s going on. The lighting design revolves around me casting the caustics onto the model via a hard light being shone into a silver mylar sheet suspended above the models head. This lighting effect creates highlights and shadows on the model and those shadows are then in turn filled in by a coloured soft light produced by a large umbrella and scrim.

Silver Mylar

The silver mylar is the secret trick here and although I’ve used this material in the past to create a similar effect, I’d not used a perfect sheet of it in this way. By ‘perfect’, I mean not scrunched, folded or otherwise distorted. By having a clean sheet of it above the model like this means the resulting reflections are only slightly affected, but when magnified by the distance of the light traveling from surface to subject, those slight imperfections are magnified and this is what creates this gorgeous caustic-like effect. I’ll share the exact silver mylar I used in the ‘Products Used’ section below, so you can get a better idea of what this product is and does if you’ve not used it before.

Simulating ‘casuistics’

Yes, to clarify, I’m technically not creating true caustics via water or other transparent mediums, I am in fact recreating a similar look by bouncing hard light off of a very shiny surface. That being said, the effect is extremely similar to the caustic look and we don’t have to suspend a pool of water above the model to do achieve it either.

Never light from below

The other important factor here is the fact that I’ve suspended the mylar above the subject. To me, this is a crucial element that many overlook as you never want to simply lay the mylar sheet on the floor and bounce light up off of it. Is it realistic to have caustics coming down compared to caustics being cast up on to the model like they may appear in nature, like if the model was stood at the pool edge? No, but we’re trying to take great portraits, not win at the science fair.

By having the mylar above the models head, we are able to maintain a far more flattering light down onto our subject, (and I’ll say it again as I know people will make this mistake) as you never want to light your subject from below.

If you’re not familiar with an Optical Snoot, check out my review of the one I use here to learn more Lighting Modifier Review: Optical Snoot.

Hard Light

Many long-time readers of mine will have long ago come to terms with the fact that I use very hard light in a lot of my setups in the form of an ‘Optical Snoot’. Many of you will already own one of these Optical Snoots as they aren’t too pricey in terms of other lighting modifiers, but if you don’t own one, what are the alternatives?

Firstly, what is an Optical Snoot? It’s a lighting modifier that attaches to your studio strobe that focusses the light into a vey tight beam via a lens mounted at the end. The optical snoot I have actually uses one of my camera lenses to do this and the resulting light cast from it is extremely controlled and focused. If you don’t have one, I’d urge you to consider getting one as you’ll use it far more than you think, but an alternative for this setup maybe something like a bare speedlight. Speedlights cast a very tight and hard beam of light and although this is ordinarily far from ideal as a light for your subject, those same properties are ideal for this situation. Failing that, a snoot or grid on your strobe could also be tried, but just me mindful that the resulting caustic effect may be a little less prominent and more blurred.

Soft Light

The soft light portion of this setup is a little easier to achieve and you can create a similar look in a variety of ways. For this setup, I use a large umbrella coupled with a large scrim. I personally love this combo as it creates some very soft light in a small space which is ideal for smaller studios and home shoot-spaces. Due to softboxes all having an inherent and unavoidable hotspot at the centre, I’d never recommend using a softbox in smaller spaces to create soft light. The umbrella bounces light away from the subject and then the resulting bounced light passes though a layer of diffusion. It’s this method that removes any hotspots and it produces a significantly softer light as a result.

Taking it further

I’ve already outlined the basic premise of this setup, but what if you want to take if further? What if you wanted to add some colour? Of course no self-respecting studio photographer would prepare a lighting setup without also adding some coloured light to it right?!

Thankfully this is easily done and all we have to do is add a coloured gel to our soft light. This soft light is already filling in the harder shadows of the shot, so this simply adds colour to those shadows without overpowering the subject.

The only decision left to make is ‘what sort of colour should you add?’ In the final shots below, I’ll show you some of the variations I played with and you can decide for yourself what you prefer or what you’d like to try and develop further. Remember, although the shots below all look very different, the only thing changing, is the gel on the soft light…. nothing else!

Final shots…

You can click on any of the shots below to fit them to your screen.

Base Setup

This image is the ‘base setup’. That means that there is no gels whatsoever on the soft light. I have the hard light fired into the mylar above and the resulting caustics are falling down onto the model. The soft light is adding a small amount of fill-light to the scene which results in those dark shadows cast by the caustics to not be too heavy and dark. This is a great look as is and creates a very believable caustic lighting effect.

From here you can play with varying amounts of fill-light power from the soft light. More power from the soft light would reduce the overall contrast of caustics and less power would increase it.

Click on the image to fit it to your screen.

The ‘Warmer Look’ Setup

This next look adds a lot of visual warmth to the setup via colour gel on the soft light.

As you can immediately tell from the look of this compared to the base setup, that the shadows are now a lot warmer looking and this is thanks to a CTO gel being added to the softlight.

A Colour Temperature Orange (CTO) gel is a specifically designed gel that is used to increase the Kelvin value of a given light. This is NOT to be confused with a regular orange gel. You can of course test a regular orange gel here, but you’ll likely find the effect far too dominant and because of this, I prefer using the more subtle CTO gel.

Click on the image to fit it to your screen.

The ‘Colder Look’ Setup

Like the previous setup above where I added a CTO gel to the soft light, I’ve now replaced that CTO with a CTB gel. The Colour Temperature Blue (CTB) gel is doing a similar thing as before in that it's applying a subtle colour thanks to it only affecting the Kelvin. Like I said, this is subtle, in fact you may not even have noticed it at all, had you not seen the original un-gelled shot at the start. Using these subtle Kelvin gels can be a great way to affect the overall look of a scene, without dominating or overpowering it with colour. It’s also worth noting that your background can play a huge part in this too. I’m using a gorgeously rich, gold hand painted canvas backdrop here which is very warm to look at on its own. This CTB just brings the whole scene to a more neutral tone overall.

Click on the images to fit them to your screen.

Adding MORE colour…

In these final few shots I played with adding even more colour via the use of regular coloured gels on the softlight. As you can see from the shots below, the shadows are now filled with a very obvious colour and I was personally happiest with these final looks due to the harmony I was creating with the gold backdrop and models bronzed skin, alongside the almost aquamarine blue gel colour.

Colour is arguably one of the most subjective aspects of our lives, as colour means vastly different things to each of us, but the philosophy of colour aside, I’d always encourage each you to experiment with colour in your shoots. Start to build your own visual library of what works and what doesn’t for you personally. Don’t be afraid to experiment and above all else, trust your own opinion of what looks good.

Ultimately, the shots below show where I ended up with my final colours and to me, it conjured a colour harmony that was reminiscent of old Roman baths. A rich gold and bronze that had oxidised with that greenish undertone, coupled with the water caustics and tile effect of the hand painted backdrop, resulting in the gorgeous final shots below that I am very happy with.

Like I said, play with the colours yourself based on the models skin type, styling, your backdrop and overall look you’re after.

Click on the images to fit them to your screen.

Products Used

Please note that I’ve included affiliate links below so I will benefit (albeit minimally) from the sales of any of these products should you purchase them. To that end, please feel free to use my discount code ‘HICK5-OFF’ at Essential Photo to receive a discount on any purchase via their site.

Silver Mylar

This is likely the most unique item on the list and although you probably don’t have some of this lying around, it’s not too expensive to get.

I grabbed a 10m roll on eBay for less than £20 and although you probably don’t need 10m, it was the best value versus options for additional uses down the road. By all means take a look and get something that’s more appropriate for your needs. Note that Mylar is a used for a variety of applications from agriculture to helium balloons, so don’t expect to find it in a photo-store.

Optical Snoot

Many of my regular readers will know that I absolutely love this modifier. I use it in so many of my shoots, although I rarely use it for its intended purpose, which is shining light through gobos. I’m using the optical snoot here as it allows me to be very controlled with where the light falls on my subject. I do not want any light from this modifier to fall directly onto model or the background before it has hit the mylar. The very controllable spot of light the optical snoot provides easily enables me to do this, even in small shooting spaces like a home studios.

Potential Alternatives

You could substitute this optical snoot for many other small and hard light sources. A snoot, a grid and even barn doors would allow you to direct the light into a small area like the optical snoot does here although it won’t be as focused.

*Note: This modifier can be used in conjunction with many different strobes. Check the dropdown for compatibility.*

Optical Snoot

A unique modifier that you’ll use more often than you realise. No other modifier creates strong directional light like this does and although often used with gobos, I often simply use it without them.

Optical Snoot Link

Large Umbrella & Scrim

I appreciate this may seem like overkill, but this second light does need to be very soft so as to not cast shadows on my background from the model. The further I move the subject from the background to reduce shadows, the greater the difference in exposure between subject and background becomes and I really want to limit that whilst only using two lights in a small space. This large umbrella and scrim combo produces very soft light with almost no hotspot, even in tight spaces.

Potential Alternatives

You could get pretty close to this soft look with simply the large umbrella with a diffusion cover, failing that (and I’m loathed to say this as it really won’t look the same), you could use a large softbox. Just be mindful that you will cast shadows from that and you’ll have a hotspot, especially when used in tight quarters and close to the subject. I really would urge you to consider buying a large umbrella over a large softbox to see the difference for yourself.

*Note: This one also comes with a diffusion cover which provides even softer light.*

Large Umbrella

Although I wouldn’t personally class this as a ‘parabolic’ umbrella, it’s still an excellent modifier for illuminating large rooms or for producing very soft lighting.

Large Umbrella Link

*Note: This scrim is a perfect size for portrait shooting, plus its still small enough to be used in home studios too.*

Large Scrim

I originally got this for cinematic studio lighting, but now I nearly use it on every shoot that requires a soft light. This scrim produces noticeably cleaner and softer light over simply using a softbox alone.

Large Scrim Link

Hand Painted Backdrop

If you’re taking portraiture seriously, you’ll likely already own at least one of these, but the hand painted canvas backdrops are a phenomenal addition to your portrait setups. I’ll be honest, I was sceptical myself until I tried them and they really do enable you to produce truly gorgeous backgrounds when used in conjunction with a shallow depth of field lens. I’m using a 2m x 3m gold one from Essential Photo here and if you’ve ever looked at prices for hand-painted backdrops before, these ones from Essential Photo aren’t as pricey as many others out there.

Potential Alternatives

Beyond actually making one yourself, there really isn’t an alternative to this…. but again if you’ve ever tried to make one of these yourself, you’ll know it isn’t quite as easy as it looks. If you want to give it a go though, I did write an article on how to make a pretty simple alternative here DIY Mottled Backdrop

*Note: These come in a huge variety of shapes and designs so follow the link to see what suits your style.*

Hand Painted Backdrop

Another one of those products where you don’t realise you need it until you try it. These definitely give your portraits an instant edge of professionalism and are best used with shallow depth of fields to get some gorgeous portrait backgrounds.

Hand Painted Backdrop Link

Colour Gels

One of the key features of this setup was with the addition of colour. The colour adds another dimension to this look and whether that’s with the CTO and CTB gels, or its just regular colour gels, the extra layer of colour in this shot and many others is a great way to say more about your image.

Potential Alternatives to Colour Temperature Gels

There really isn’t an alternative I’m afraid. These CTB and CTO gels are specifically designed to change the colour of lights along the Kelvin scale. So although you may be able to save a few quid and use wrapping paper, sweet wrappers, coloured dye on glass (trust me, I’ve heard all the cheapskate alternatives to actually buying gels by now ;) ), there simply is no household alternative to colour temperature gels to my knowledge.

*Note: The Colour Temperature gels can be found in the ‘Utility Gel Pack’. The other saturated coloured gels are in my ‘Definitive’ pack.*

Gel Packs

I’ve been selling my own gel packs for many, many years now, so if you still don’t have them, follow the link below to take a look. The CTB gels are found in the ‘Utility Pack’.

Gel Packs Link

Closing Comments…

At its core, this is a fairly simple setup. It’s only two lights and the placement of them doesn’t even need to be particularly precise. Place your hard-light down low pointed up at the silver mylar and then simply place your soft-light somewhere just to the side to bathe the scene in its entirety.

Points to consider

It may not be immediately apparent from the diagram, but I’m actually shooting over the top of my optical snoot. Keeping the optical snoot directly in front of the subject like this will ensure that the light bounced down from above is straight on as well. This helps greatly with shadow-management.
Play with getting the sweet-spot in distance for your model from the background. You want them close enough so that the caustic effect falls on them as well as the backdrop, but far enough away so as to allow the background to fall out of focus with shallow depth of field lensed.
Although our hard-light is on the floor, the light itself when it reaches the model is actually coming down from above at a steep angle. Be very mindful of the posing when shooting like this as the models chin will need to be up a lot of the time to avoid unflattering shadows.
Be prepared to adjust the silver mylar above. Maybe I got extremely lucky, but I simply suspended it above, clamped it in place, shone the light onto it and the resulting caustics looked great straightaway. If you’re not getting the results your happy with, play with how taught the sheet its above. For me, keeping it tight resulted in the minor imperfections being magnified over the distance to give the effect I wanted.
Don’t forget to play with varying ratios of light too. By ratios I mean the differences in power between the two lights. Try more and less power through the fill and key to see what you prefer, but be careful that that the highlights present in the caustic pattern aren’t blowing out. This setups features contrasting light, so don’t be afraid to let the dark areas be dark.

As always, good luck and I hope you have some fun creating something a little more unique than your standard-looking portrait. If you give it a go then I’d love to see the results and you can always share your results in my weekly community image critique post, -Share-a-Shoot- every Monday on the Facebook Page. See you there.

Featured Model: Sophie Baines

JHP Livestreams…

If you give this setup a go, I’d love to see how the shots turn out, so feel free to share them my way. One way to do that is via my livestream. I livestream every other Tuesday night via my FB Page and there I answer your questions, critique your shots, take community images into Photoshop to work on them and discuss all manner of lighting tips and techniques. I look forward to seeing you and your work there real soon. JHP Facebook Page

Thank You

Don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter to be sent all of these photo tips and techniques articles every month in case you miss one.

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Lighting Setup: Simple Long Exposure Portraits

Sometimes it can be great to flex your skills and show off your lighting prowess, but we can often run into the danger of the image being more about the lighting technique rather than the look of the final image itself.

*It can be great to be super-creative at times, but other times, subtly is key!*

This is something I always try and hammer home when I’m teaching new techniques.

“Don’t let the technique dominate the shot”

Is there anybody here old enough to remember the horrendous HDR portraits of the early 2000’s? The images were all about showing off the latest HDR technique rather than the subjects themselves and the results were nothing short of terrifying. Too young and have no idea what I’m talking about? Just Google HDR portraits and you’ll see what I mean.

We all fall foul to this trap at one point or another and sometimes the shot really is less about the subject and more about making the technique stand out to catch someones attention.

It’s fine to do this and there is definitely a place for it in commercial work where the shots are supposed to be relatable, yet ethereal and eye-catching enough to sell products. But what about those times when the designer wants to see the styling and fashion? What about those times when it’s a fitness shot and the subject wants to see their body clearly? Or even a simple portrait shoot for a client that wants to see their face not bright blue from gels? This is the time to flex your lighting talents whilst still adhering to the brief and its during these times where subtly is often the key to achieving this.

Throughout this article I’ll explain how to setup and shoot this subtle, long exposure portrait lighting technique that adds a visually engaging interest to your shots, without overpowering your subject.

*Click to enlarge*: Long exposure portraits can look great and I’ve used light painting, studio long exposure as well as location long exposure to showcase the technique. But it can very quickly dominate the shot if you let it.

*“You're about as subtle as a f****** train wreck. On a boat.”*
― Doug Walker

Long exposure is another one of those popular lighting techniques that many of us have tried at one point or another, but we’ve all likely been met with mixed results.

One danger you can very quickly run into when shooting long exposure portraits, is the shot being a blurry mess that you describe to the camera club as ‘fine art’ or ‘contemporary portraiture’.

In reality, we likely got carried away and allowed the technique to become the focal point of the shot. It’s when we allow our creative free-sprits to get carried away, that the technique can dominate the subject and the shot now becomes a ‘good long exposure shot’ and not a ‘great portrait’.

In this article I’ll show you a very simple setup that will help you to rein-in the long exposure technique a little and by shooting in this way, you can add an engaging, visual interest to your subjects, without allowing the technique to dominate them.

Don’t be fooled though, as shooting with subtly can often be harder to do than many of us realise, so this will be as much a lesson in restraint as is about foundational technique.

Simple Long Exposure Portrait Setup

One of the core aspects of a long exposure shot, is of course an ambient light. This is the light that will be constantly on during the entire time our shutter is open. Thankfully, this will likely be pretty easy to achieve for this setup as we’re actually using the modelling bulb from our flash. Most flash units have a modelling bulb and this allows us to see the subject as we focus our shots. Making this modelling bulb appear in our images is actually very easy to do, we simply need a longer shutter speed than we’d ordinarily use in the studio to see it. For example you may shoot flash images at around 125th to 250th of a second, but for long exposure shots, we may extend our shutter speed to a whole second or more. It’s this extended duration that allows our cameras to show the ordinarily much dimmer modelling bulbs in shot.

Note: Some flash units will actively turn off the modelling bulb when the flash fires. Just check your strobe isn’t doing this and if it is, there’s nearly always a function in the menus that enables the modelling bulb to stay on during the exposure.

Tungsten or LED

One important area to talk about here is whether your strobe has an LED or tungsten modelling bulb. The LED modelling bulb often looks like a little yellow dot in the centre of your strobe. A tungsten modelling bulb is often a large glass bulb that can be replaced or removed. We ideally want an LED modelling bulb for this setup (which most of you likely already have), but I can discuss ways around shooting this with tungsten modelling bulbs at the end. Just remind me and I’ll go through it then.

LED modelling bulbs appear on most strobes as a yellow dot in the centre of the unit. Tungsten bulbs are far larger and can be unscrewed.

In addition to this flash with modelling bulb, we simply need another flash, a backdrop, a gel or two and we’re done!

Here’s the setup below. Take a look and then I’ll discuss what’s going on beneath that.

As you can see from the setup above, it’s actually fairly simple and you can even do this in small rooms like home studios if need be. I am using a couple of pieces of kit here that I absolutely love, but that you may not have. I’ll discuss those now and talk about potential alternatives that can be used as substitutes if needed.

Camera Settings

Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - AF DC Nikkor 105 F2
Shutter Speed - 0.8 Seconds
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 100
Kelvin - 4500K
Focal Length - 105mm

Products Used

Optical Snoot

Many of my regular readers will know that I absolutely love this modifier and that I use it in so many of my shoots, although I rarely use it for its intended purpose, which is shining gobos. I’m using the optical snoot here as it allows me to be very controlled with where the light falls on my subject. I do not want any light from this modifier to fall onto the background and the very controllable spot of light the optical snoot provides easily enables me to do this, even in small shooting spaces like a home studios.

Potential Alternatives

Optical Snoot

Optical Snoot Link

Large Umbrella & Scrim

I appreciate this may seem like overkill, but this second light does need to be very soft so as to not cast shadows on my background. The further I move the subject from the background to reduce shadows, the greater the difference in exposure between subject and background becomes and I really want to limit that whilst only using two lights in a small space. This large umbrella and scrim combo produces very soft light with almost no hotspot, even in tight spaces.

Potential Alternatives

You could get pretty close to this soft look with simply the large umbrella with a diffusion cover, failing that (and I’m loathed to say this as it really won’t look the same), you could use a large softbox. Just be mindful that you will cast shadows from that, and you’ll have a hotspot, especially when used in tight quarters and close to the subject. I really would urge you to consider buying a large umbrella over a large softbox to see the difference for yourself.

Large Umbrella

Although I wouldn’t personally class this as a ‘parabolic’ umbrella, it’s still an excellent modifier for illuminating large rooms or for producing very soft lighting.

Large Umbrella Link

Large Scrim

Large Scrim Link

Hand Painted Backdrop

If you’re taking portraiture seriously, you’ll likely already own at least one of these, but the hand painted backdrops are a phenomenal addition to your portrait setups. I’ll be honest, I was sceptical myself until I tried them and they really do enable you to produce truly gorgeous backgrounds when used in conjunction with a shallow depth of field lens. I’m using a 2m x 3m blue one from Essential Photo here and if you’ve ever looked at prices for hand-painted backdrops before, these one from Essential Photo aren’t as pricey as many others out there.

Potential Alternatives

Hand Painted Backdrop

Hand Painted Backdrop Link

CTB Gel

There is one other little trick to get the look I’m sporting here and that’s one or two CTB (colour temperature blue) gels. These enable us to make subtle changes to the colour of our flashes without overpowering our subjects with bold colour.

Potential Alternatives

There really isn’t an alternative I’m afraid. These CTB gels are specifically designed to change the colour of lights along the Kelvin scale. So although you may be able to save a few quid and use wrapping paper, sweet wrappers, coloured dye on glass (trust me, I’ve heard all the cheapskate alternatives to actually buying gels by now ;) ), there simply is no household alternative to colour temperature gels to my knowledge.

*Note: The Colour Temperature Blue gels can be found in the ‘Utility Gel Pack’.*

Gel Packs

I’ve been selling my own gel packs for many, many years now, so if you still don’t have them, follow the link below to take a look. The CTB gels are found in the ‘Utility Pack’.

Gel Packs Link

Breaking the setup down

At its core, this technique is a simple two light setup. Both flashes fire, but one of them has a modelling bulb on to give us a slight ghosting effect when we shoot at a longer shutter speed. For context, the shutter speed of my shots here were taken at between 0.5 seconds and 1 second. This enables the camera to see the light from the modelling bulb for a period after the flash has fired. It is in this short window of time where I can move my camera around to get those subtle ghosted movements.

Just to reiterate that last part in case you are new to long exposure portraits, YOU have to move the camera around whilst the shutter is open to get the moving, ghosting effect to appear.

Both my flash units have LED modelling bulbs, which most of yours will do to. The LED modelling bulbs are pretty close to being the same colour as the flash so when I open my shutter and combine both the flash and the LED modelling bulbs in the same frame, the colour of the light matches.

What if I have tungsten modelling bulbs?

This isn’t a huge issue, but we will need to make a couple of adjustments. Firstly, I’d suggest you put one CTB gel over your key light (the optical snoot/ hard light on the model). This will allow both the tungsten modelling bulb and the flash colour to be the same as both of those lights now have to pass through the same CTB gel. To then counter this on our fill light, I suggest you add two CTB gels to that so the resulting colder, blue colour is now more noticeable in contrast to the key. If this doesn’t make sense just yet, read on to see the part about ‘The Blue Fill Light’.

The Blue Fill light

We discussed above that the hard light will have the modelling bulb on during the 0.5 second exposure, but that light will not have any gels attached to it (unless you’re shooting with tungsten modelling bulbs). The blue you see in my images comes from the big soft light and it is ONLY this light that has the CTB (colour temperate blue) gel on it. This CTB gel is giving us a subtle blue tone when we set our camera Kelvin to around 4500K. This will appear very subtle in-camera, but is exaggerated when contrast is added in post later on.

Nerd-Note: Some more experienced photographers here may be wondering how adding a flash coloured gel to a flash, makes any difference at all to the resulting light. You'd be right to assume that, but there is enough of variance in colour to get the subtle look we’re after. If you’re finding that you’re not seeing any difference at all with your lights, gels, camera combo, try adding an additional 1/2 CTB or even another full CTB to your original CTB to really make the difference pop.

This blue fill-light is likely doing more than you realise and the size of the light in relation to the subject is also playing a crucial role in the final look too. In the finished shots at the end of this article, look at those gorgeous, big blue highlights. It’s producing a lot of defining, yet subtle features to this shot that are tricky to achieve in other ways.

Key points to remember

Only have the modelling bulb on for the flash that is lighting the face (the optical snoot/hard light on model).
Be sure to turn OFF the modelling bulb on the large umbrella light - Failing to do so will ruin the shot with an overpowering effect that is not the subtle look we’re after.
Do not allow the hard light (light on model) to fall onto the backdrop - doing so will result in the background having the long exposure effect which we do not want.
Make sure that the room you are shooting in has all other lights off and the curtains drawn - failing to do this will result in your shot looking like an utter mess. You may even have to wait until the sun has gone down if you can’t get your room dark enough.
The only thing left to chance here is the user movement (you) when holding and moving the camera during the 0.5 second exposure window - be sure to experiment with bold movements as well as subtle ones.

Breaking Down the Key

Let’s take a look at what that key light is doing on our subject so you can better understand how to build and set this up yourself. Take a look at a couple of test shots below to see how its working… Remember: these shots do NOT have the fill light firing

In the image on the left above (first image if viewing on mobile) I’m showing you what that hard key light is doing with ONLY the flash firing. In the second image we see what the shot looks like when we increase the shutter speed to about 0.5 seconds and I move the camera around whilst the shutter is open. It is thanks to this longer shutter speed that we are now able to see the modelling bulb and its resulting ghosting effects.

Note how that key light is a very controlled pool of light on the top half of the subject and note that none of that key light is falling onto the background.

No Long Exposure

How about what this setup looks like without long exposure? The resulting images below are just flash, no long exposure, no camera movement and no ambient light.

The images above were test shots I took as I was setting up the final look up, so I solely retouched these for you guys. You’re welcome!

And yes, I know there will be a traditionalist in the comments who likely also consider black & white photography to be ‘arty’, who prefers these images to the final ‘blurred’ look of the final shots. To those philistines I say, ‘enjoy your vanilla ice cream and sparkling water’.

Bringing it all together!

Click on any of the shots below to enlarge them.

Closing Comments

As stated throughout, this is a subtle look. It’s supposed to add a hint of interest and visual engagement without dominating the subject in any way. Long exposure setups are always tough articles to write though, as they always sound far more complicated on paper than they actually are in reality. Trying to explain how to move and wave your camera around while the shutter is open always sounds like you’ve lost your mind, as it goes against everything you’ve been taught about getting sharp and clear shots thus far. At its core, this setup is a fairly simple 2 light technique to achieve and once you’ve done it a couple of times, you’ll quickly get a feel for what works and what doesn’t camera-movement wise.

Just jump in with it, set up your hard light first like I did so as to only light the top of the model and not the background (turn the modelling bulb ON for this light only). Next, bring in the second super-soft light, add a CTB gel to this and ensure the modelling bulb is OFF for this light. Set your camera to 0.5 second exposure and wave it around when you press the shutter. Simple as that! ;)

Give it a go, I promise you it’s not as tricky as it may sound.

Featured Model: Sophie Baines

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Lighting Setup: Textured Fashion Lighting with Coloured Gels

I spent many, many years working in a busy studio that focused on quantity over quality. As photographers working there, we did our best to push back against this where we could, but sometimes you only had 20-30 minutes with a client to achieve a handful of ditffenrt looks and sadly this invariably led to you often reverting to the simplistic, yet professional looking white background shots out of necessity.

It was ultimately the repetitive nature of this white background work that spawned my gelled lighting that many of you know today. It really was a simple case of ‘shoot something different or go mad!’.

But there is certainly room for a middle ground between the flat, white backgrounds from the Gap adverts of the 90’s, to my bold, brash and overly saturated gel shots you see today.

In this article you will see how to setup a series of escalating setups from the simple, clean, white setup, to a bolder and more contrasty colour-infused version.

One element that may strike some of my regular readers as unique, is my inclusion of a full-body setup. I almost never include feet in my shots and that’s not simply because I find feet uninteresting, but more to do with the fact that complicated, multi-light setups often leave a busy and ugly mess of shadows on the ground. One of the reasons I called this article ‘fashion lighting’ was simply due to the inclusion of a full-body setup as most fashion photography is forced to include the whole body.

When I shoot, I choose to compose the feet out where I can in the studio, so make the most of this full-body setup, as it’s unlikely to happen again.

*If you’re unfamiliar with my thoughts on the power of combing hard and soft light, check my article on it here.*

Foundational Lighting

To start with, I’ll show you the basic principle behind this lighting for you to build upon as and when you’re ready, but the basis of this setup is once again using my hard & soft technique that so many of my lighting designs revolve around.

I won’t go into details on the theory of it and why I believe this is such a strong foundation here, but if you’re interested, you can read more about it via my ‘Combining Hard & Soft Light’ article.

Base Setup

Take a look at the image example here to get an idea of what the basic setup looks like. One of things you should immediately notice is how textured the light is and by ‘textured’, I mean the mottled or dappled shadow-play we can see surrounding the model.

To begin with, you’ll need a couple of lights;

1. A very hard-light modifier like an optical snoot.

I’m using an optical snoot here as it gives one of the hardest looking light qualities available. This can be tricky and unflattering to work with, so we’ll need to balance it out with a soft light as well.

2. A very soft light to help with those harsh shadows.

I’ll be using a large umbrella in conjunction with a scrim, but a very large soft box could work, or alternatively, just use a very large white umbrella.

Let’s take a look at the setup via the diagram below and then I’ll explain what’s going on and what I’m using to get these unique looking in-camera effects.

Products Used

Please note that I’ve include affiliate links below, so I will benefit from the sales of any of these products should you purchase them (albeit minimally). To that end, please feel free to use my discount code ‘HICK5-OFF’ at Essential Photo to receive a discount on any purchase via their site.

Optical Snoot

A unique modifier that you’ll use more often than you realise. No other modifier creates strong directional light that this does and although often used with gobos, I often simply use it without them.

Optical Snoot Link

Large Umbrella

Although the title of ‘Parabolic’ umbrella may be a little misleading, it’s still an excellent modifier for illuminating large rooms or for producing very soft lighting.

Large Umbrella Link

Large Scrim

Large Scrim Link

Creating Textured Light

Okay, let’s discuss the elephant-in-room: ‘What the hell is that glass ‘thing’ sat in the middle of the set?’

The glass block on set is just that, a collection of glass blocks simply taped together and then placed on a stand in front of my optical snoot.

You can buy these glass blocks from a variety of places, but the cheapest I found were on eBay. 6 of them is enough for what I wanted.

As you can see in the images above, when hard light is shone through the glass blocks, the resulting light is dappled and broken up. It’s this effect that we’ll be using to create this textured light in our shoot.

Emulating Dappled Light in the Studio

I’ve used a similar setup to this many years ago and shared it then, so if you’d like to know more about the details surrounding these blocks and a basic lighting setup for them, take a look here: ‘Emulating Dappled Light in the Studio’

Don’t have glass blocks? - Your Blue Peter badge awaits!

I appreciate that not everybody does this for a living and isn’t obsessed with trying harebrained ideas off-the-bat like this. So if you don’t fancy buying a small glass wall that you may never use again, feel free to play with the basic concept of this textured lighting idea with gobos. If you’re not sure what a gobo is, then simply put, it refers to ‘go-between’ the light. This can be anything at all and can be custom made gobos that likely come with your Optical Snoot, or you can even make your own out of spare cardboard. Hell, I’ve even shone light through knickers (not mine) on a lightstand in front of my light! Just play around with some ideas to find a cool way of adding textured light to your scene.

*Click to enlarge:* If you don’t fancy accidentally cutting holes in your carpet just yet, get the pro-gobos that are laser cut by people who know what they’re doing!

*Click to enlarge:* Don’t have glass blocks? Too cheap to buy proper gobos? Make your own textured light by cutting holes in cardboard and shining light through that instead.

Managing the hard and soft light

If you’re still a little hazy on what’s going on here, the basic premise of this setup is the optical snoot fires hard light through the glass blocks, it then creates a dappled light on the subject with highlights and shadows. To counter this somewhat harsh effect, I’ve introduced a soft light in the form of the large umbrella and scrim. This helps to add light to the shadow areas on the subject and thus reduces overall contrast.

In the original image above, we had stronger shadows as I was only using a tiny amount of light through the umbrella, but of course we can add more light through the umbrella and this will reduce the contrast of the darker shadows whilst still getting a hint of the original textured light. Take a look at the images below to see how we can vary the look.

In left image above (or first image if viewing on mobile), we can see there is almost no textured lighting effect in the scene due to both the hard light and soft light being almost the same power of light. In the right image, we see far more texture in the lighting as I’ve reduced the amount of light coming from the large umbrella and as a result the shadows start to show though.

It’s this basic premise of managing the varying powers of both the hard and soft light in a setup like this that can be extremely powerful and in the next sections I’ll show you how to introduce colour into this as well.

Note: The variation in colouring in the two images above (left image is rose tinted over the colder right image) is from colour grading the shots in differing ways in post to illustrate examples of final looks. It’s not relevant to the teachings here though, as we’re looking at differences in light and shadow only.

Introducing Colour

This is actually super-simple and we’ve already done the hard part by getting this far. Once we understand the principles of combining hard and soft light, we can really start to play with the more creative aspects of it and adding colour is one way to do just that.

Below I’ll show you a couple of ways to add colour, one more dominant than the other, but if you’re after a subtle colour look, try this first one.

The Kelvin-Grade

I often love to play with Kelvin shifts when using gels, but here we’re being clever with it to create a subtle colour look by not shifting the Kelvin itself, but by adding Kelvin gels (colour balancing gels) to the lights instead. Take a look at the shots below to see the final results.

White balance 101

We know we can adjust the white balance on our cameras to make the image either warmer or colder. As a rule, I like to shoot my studio images at around 4500K. This may seem ‘cold’ to some of you, but remember that Kelvin is not a universal term to describe colour, it is a way to measure temperature. Contrary to what many believe, Kelvin is different on nearly all camera platforms, so you will have to experiment with what works for you and your system. For reference though; I shoot Nikon.

One way in which we can control the white balance of our lights, is to use them with colour temperature gels like CTO and CTBs. These are ‘Colour Temperature Orange’ and ‘Colour Temperature Blue’ gels respectively and these enable us to shift the Kelvin of a given light. Another little known fact is that colour temperature gels stack to create increasing effects. For example, unlike traditional gels, you can layer these gels to increase the colour and it’s this idea that I’m using here to add a hint of blue to the shadows of this shot.

To do this, simply add a couple of colour temperature blue gels to the soft light, which in this setup is the large umbrella. If the effect is still too strong for your tastes, either play with the Kelvin on your camera or, simply remove one of the CTB gels.

Go all-in!

Of course no JHP article is complete without some way to add a bit more colour to your shots, and this one is no exception! If you fancy going all-in on the colour effect, you can certainly do that too and take a look at an example of the results of doing so below.

Adding colour

I’m sure by this point you have a pretty clear idea of how this is done based on what we’ve done up until this point….. you guessed it, add a colour gel to the soft light.

Closing Comments

The premise of this setup is actually fairly simple. Firstly; get a very hard light source and shine it through something to create shadows. This can be glass blocks, gobos or even a pair of knickers (no kink-shaming here). The point is to add textured light to the subject in the form of shadows. From here, we add a very soft light to control just how dark those shadows are. Lastly, we can then choose to add colour or not.

For this technique to work, you really do need to use a strong hard light and a simple snoot or grid may not be enough. Ironically, even though I ordinarily hate speedlights for their unforgiving hard light, they are actually an ideal solution to the hard light here. So if you don’t have an optical snoot just yet, but have an old speedlight knocking about in the bottom of your camera bag, try using that instead.

When using such a strong hard light, we need a very soft light to counter it effectively. A simple small softbox for example, likely won’t work as it’ll be casting its own shadows and the resulting lighting will look busy and confusing. A very large softbox or big umbrella are needed to make this truly work.

Give it a play and by all means test it with some simple DIY gobos* to begin with, AKA cardboard with holes in.

*Disclaimer: I am not responsible if you or your models knickers catch fire if used as a gobo too close to the light!

Featured Model: Basia Panecka

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Number 1

Lighting Setup: Classic Editorial Portrait Lighting

This article really does do what it says on the tin. A lighting technique that showcases a classic editorial setup and although I’m known for my coloured gel looks (plus you can find scores of this somewhat simplistic lighting everywhere online), I’m flattered that so many wanted to see my take on a tried and true look that never fails to impress.

Lighting Setup: Classic Editorial Portrait Lighting

Number 2

Cinematic Lens-Flare Filter Comparison

I spent a ton of time last year experimenting and playing with what I thought were the more defining troupes of a ‘cinematic’ look. Along with pose, light and composition, one of the most defining attributes of a cinematic image can often be atmosphere. We can go a long way to create an atmospheric shot with smoke and haze, but that isn’t always possible, so the next best thing is a lens filter. In this article I test a bunch of my favourite ways to simulate atmosphere through the lens and share the results here.

Cinematic Lens-Flare Filter Comparison

Number 3

Why you should Upgrade your Speedlight to a Studio Strobe

For those looking for my totally unbiased and diplomatic opinion on why you should upgrade your speed light to a strobe….. good luck with that! In the meantime though, here’s why I recommend a strobe over a speedlight and why not just any strobe either, as this article probably climbed up the rankings due to my too-close-for-comfort jab at Profoto!

Why you should Upgrade your Speedlight to a Studio Strobe

Number 4

Creating Gradients with Coloured Gels

Of course no ‘Best Of JHP list’ is complete without at least some coloured gels being squeezed in there. This article was a nice surprise though as it was a pretty arty setup and was great to see it resonate with so many of you. If you fancy taking your gel skills to the next level, take a look at the following article as I show you how to add colour gradients IN-CAMERA!

Creating Gradients with Coloured Gels

Number 5

Super-Soft Lighting in Small Home Studios

This was another lighting setup article, but this one focused on trying to create super-soft light in home studios. In commercial studios, you have tons of space and can use monster softboxes to create beautifully soft light. If you’re trying to shoot from home though or in smaller studios, this can be tricky, especially if you’re struggling with low ceilings as well. This little technique shows you how to get super-soft light, in super-small rooms.

Super-Soft Lighting in Small Home Studios

Closing comments…

Did you recognise any of those articles? Miss any of them when they were originally posted? Either way, this is a nice little catchup on some of my more popular posts from the previous year and not only is it a handy reminder for you guys, but it’s also a useful process for me to see what type of content is more popular than others. For example; I shared some business insight content that I thought would be popular, but wasn’t and I also shared a cool article on using coloured gels outdoors that didn't make it anywhere close to the top 5 either. So here’s one of my faves from 2021 that didn't hit the top spots. If this one passed you by the first time around, here’s what you missed…

Lighting Setup: Using Colour Gels Outdoors

Lighting Setup: Using Colour Gels Outdoors

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I’ve been using diffusion filters on my lenses for many years, but recently LEE Filters, the brand that makes the one that I use, ceased production of them. Here’s a cheap and easy DIY alternative…

What is a diffusion filter?

What are the alternatives to the LEE Softs?

DIY Diffusion Filter

UV Lens Filter

Hair Spray

Making your DIY Diffusion Filter

Before and After UV Filter

Testing the Effect

Using your DIY Diffusion Filter in a Photoshoot

Without DIY Diffusion Filter

With DIY Diffusion Filter

Closing Comments

Light Placement

Increasing the Effect

Storage

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Don’t be alarmed! Yes, the title of this article may seem a little bizarre, no it’s not helping my SEO, but I assure you that there’s actually a scientific reason behind its ‘caustic’ name.

What are ‘Caustics’?

Similar Effects…

A surprisingly simple solution…

The Setup…

Camera Settings

The lighting design…

Silver Mylar

Simulating ‘casuistics’

Never light from below

Hard Light

Soft Light

Taking it further

Final shots…

Base Setup

The ‘Warmer Look’ Setup

The ‘Colder Look’ Setup

Adding MORE colour…

Products Used

Silver Mylar

Optical Snoot

Potential Alternatives

Optical Snoot

Large Umbrella & Scrim

Potential Alternatives

Large Umbrella

Large Scrim

Hand Painted Backdrop

Potential Alternatives

Hand Painted Backdrop

Colour Gels

Potential Alternatives to Colour Temperature Gels

Gel Packs

Closing Comments…

Points to consider

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Sometimes it can be great to flex your skills and show off your lighting prowess, but we can often run into the danger of the image being more about the lighting technique rather than the look of the final image itself.

“You're about as subtle as a f****** train wreck. On a boat.” ― Doug Walker

Simple Long Exposure Portrait Setup

Tungsten or LED

Camera Settings

Products Used

Optical Snoot

Potential Alternatives

Optical Snoot

Large Umbrella & Scrim

Potential Alternatives

Large Umbrella

Large Scrim

Hand Painted Backdrop

Potential Alternatives

Hand Painted Backdrop

CTB Gel

Potential Alternatives

Gel Packs

STUDIO LIGHTING WORKSHOPS ||

NEW DATES ANNOUNCED -

*“You're about as subtle as a f****** train wreck. On a boat.”*
― Doug Walker