In photography, why do portrait photographers use strobe lights sometimes and “steady” (or whatever the term is) lighting other times? Is strobe just more energy efficient or steady lighting softer?
Thanks.
Stobes provide a LOT of light for a short amount of time, and that’s all that’s needed for still photography. Continuous lighting of a similar intensity would be very hot (ask anyone who works in television studios), and it would be pretty inefficient.
Yes, but I still wonder why some photographers choose one over the other. I rarely see strobe lighting being sold at even largish photostores. Is strobe just prefered by the really high end specialists or people doing simple portraits? Or maybe continuous lighting is more versatile, albeit hotter.
Strobes have a color temperature of around 5500°K. You could achieve this same pseudo-sunlight with steady Mercury-Xenon lamps, but it’d make people squint.
Maybe they use dim general lighting, slow film and leave the shutter open. That way they can catch the subject in a more relaxed manner when the strobe goes off. More relaxed, that is, than would be the case if they said, “I’m going to take your picture now and this pose will be recorded for all time, so relax and smile.”
Really? Most large photostores 'round here (Helix, Calumet, etc.) have a huge selection of strobes in the lighting department. It’s hard for me to imagine a photo store without one.
First, most strobes have a modeling light on them, which can be used as a continuous light source, if you so desired. But its purpose ist mostly to help you position the lights.
Hot lights are generally awful for portraiture. Reason being, they’re hot. People quickly start sweating under them. Also, if you have “butterfly” lighting or any other type of lighting which requires a model to look straight into a light source, they’re gonna squint. That’s usually not good. Strobes take care of this problem.
Strobes also, as has been said, deliver a higher amount of power for a shorter period of time. You can get much more depth of field on slower speed films using strobes. Depth of field is not always desireable (I tend to shoot shallow myself), but for many types of photography it is. A continuous tungsten light isn’t going to let you shoot at f/16 on ISO 50 film.
Also, strobes are generally a 5500K light source, which is white balanced to your daylight film. (OK, they do vary a bit in color temperature, but they’re generally around this are.) This means you have faithful color rendition. Tungsten lights have to be balanced with either blue gels, blue filters, tungsten film (Like Fuji 64T), or in post.
Tungsten can certainly be useful. For still-life imagery with your camera on a tripod, you can light most things just with tungsten modeling lights. It can also be useful when all you want to do is add some additional lighting to a room that is lit primarily by tungsten light sources. You can use strobes, but that complicates matters a bit if you want to retain the original ambient light in your photo.
Also shooting tungsten has the advantage that you don’t need a separate flash meter (as you do with strobes) and you can see exactly what your lighting looks like. It’s a bit easier to fiddle around with light positioning, lighting ratios, and the such with tungsten lighting.
http://forums.photographyreview.com/showthread.php?t=6237
Fourth post down.
The strobe I use is too intense to leave on for portraits. The person would not only squint, but their pupils would be teen-tiny pinpoints which tends to make people look creepy. Big, black pupils look friendlier. Also, as pointed out, it’s damn hot and my poor subject would be all shiny from sweat (if not downright dripping).
You may also be strobes sold in stores that you don’t know are strobes. Mine just looks like a keylight – it satys on at a low level, bright enough to focus the camera and get a good idea of how the shadows will play on the subject. Then click- POOF! - the bright flash.
If I’m shooting objects that don’t move, I don’t bother with a strobe at all because I can use longer exposures.
But for humans, to avoid the pinprick pupils and heavy sweating while still using a really fine grained film, a strobe is a good way to go. If someone blinks at a slower shutterspeed, it can make them look like they have cataracts too, which is creepy so you want a quick shutter speed which means you need more light.
I’ve done portraits without but the strobe is definitely more helpful.