How to Enhance Natural Light with Roberto Valenzuela

Considered to be the 'perfect' ingredient for spectacular photography, in this blog Stella-Pro ambassador, Roberto Valenzuela, shares some unforgettable tips on how to get natural light to work for you at all times.

The use of natural light is easy and predictable. Predictable in thea sense that what you see is what you get in the camera. However, the weather can be unpredictable. You can’t predict if it’ll be raining, sunny or cloudy. You can’t choose the direction the light will come from. And if the light of the subject is the same intensity as the light illuminating the background, you don’t have any separation. At the end of the day, you’ll get a lot of flat light. When you have these unpredictable variables, it makes it harder for a photographer to shoot with a specific style.

By adding light to your shoots, come rain or shine, you’ll achieve two important goals: 

• Increase the exposure on your subject and create separation between the background and subject.
• Add directionality to the light; directionality that you can control; not the window, not the door; light you control. You still get that feeling of natural light, but you can control the exposure and the Reflex S like ambient light. And the shutter speed and aperture will operate the same as when shooting in natural light.

HOW DO YOU AS A PHOTOGRAPHER STAND OUT? 

• You can stand out by adding lighting. I need things to be done quickly and easily. I want to enhance the ambient light rapidly and simply. 

HERE IS WHAT I DO:

• I’ll take a photo of the model, and you'll see the light on the left and right are the same. Creating no dimensionality.

HERE IS HOW QUICKLY I’M ABLE TO SWITCH IT OUT TO PROPER EXPOSURE. 

There are a few ways of achieving this with the StellaPro Reflex S:

• Use the Reflex without any modifier.
• Attach the Reflex to a softbox adapter.
• Attach a hard modifier to the Reflex. 

What makes the Stella-Pro Reflex lights special is that you can use the continuous light as a modelling light and then push the button to switch to Digital Burst mode to get double the output than in continuous mode. With Digital Burst you can choose how much separation you get from the subject to the background, and you can do that at 20 Frames Per Second at full power.
The first goal is to create separation between the subject and background.

Another thing you can do is to bring the light closer to the subject. Bring the diffuser inches from the light so it becomes a small light modifier and now you’ll get a punchier light.

Now bring the diffuser closer to the model. Now the modifier acts like a big light modifier. 

HERE ARE THE RESULTS:

Products used: 

• StellaPro Reflex S
• StellaPro Profoto Light Stand Adapter