Photography Continuous Lighting Photography Continuous Lighting Vs Strobe

Still-life photographers create a world from scratch in the studio. How they choose to light their creations is often a matter of habit, taste and style. Because clients regularly request both video and stills from the same shoots, many still-life photographers, including long-time fans of strobe lighting, are now turning to continuous light sources, and using them to achieve their style of imagery in stills as well as their motion work. They are also trying new-generation LED lights, thanks to advances which make changing the lights' color temperature and mixing them with other light sources easy.

PDN talked to some still-life photographers who capture products, food, and conceptual illustrations in still photos, video and stop motion. We learned how they have used different light sources to solve creative problems and deliver the look they want.

To make this image in a personal series, Joanna McClure used LEDs and bounced the light. © Joanna McClure

Joanna McClure

Joanna McClure, who shoots still lifes and videos for Bloomingdale's, Coach, Tiffany, Allure and other clients, strives to set a mood in the images she shoots for herself and on assignment. She wants her lighting to look natural and unobtrusive. "For me, continuous lighting has always been the closest mimicry of actual sunlight," she says. When working with continuous lights, "I can see what it is doing while I am moving it around which, for me, makes it easier to experiment."

In the past, she would rely on ARRI hot lights or, when she was lighting a larger set with multiple objects, she might choose a 1K or 2K HMI Fresnel. Recently, however, "I've started to use LEDs more and more." That's thanks to LED technology that allows her to change the color temperature. "It's extremely useful in going from stills to video, which is huge for clients these days. In videos, the color temp is even more sensitive" than in still photography, she observes.

McClure says when she is planning a still-life shoot, she wants to keep her lights to a minimum. "Reducing things to the simplest form gives you the ability to create a more playful scenario," she says. Once her lights are in place, she likes to try bouncing or modifying the light. When working with HMIs, "There is a limit to what you can put on the front of these lights to modify them, because they are incredibly hot," she says. She'll typically diffuse the light, often by handholding her diffusion so she can work in "a more fluid way," and focus on the subject.

Shooting videos requires more light than still shoots, McClure notes. To add more light to certain areas, she likes the ease of small, square LED panels. These add "a wash of color where you need it," she says, and because they draw little power, she can use several at a time. "They're small…and it's an easy light to use for both video and stills."

McClure shoots personal work regularly as a way to test out her ideas. "I'm in my studio every day, whether shooting for a client or not." In one of her personal series, she experimented with photographing a feather in various tinted Lucite tubes and boxes. Thinking of a feather blowing in a breeze, she wanted her light to bounce, too. She used an LED and reflected it onto her tabletop set using cards. "The color of the light is intentionally warmer than a natural light would be," she says. "It adds to the feeling of it being more cinematic."

An image Chelsea and Ted Cavanaugh created for a Real Simple story about time-saving cleaning tricks. © Ted & Chelsea Cavanaugh

Ted & Chelsea Cavanaugh

"I use strobes maybe 99 percent of the time," says Ted Cavanaugh who, with his partner, Chelsea, shoots food, products and conceptual illustrations for Bon Appetit, Real Simple and several commercial clients. "A strobe is a Swiss Army knife: You can do anything with it," he says. Working with strobes, he uses umbrellas or reflectors, and notes, "You could go from 3200 watts to 50 watts in seconds by turning a dial." When he works with HMIs, he says, "It's, 'OK, move this six inches closer or six inches further and see how it looks.' It's a little less refined." He adds, "Some of the studios that I shoot in can't support [power for] too many hot lights, whereas with strobes it's pretty easy to use as many as you'd like."

But there are times when a powerful continuous light is the best solution to a technical problem. To photograph a tube of sunscreen for a skincare company, the Cavanaughs wanted to use prisms to create a dappled rainbow effect on the tabletop. Chelsea Cavanaugh says they tested prisms of several sizes. "We were in our kitchen with the flashlight, saying, 'At what angle does the rainbow show?'" They found that working with a 2K tungsten worked best. Says Ted Cavanaugh, "The strobe didn't give a direct enough output to make the rainbow visible from the glass prism."

Clients such as Real Simple and Etsy regularly hire the Cavanaughs to shoot still images plus stop-motion animations. Typically they use strobes while shooting each image in a stop motion sequence. "For those, we have a still camera that shoots 7 frames per second, which actually makes quite nice fluid GIFS when combined."

© Ted & Chelsea Cavanaugh

When Jim Beam asked them to shoot an animation showing a hand pouring whiskey, Ted Cavanaugh suggested they shoot the pour at a higher frame rate, creating a smoother animation. To create the effect, they shot stills with a Nikon D5 at 12 frames per second. They knew their strobes wouldn't keep up with the camera's frame rate, so they used 2K HMIs. "With HMI, you don't have to worry about recycle times," Chelsea Cavanaugh explains. Though the light looks bright to the human eye, Ted Cavanaugh notes, shooting at f/11 at 1/200th a second required shooting at a much higher ISO than if they had used strobes. "That is one limitation to continuous lights, but the end result turned out quite nicely," he notes. The Nikon D5 was more than capable of handling ISO 800 or higher with little noise, even in areas of shadow.

An image for Google. Myers' typical way of lighting a large still-life array is to use a strobe that is "pretty far away and pretty powerful." © Andrew B. Myers

Andrew B. Myers

Many of the still lifes that Andrew B. Myers has shot for Google, TIME, The New York Times's T Brand Studio and other clients show an array of products and objects neatly organized on a surface. To light the whole scene and create crisp shadows going in one direction, he says, "Strobe makes sense for that." He might use bare heads, or add Fresnels or hardboxes to get a hard light, he says, "but the common ground there is that the light is pretty far away and pretty powerful." With a strobe, he notes, he can spread light across his whole array in a way that only the most powerful of continuous lights can. "I think that's why people gravitate toward the power of flash. You know you can put a huge scene in focus very easily and not to have to think about it."

In the past two years, Myers has been shooting broadcast commercials and short videos. He has used ARRI Fresnels, and also experimented with the ARRI LED SkyPanels. It's changed the way he thinks about lighting for stills.

Back when he was learning photography in school, the only continuous lights available to him were large lights for movie productions. He thought of them as unwieldy and too hot. But working with newer LEDs and HMIs offers a convenience, he says: "Being able to see exactly what the light is doing in front of your eyes is powerful. More than using a modeling light with flash, it's just cool to be able to look at a scene in real time and see how it looks."

When he lit a still life with strobes, he says, he would begin arranging the lights and "because I'm impatient, I wouldn't meter it out." He also gets impatient with what he calls "the math" of adjusting light ratios and setting power packs at half or full power. He often wouldn't know if his lighting arrangement worked until he previewed the shot in camera. Being able to see the effect of continuous lights is "attractive," he says. "And, in a weird way, it's a time saver: Just the idea of seeing it, saying, 'Do you like? I like it too. Great, let's get started.'"

Though they were made using a mix of continuous lights, the series of videos he created for Verizon's Visible brand share the hallmarks of Myers' strobe-lit still-life photos: With his camera locked into place, he captured an array of colorful objects, lit from the side so they cast crisp shadows. There's also an injection of surrealism. In one video, we see a hand reach into the scene to place a slice of pie in the center of the table. After a second, the hand reaches in to squish the pie. Myers worked with a DP who used an ARRI SkyPanel to illuminate the back wall, and an HMI placed overhead, behind a large silk, to light the table.

Myers encourages anyone considering moving into motion to "rent a cheap hot light. That's a fairly easy way to experiment." Trying a new medium for image-making has introduced him to new techniques and fed his desire for variety. "I appreciate having a diverse set of experiences," he says. "To have something technically different can be exciting."

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