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Christmas is just around the corner! Get your cameras and holiday photo setups ready! For perfect Christmas photoshooting, we always look for techniques and ideas to make it better. How to improve your Christmas Photoshooting? Can you imagine a beautiful Christmas family photoshoot by using continuous LED lights?
Want to level up your 2020 Christmas Photoshoot RIGHT NOW? Today’s tutorial video will denefintely give you the Christmas photography lighting solutions you’ve been looking for! Follow the step-by-step guide, use continuous LED lights and try this perticular setup, you’ll find it can be so easy to achieve a beautiful, professional Christmas family photoshoot in just seconds, with such a simple setup!
There are quite a number of advantages to using continuous LED lights sources as your primary source of light. For example, you are not a slave to recycle times. This is all the more important when shooting hyperactive kids during Christmas family photography.
Jiggie Alejandrino, the portrait & wedding photographer we introduced before, brings about new lighting tutorial this week. He’s the Sony Ph Brand Ambassador, the Zeiss Camera Lens Ambassador, and regarded as one of the most reputable lighting specialists.
Today Jiggie’s going to show you how to use continuous LED lights to do Christmas portraits for kids & and create beautiful Christmas family photos. For this photoshoot, you’ll need:
- Nanlite Forza 60 LED Monolight X2: Basically facing the ceiling, creating a very nice ambient light, which also means lighting up the entire scene.
- Nanlite Forza 60 LED Monolight X1 + Nanlite Forza 60 Lantern Softbox (Lantern Modifier) X1: Make the light to be as spread out as possible, in other words all your subjects can receive the same amount of light.
Setup the Continuous LED lights as Jiggie dose in the video. As is mentioned above, the advantage of using continuous led lights instead of flash is that you will not be limited to your flash sync speed. In other words, you can expect the kids to be running around and don’t need to be dependent on recycled time. So with continuous light you can just shoot as fast as you can and just shoot the kids while they're doing whatever it is.
So the light that Jiggie chose for this particular shoot are 3 Nanlite Forza 60s. The reasons why he chooses this:
- The color temperature is fantastic, almost about 5600 kelvin.
- They're very consistent, meaning the light output is consistent.
- For each light it's all going to be thesame, which can be one downside of those more affordable led lights. Nanlite has no color cast, and can be more consistent when it comes to power.
Do what Jiggie dose in the video step by step, and he will show you what exactly each LED light is doing.
To complete this particular setup, next we move on to the Basic Camera Settings you need:
- Lens: Sony zeiss 50 millimeter 1.4
- Shutter Speed 1/250: Should be enough to freeze motion of kids
- ISO 400: Super clean
- White Balance 5600 Kelvin: Because these lights are actually rated for 5600 kelvin, which is daylight.
- Focusing ModeAF-C: Continuously focus on the eye. So even if the kids are moving, it will track their movement and you can continue shooting.
- DROLv 2: They are always dynamic range optimizer so it just brings up a bit of the shadows and clips a bit of the highlight.
Once you've gotten everything down to to just all your settings, you will see even a child can actually be a photographer already. And now it’s time to start shooting.
With this particular lighting technique, you will see, continuous led lights can definitely help you do professional kids portraits and family photos. Follow Jiggie’s tutorial setp by step, with correct settings, you can also to create professional Christmas portraits for kids & and create beautiful Christmas family photos.
Regarding the backdrops, Jiggie chose a 8.2x8.2 ft Kate Christmas Tree Backdrop Lights Brick Wall Backdrop, which is completely well qualified for the job. It's an printed backdrop on non-reflective fabric. The reason why Jiggie chooses this is because there’s no need to be concerned about hot spots whenever you’re shooting. And basically hot spots are a reflection of the light on your backdrop.That's why it's essential that your backdrops should be made out of non-reflective fabric.
Jiggie also chooses a 5x8 ft Kate retro white wood vinyl floor mat. The reason why he chooses vinyl is because it doesn't move around or get crumpled when kids are running on it.
For More Inspirations:
Christmas Holiday Sale Starts NOW!!
Kate 2021 Valentine’s Day Backdrops Collection
Kate 2021 Family Photography Backdrops Collection
If you want to know more about continuous led lights use, please check: Continuous Lighting vs. Strobes: 2 Portrait Lighting Choice You Should Know
Read More Resources: Handbook of Photography Backdrop
This is an exercise that you can do with simple equipments & studio space, and the most important thing, a fantastic Christmas Backdrop. Hope you can enjoy this video, and get some inspirations on improving you 2020 Christmas Photoshooting!
Equipment Used:
Backdrops: Kate Backdrop：https://www.katebackdrop.co.uk/products/christmas-tree-lights-brick-wall?variant=34125099401356
Floor drop: https://www.katebackdrop.co.uk/products/kate-vintage-white-distressed-wood-rubber-floor-mat-for-newborn-baby
Wifi Video Transmitter: Hollyland - https://amzn.to/3anLBJF
Lights:
Philippine Viewers:
Nanlite Philippines - https://www.facebook.com/NanlitePhili...
About The Photographer: Jiggie Alejandrino is a portrait and wedding photographer from the Philippines. He’s the Sony Ph Brand Ambassador, the Zeiss Camera Lens Ambassador, the International Phottix Pro Teamer, and the MagMod Philippines Brand Ambassador. He's and considered to be one of the most reputable lighting specialists in the Philippines, conducting workshops nationwide and have been featured in various photography magazines. I was also a multi-awarded portrait and advertising photographer.
Learn More：Youtube Channel ; jiggiealejandrino.com
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