The Magical Power of Photographic Reflectors and Why cannot You do without them

Reflectors are amazing photographic equipments that can help you to solve most of your natural light photography issues. They are the ones that give your subject a bright, spotless look. As the name suggests, they reflect the direct sunlight falling on them and direct them towards your subject to illuminate him/her along with covering up the shadows. Although they are frequently used for outdoor photography, these photographic equipments also have an important place in studios as well.

When you photograph your model in sunlight, you must make her stand with her back towards the sun. This will give your background a great look but the model will get a lot of shadows on her front side. To combat this, you will have to light your subject from the front side. Since you already have so much light available in the surrounding, instead of using any artificial source you can direct the existing light towards your subject. This is where you would need the help of a reflector for photography.

Position your reflector towards the light source so that light falls on it and bounces back towards the subject who is standing in front of the reflector. For best effect, place it as close to the subject as you can without interfering with the shot. Always take your colleague or assistant’s help for holding it at an accurate position. If you have no one at your help, attach it onto a tripod. Reflectors come in many colors such as gold, silver, white, translucent, and black. Each color has its own significance and therefore, you must choose the most appropriate color as per your requirement. The gold one is perfect to add some warm look to your subject. The silver one reflects most of the light falling on them thereby increasing the brightness of the subject. For simply filling the shadows, use the white one; whereas if you feel the light is more than enough, use a translucent one between your subject as well as sun to restrict some of it.

Reflectors are of various shapes and sizes, such as circular reflectors, umbrella reflectors, etc. Anything that can bounce off light can be used as a light modifier. However, do not choose anything that can actually spoil your work. For example; never use a tin foil, even if it can reflect a good amount of light. This is because; tin foil reflections can actually cause inconvenience to your subject. Professional reflectors are advisable, as they are designed to give you best results.

Four Equipments That Must Never Forget While Going Out For A Wedding Photography Assignment

Photographing an important occasion such as a wedding involves a lot of responsibility. Your slight negligence can make you miss some very crucial moments of the celebrations and can cost you dearly. Only having high-end cameras and lenses will not help you to take those stunning pictures. You need to have the right accessories that will give you all opportunities to take flawless pictures. Here is a list of some of the important ones that you must have in your photography kit.

Battery grip:

There are many unexpected pictures that you might have to take. You have to keep your camera constantly on to capture every single movement of the bride and the groom. All this consumes a lot of power of your battery. If your camera runs out of power, you will miss many important shots. The best way to avoid this is to gear-up your camera for taking more pictures without having the need to change batteries. A battery grip will increase the capacity of your camera along with giving you a convenience of taking vertical shots.

Green and blue backdrops:

For creating amazing portraits of both bride and groom, you would have to take the help of green screen photography. Take your reversible backdrop with you instead of the green ones, as you can never be sure about the costumes and accessories of the wedding couple and the guests. Moreover, a green and blue reversible backdrop will reduce your burden of carrying both of them individually.

Tripods:

With a lot of people around, chances of someone hitting or stamping you are quite high. Moreover, when you are taking a lot of photographs, chances are there that your hands might shake leading to blurred images. Blurriness cannot be corrected by any photo-editing software and the only solution to get rid of this problem is to avoid camera shakes. A tripod will not only give you sharper pictures but also help you to keep your camera safe.

Light modifiers:

Even if the wedding is outside and during the day, you would need light modifiers to get rid of shadows and illuminating your subjects evenly. For this, do not forget to carry your reflector kit, and an umbrella.

Apart from all these, there are many other tools that can do wonders for you. The golden rule is not to anticipate anything and carry everything that you feel you would need.

How to Prevent Your Light Stand From Tripping When Shooting Outside

Whether you shoot indoors or outdoors, you cannot avoid bringing your own lighting equipments with you. Even though there will be sufficient natural light outside, it won’t be in the direction you need it. Moreover, you will need light to fill in the shadows on the face of the subject. Therefore, it is always advisable to carry your light and light stands wherever you go. Using the stands in windy conditions can be challenging and the consequences of not using one can be severe. Here are certain that will help you to give stability to your stand.

Use The Conventional Sand Bags to Balance Your Light Stand

These inexpensive bags are an excellent choice for balancing your studio light stands or even your tripod. The heavier the stand and the larger the light, the more weight you would be required. Experts recommend that the minimum weight should be 15 lbs.

Weight Lifting Plates

It’s hard to believe but you can actually use the weight lifting plates to stabilize your lighting equipments. Use a rope to suspend these plates from the stand. Make sure that the distance between the plates and the ground is not much so that even if the plates fall due to any reason, there will not be any major damage. Although this is a wonderful idea, the major disadvantage with this idea is that you have to carry the plates with you all the time. If you are sure that you will find something like a huge stone that can be hung from the stand, you can drop the idea of carrying the plates.

Excess Baggage

For any outdoor shoot, you have to carry a lot of equipments with you. This excessive baggage can be used to stabilize the stand. Tie a ball bungee cord to your main gear bag and hang it on the stand. This is an awesome way to prevent your stands from tripping, as you don’t have to carry any extra weight with you. However, chances are there that your excessive baggage may not weigh enough to support your stand.

Apart from the ideas mentioned above, you can use anything that can add weight to your stand, thereby stabilizing it.

How to keep Your Green Screen Backdrops Free from Wrinkles?

Wrinkles are neither good for your lady’s face nor for your Chroma key green screen backdrops. Here, we will discuss about how to keep wrinkles away from the photographic backdrop you use.

Usually, the backdrops are made of 100 % cotton fabric, which is also known as Muslin. Although this fabric is very convenient for using as a background, chances of getting wrinkles are high. If you don’t get rid of these, you will probably never be able to take a good photograph. This is because; wrinkles create shadows, the most dreadful issue that every photographer is scared of. Even though you use the best lighting system, creases can make it ineffective. Here is how green screen backdrops must be handled to keep them wrinkle-free.

• Never fold the muslin backdrop, as folding will result in crinkles. The best way to store it is to roll it up round a solid surface such as a plastic tube.

• Washing a backdrop is advisable only in rare cases. Do not wash it in hot water; always use normal or slightly cold water along with a fabric softener.

• If you are using a washing machine, do not machine dry it. Hang it in the sun and let it get dry naturally. Machine drying causes wrinkling.

• Steaming should be preferred over ironing. The water and heat combination will smooth it out.

• Hanging the backdrop from its stand will also help you to get rid of wrinkles. If there are a lot of imperfections, sew a metal pipe at the bottom of the backdrop so that it gets stretched out. Removing the wrinkles using gravitational pull is a time-consuming process and therefore, should be planned much ahead of the shoot.

Most creases occur due to bad storage and folding. Make sure you maintain your backdrop appropriately.