Working with studio strobes – not as scary as you’d think
During the workshops I give and also through email a lot of people ask me how to work with artificial lights. Now I love daylight and it would probably always be my preferred lightsource but in a lot of situations there is either no daylight at all or it is so dark that any shot would take 30 seconds to expose. Not exactly ideal if you’re on a timeschedule or have herbs wilting in front of your eyes. I have shown you a while ago how I work with a continuous artificial light that was fixed with daylight lamps.
Since I hardly ever use those myself I thought I would show you how I tend to work with artificial lights. For now we will start with one light only. If you are on a budget (and who isn’t these days?) you can find fairly cheap studio flashes or studio strobes (same thing, different word) online. Second hand is an option too but you should be able to get a basic thing for about 100 dollar. Ofcourse it won’t be as good as the more expensive ones but it will definitely get the job done.
In terms of pricing the difference between the cheaper brands and the more expensive ones is usually their durability, the consistency of the lights in terms of white balance, power and the adjustment options on the light itself. Just to clarify; a strobe is essentially the same as your flash that goes on your camera. It gives a short burst of light, which is a huge advantage when shooting food as it does not nearly get as hot as continuous lights.
The disadvantage ofcourse is that you cannot see what the light does until you take a shot. Most come with a modelling light but if you’re shooting during broad daylight that won’t do you much good and even at night, it doesn’t always paint the correct picture.
So you bought your first studio flash and now what? Think of your flash as an extension of your daylight. The rules of the direction of light are still the same. The only difference is that the size of your light is different to your window. Plus in a way it is more flexible too.
Now let’s start with showing you the setup in daylight. In the picture below I have shot this yoghurt bowl with fruit in the existing daylight, no reflectors used. Light coming from the right.
I placed my studioflash on the left side of the subject. Not because it couldn’t be on the right, but only for myself to be able to move around the studio easier… 
The output of your flash is in large part determined by the light modifier or reflector you put on your light. They mostly come with a fairly small reflector which is a round dish, usually silver on the inside from metal which guides the light into certain directions.
In the above photo I used the naked light. No reflector used, no bounce, nothing. The light is quite bright and clearly coming from the left behind but it is not entirely unusable. If I would have used a reflector on the right it would have been a little softer overall with less shadows even. I could have also turned down the power of the flash a bit softening it up a little. You can also turn the flash towards the ceiling (providing you have a white ceiling!) as that will diffuse the light somewhat too. Depending for a large part also on the distance from your flash to your ceiling.
Now you see that by using only one light you can achieve quite a good result! And while this is shot during daylight hours, the result will be the same if totally dark.
One thing to be aware of when you’re shooting with a studioflash is that you cannot work on aperture priority or any other automatic mode. Manual is the way to go here. You can set your shutterspeed at 1/125s and decide which aperture you want to use. You can then start tweaking your flash power to achieve the desired result. It takes a little bit getting used to but it is really not that hard. Once you get more comfortable with working with the light you can decide to get some different modifiers such as different sizes of reflector, a grid, a snoot or a softbox.
I love using my snoot-attachment on the flash as it gives you very precise control over the light hitting your subject. Photo above is taking with the snoot on. I’ve actually made them myself as well, as it is not that hard. You can take a piece of black cardboard and twist it into a little round tube. Large enough on one side to fit over your flash hit (with a reflector attached) and the other side can be as big or as small as you want. Depending on the effect you want to achieve with your light. And below photo shows you what a snoot actually looks like
Now when using a snoot the light gets very hard which might work well on certain images but not so well on others. As you can see in the garlic cloves above; the image on the right has very dark and hard shadows. I tried to light it up a little on the right but you can still very clearly see the shadow. That is not always an issue and in a lot of cases it is an advantage but take a look at the daylight picture below of the same garlic and I’m sure you can guess which one I prefer in this case.
If you’re shooting on a darker background the snoot gets a whole different attraction as you can see by looking at the same garlic cloves below on a darker background. This type of background is much more suited for the use of a snoot. Yes, the shadows are still there but they don’t bother me as much as on the white background
And then an image which was shot for a customer a couple of months ago. I didn’t even have to use a reflector here. The only light coming from that one snoot in the background gave the perfect light for this pretty dish. So it all depends in a large part on your subject, the background you are using and the mood you’re trying to create
Then besides the snoot and a regular reflector there is the famous softbox. Softboxes come in many different shapes and sizes. The bigger the softbox in general, the bigger the diffusion gets as well. it softens the light in a pleasing way and if you manage it correctly you can definitely make it look like daylight. The very first image on top of this (long!) post is shot on the right with a softbox and on the left with daylight. Now ofcourse I didn’t specifically try to recreate the same feeling in both pictures and they’re not but you can probably see that by making just a few small adjustments you would be able to replicate the daylight effect with the softbox.
So with having said that I am going to conclude this long post. I hope you found it useful and if you need any additional information or would like me to address a different kind of artificial light just let me know!
Appetizer
Asian
Bread
Breakfast
Desserts & other sweets
Healthy
A great post and gorgeous pictures! You make it sound so easy…
Cheers,
Rosa
[Reply]
I agree great post and fabulous pics and your explanations are so clear. Though I will have to get some of the extra bits (lights etc) which I don’t have first to be sure I do understand it all. This post is timely as the lighting issue is causing me great problems at the minute with daylight being so irratic! Tks:)
[Reply]
AWESOME post, Simone! Lights are not scary, and can produce gorgeous results as you show so wonderfully
[Reply]
What a great post, Simone! Thank you for sharing all these very helpful infos.
[Reply]
A great post – thank you! Like others I am comfortable with daylight but a little apprehensive about tackling artificial lights, this post has encouraged me to reconsider!
[Reply]
Thank’s for sharing your work. It will be very very helpful.
[Reply]
This is what I need! Photography knowledge for “dummies” like me
Very helpful and maybe I should give it a try (fortunately hubby has a well equipped studio).
Thanks Simone!
Sandy
[Reply]
What a great and informative post! I really need this
[Reply]
With Summer fading away so quick I was starting to get worried about lighting for the fall and winter months. Thanks for the tutorial and sharing as always!
[Reply]
Bookmarked, should I ever get to this point in my photography. I am improving, but work at the cooking angle more – and there is so much to learn with photography. This is an excellent post.
V
[Reply]
Great post! I live in New England and learning to shoot with artificial light is an absolute must in the fall and winter. I love using my softbox. Unfortunately it’s too big and clunky for interior kitchen shots, so I often have to rely on bouncing a gelled flash. I don’t think anyone would mistake it for daylight, but if you have to keep up with the cooking in real time it’s my only choice, short of buying a strobe, planting it next to the stovetop and telling my wife to work around it. Thanks. ken
[Reply]
Exactly how I approach my strobe lights, too. They’re so much more effective and helpful when I use them in addition to the ambient window light, rather than alone. I don’t yet have a snoot though… Ah, more toys that I must add to my wish list!
[Reply]
Thanks for the step-by-step easy to follow and understand tutorial, you make it sound doable even for a photo dummy like me.
[Reply]
So helpful, Simone! I have found that my speedlight can be helpful on dark days, and goodness knows, there’s plenty of those coming up as we head into fall. But I really want to play around with it more, so this post is extremely timely. I had never even heard of a snoot till now, so thank you!
[Reply]
Lovely post Simone. I’m just getting the hang of using artificial lights as I have plenty of natural sunlight most of the year.
One question though. You mentioned using a shutterspeed of 1/125s and then working around that with adjustments. What about synchro speed?
[Reply]
Simone (junglefrog) — August 27th, 2012 at 17:20
He Aparna. Well yes I should have made that more clear; you can use the synchro speed that is existing for your flash. So it works the same, as that anything higher then your sync speed won’t work. I just set it to 1/125s as that is my sync speed (Come to think of it I think I can actually do higher then that but the 1/125s is working fine… The aperture is much more important then the shutterspeed when working with studioflash. Hope that makes sense!
[Reply]
Aparna — August 27th, 2012 at 18:45
Thanks. That was what I was also thinking. Sync speed on mine is 1/250s and yes I understand about the aperture over the shutterspeed.
Very very helpful! I came across your blog from TasteSpotting and so glad I did! I live in the PacifiNW and Fall is coming quickly with shorter days..yikes! I’m definitely going to give these tips a try..Thanks so much!
[Reply]
Thank you for sharing this information! I have two smaller lights I bought, but they never share the brightness your lights share. They look more like indoor lights, with a red tint to them. I need to find some inexpensive lights like what you share here. I would shoot some fun indoor shots more, but instead I try to get all my shots outside. I love my backyard, the green from the trees gives a great back drop:-) Thank you for all your photography help, your pictures always inspire me! Hugs, Terra
[Reply]
Simone (junglefrog) — September 4th, 2012 at 06:24
Some of the artificial lights can have pretty weird colors indeed although you can adjust that too with your white balance. I am planning on doing more posts too on the photography where I will explain about different light sources and how to correct for white balance issues!
[Reply]