Learning resources for photographic lighting

[thenextpage]

I've read through the strobist website and am currently reading "light science & magic", which I've found to be an excellent resource explaining the principals of how light works and how to control it.

I'd love to know if you have preferred educational resource (besides independent practice) on lighting that you'd recommend.

 

[SVQuant]

If you haven't seen then yet, take a look at @MichaelSewell's excellent Lighting Tutorials on the site.

 

[thenextpage]

If you haven't seen then yet, take a look at @MichaelSewell's excellent Lighting Tutorials on the site.

Thanks I should have mentioned that in the original post - I love Michael's work!

 

[ionian]

Check out this series of tutorials by Joel Grimes which I think are excellent:

LitUp with Joel Grimes: LitUp with Joel Grimes - YouTube

 

[Repp]

@MichaelSewell does some very good tutorials, and they are very worth taking a look at for specific lighting situations.

If you are just starting out, my suggestion would be to look into the following resources:
- The Strobist - He coined the term, and his lighting 101, 102, and 103 courses are free and very educational. I just wouldn't trust all of his gear advice, as I found it didn't always fit my needs. His lighting video courses were also fairly well done.
- Joe McNally - is a great resource. He does youtube videos for adorama, blog posts, and a book The Hot Shoe Diaries
- Fil Hunter's Light Science and Magic is another good read.
- As is Syl Arena's The Speedlighter's Handbook.
- Peter Hurley Also does various shows on youtube for other channels.
- Joe Edelman's youtube channel does some interesting stuff. Joe Edelman
- SLRLoung and FStoppers both have articles and videos on lighting
- CreativeLive, RGG-EDU, and Lynda also all have fairly good paid content, but if you watch on a mobile device you can get one Creative live lesson a day for free. Look for things by Lindsay Adler, Peter Hurley, David Hobbey, Sue Bryce, Zack Arias, or Joe McNally

There is a ton of stuff out there, just have to find the style of shooting and education that works best for you.

 

[inkista]

I'm constantly plugging Neil van Niekerk's Tangents website, particularly for someone absolutely new to flash. Very few folks are going to even try and explain using TTL or on-camera flash to you; he's one of them. One of the problems for the newb is information overload, and the Strobist tends to ramp you up very quickly into thinking you have to have multiple lights off-camera right away to get anything done, and that is hard to juggle as someone still struggling to figure out flash/ambient balance or how your camera meters for flash.

It also completely shortcuts learning how to do event run'n'gun shooting with flash or how to travel light without a lighting bag to go with your camera bag. These are good skillz to have under the belt, too.

I also tend to point people to Zack Arias's white seamless tutorial on Youtube. Frankly, I think the old five-part text version he had on his blog was better organized and more thorough, but as that has long ago hit that great bit bucket in the sky, the youtube videos are the next best live link.

 

[John King]

"Light Science and Magic" by Biver, Fuqua et.al taught me more about lighting in a few weeks than experience had in over 50 years. Brilliant book. Not expensive.