Thank you for the great video tutorial compliment Simeon!
At first I was only going to write a reply, but after looking at the length of it, I realized that it was becoming more of a post than a reply, lol. Valters Preimanis of Photologs.net also had a question about the panels.
I first learned of the DIY Panel System after watching a Dean Collins video back in the winter semester of Brooks Institute of Photography in 1988. I constructed 4 panels and my lighting improved 1000% overnight. I still fondly recall my teachers and classmates looks of astonishment during Fashion Class critique. The all asked “how the hell did you light the model, the light, the shadows, and the skintones look amazing”. My teacher Harry Liles, a 30 year LA advertising photography veteran, was especially amused by my simple and inexpensive lighting setup. That single image earned me early access to the expensive Comet strobes that were only available to the upper classman at the school.
In those days, lower division classmen were only allowed to light with Mole-Richardson tungsten lights for the first 1.5 years. I hated those lights with a passion. Imagine yourself photographing people with a 4×5 view camera, tungsten lights, a 1/30th of a second shutter speed, changing 4×5 film holders and cocking the shutter, directing and posing models…..all while wearing heavy Kevlar gloves because the Tungsten lights were so damn hot. Sweat just dripped off my forehead because of the heat. AND all this time I was nervous as hell shooting agency models because I had no idea how to pose or direct. The models probably thought I was a Guy-With-Camera and horny, LOL.
Photographer/Instructor Extrodinare Harry Liles by Chris Orwig
So I like to think that I played a small role in introducing Dean Collins to Brooks Institute, This panel lighting system was all new at the time and many of the instructors had only heard of it. As competitive as the students were at Brooks and Pasadena Art Center at the time, I only shared my lighting modifiers with my favorite teacher Harry Liles.
Looking back today, I should have shared this info with my classmates. But in those days at Brooks, students were extremely competitive towards each other. I was just caught up in it and naive. Creative competition is a good thing as it creates better images for all of us. The way student competition was handled and encouraged at Brooks in 1989 …….. and the other 4 top other top photography programs is not what I would consider as a creative learning process. Ahhh, the indiscretions and naive nature of youth. I do not miss being a 26 year old photography student again. Today, I shoot 1000% better at 46 years of age, my life experiences create the images…..the gear I use today is not important nor does it create the images Tim and I shoot.
Art directors want great images that make them look good. Art directors want images that sell products. Art directors want to create art…..deep down inside. We all want to create beautiful images that our peers will admire…..and judge us by….big laugh. Now back to the article……
Later in 1990 when assisting the top LA fashion photographers, all I saw were panels and V-Banks. We shot ads for GAP, Guess, United Colors of Benetton, Italian Mode editorials, Vogue editorials, Elle editorials, and Harpers Bazaar. I remember how funny it was seeing $100 panels used for international ad campaigns…..and just a couple of mix matched Speedotron lights hooked up to a really beat-up Profoto 7 pack.
My first real fashion assisting gig was for Dominick Guillemot. I have to say that this was the coolest crew to work with. Dominic shot Guess and GAP fashion ad campaigns all day long, 5 days a week….damn he was busy! 7 assistants, two guys just loading the Hasselblad backs and five of us lower human equivalents making coffee and moving lights. The 5 French assistants watched me unscrew a Gitzo tripod that had fallen into the ocean….and laughing at the new German assistant (me) trying to figure it out……I was stressed as hell as I wanted this job more than oxygen.
Are softboxes the true evil, absolutely no! They have a place in modern photography ever day. Many of our favorite shooters use them every day. Why is Thorsten such a badass about the panels……try them out and you will see. End of story.
Annie Leibovitz used to rent the 20′x20′ silk panels for her shoots, one of my roommates assisted her and told me all about her setups….but that is another post, lol.
In 1995 I assisted NYC portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on a shoot. We photographed sportscaster Bob Costas using all my lighting gear and panel modifiers. After the shoot, Timothy walked up to me and said “I would like to buy your nylon panels for my NYC studio…whats your price?”
So now, the really cool thing about the panels. With all the DSLR’s now capable of shooting HD video, Tim and I use the panels to light our video sets as well. After all, the movie industry is where we originally stole the panel lighting modifier from anyway.
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Hi Thorsten,
thanks for yet another insightful and interesting post. I have build two panels 5×7 foot (8 foot too high for my studio’s ceiling) and can’t wait to use them for the next shoot.
I noticed that you keep the panels quite far away from the model in order to keep the light pattern even across the whole scene. This is very different from what I am used to when using softboxes. I try to keep my light modifiers just out of the camera’s view to get the softest possible light. I am definitely going to try your technique. One advantage of your method that I can see is that the distance will give me more room to move for easier camera angles.
Thanks again for the great posts and sharing of your knowledge. I am a big fan of your photos and your style.
Kind regards,
Andre
Hi Andre,
First off, my apologies for not responding sooner to your comment. The last two days have been most hectic. Tim and I drove all around Seattle to locate and purchase a Panasonic GH2 for a Monday video shoot commercial….we found one with a Leica lens!
Yes, you are absolutely correct in the panel to model distance. Contradictory to what everyone says on lighting forums, we found that an even light is much softer than having the panel or softbox 2 feet away from the model. Anyone can spend 10 minutes testing this theory properly, we did.
You may have to lower the image contrast to -10 or -20 in Adobe Camera Raw…..but the light is now completely even and the shadows are super soft. You are the first person I have met that made this critical lighting observation!
It is simple math, placing the modifier right next to the model….the highlights and shadow are going to be at an extreme ratio. But if we were to move the panel or softbox 10 feet away, the shadow to highlight ratio would be 100x less. Yes we may have more initial image contrast because the light source is smaller….but we can change that in RAW processing to -10 or -20. Now we have a very even lighting pattern on the model…this is critical…
We did this all the time in the film days, expose for the highlights and develop for the shadows. This concept works for digital extremely well as the sensors today still have difficulty with specular highlights but have and a ton of detail in the shadow areas….if we expose and develop (raw processing) accordingly.
I have repeatedly found that so much of the technical info I learned at Brooks, still applies to digital today…not much has changed in how we light and develop. My guess for this is that manufacturers are still trying to get the sensors to resemble the “film look” standard. In many ways they have succeeded and in other areas they have surpassed film quality. Hell, I shot food with an 8×10 Sinar view camera that cost a small fortune, today we can have the same quality with a medium format or maybe a Canon 5DM2.
The panels…yes they are a treat to shoot with. Like any modifier, there is a small learning curve. Despite their size, I feel that panels are much easier to use than a softbox, especially in a studio or larger location shoot. The movie industry swears by them, they don’t use softboxes unless they are shooting a small location interview like 60 Minutes on CBS. One gets what one pays for or spends the time doing right the first time. Screw around and light right or spend days in post fixing hundreds of images or worse…..video.
The panels allow us, Tim and I, to shoot video and stills at the same time. With the panels we don’t have to do all this heavy post processing in video post production. Even with 8 cores and 24 gigs ram, HD video just sucks the life blood out of the Mac Pro. We found that it is easier to light properly and then do less post….and get paid for the daily’s in 3 days instead of 10 days.
BTW, the Panasonic GH2 video quality is just stunning, initial video tests we ran today with the panels is beyond what I expected. Imagine a Canon 5DMK2 that has super fast autofocus during video and 90% of the same video quality….with image stabilization at 60fps progressive and Leica lenses….for $900 body only.
The 24p I am not crazy about, it looks very jittery for motion, even though it is 24 mbps. 60i in 1920×1080 is stunning as well and our second choice, but we like the 1280×720 60p for anything that moves…..@#$% amazing.
Thank you for your comment Andre,
Thorsten
Dear zeroplus
my internet connection is slow,because i live in new resident which has poor of infrastructure,iam very interest with your product creative lightning but unfortunately the connection is too slow,900 more mb is hard for me to download.Do you have another way for me to have this tutorial?
second thing i want to know is about my gear,i used two monolight brand “hylow” (chinese production) 400 ws each,is it possible for me to follow your tutorial with these gear?
Thx
Regards
Hadi
Hadi,
You should be OK with 400ws, that is plenty of power, and you have 2 units.
Unfortunately I do not have a solution for shipping DVD’s outside of the USA. I might suggest getting permission to use reliable high-speed internet at a local university or school when making the purchase.
I wish I could be more helpful.
What’s your favorite vendor for nylon panel fabric? I’ve used Calumet’s Panels, but they are much smaller….. I could do a fabric store, but in the past I had a slight color issue when I used nylon ripstop from Jo-Anne’s fabric.
I use Jo-Anne Fabrics as well. You could wash the material once and remove any “whiteners” that might be present in the fabric.
We ALWAYS use a gray card for white balance….with any lighting modifiers. Every brand and manufacturer uses a different paint or fabric. For that matter, each brand of lights has a different kelvin temperature as well. Even your camera will have a kelvin temp, even when shooting RAW.
Bottom line, just shoot a gray card and your colors will always be spot on!