Studio flash -v- Natural light
Nobody can deny that in the right circumstances natural light is probably the purest, most flattering light source for portraiture. Soft, diffused window light can be simply beautiful. The problem we have in the UK is that it can be unpredictable. We can’t rely on it being intense enough on cloudy days, and in winter it’s just not around long enough. Sooner or later a professional portrait photographer is going to have to address this, and probably invest in some studio lighting.
We use a Multiblitz twin flash head kit, which is also fairly portable. This is important to us as most of our sessions are carried out on location. We ask a lot of our kit – ultimately what we want from it is a way to re-create the same, soft natural light that we get from a north facing window. Can it cut it? Read on to find out.
God’s light is best! That’s a phrase that I’ve heard many times before, and for good reason. Window light can produce simply stunning portraits, but there are a couple of things you have to bear in mind before you dive in.
Firstly, never use a window in direct sunlight. North facing is ideal, but having said that if the sun is obscured by clouds you can probably get away with any direction. Once you have found a suitable window move your model around and find the ‘sweet spot’. You’ll probably find that there is one particular point where the light is at it’s best, and this depends on the time of day, the direction the window faces, and the size of the window.
Once you’ve found this then position your model and get the camera on a tripod so you can keep the ISO low.
Finally, get a reflector in there. Window light comes from one direction, and unless you are in a room with light walls and ceiling on a bright day you are probably going to need one. Optionally, you could consider throwing in a tiny amount of fill in flash. The purpose of this is to put catchlights in the eyes rather than substantially add light to the image.
The image above is an example of a window light portrait. The window was actually south facing, but it was an overcast day so we got away with it.
Can we reproduce this wonderful soft light using studio flash heads? The first thing to do is consider how you are going to modify the light source from the flash heads. If you simply blast flash on your model then the lighting will be incredibly harsh. Most photographers use some kind of modifier such as a bounce umbrella attachment. These are usually silver or white and produce a softer light by reflecting light from the flash head. There is also the option of using a shoot through umbrella. These are similar to bounce umbrellas except they are translucent and light passes through them rather than being reflected. Generally speaking, shoot through’s tend to produce a softer light than an equivalent bounce umbrella.
Another option is to use a softbox. These are large boxes with translucent fronts that soften light beautifully. They tend to be more controllable than umbrellas as the light is much more directional and doesn’t bounce and spill all over the place.
Regardless of which you choose the thing to remember is that the larger the light source, the softer the light. However, this is all relative, for example the largest light source is the sun, but as it is so far away it effectively becomes a point source and so is very harsh if not diffused by clouds. This means that to get a really soft light we need a large umbrella or soft box placed as close to the model as we can.
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, portability is a big issue with us. Umbrellas aren’t quite soft enough, but softboxes are a little too bulky. We’ve found a great compromise in the Lastolite Umbrellabox. This ingenious device is a hybrid of the two, giving softbox style softness with umbrella convenience.
We also like to shoot at wide apertures so we can blur backgrounds. We sometimes like it so that just the eyes are in focus and even the shoulders are slightly blurred with the lack of depth of field. The 400 w/s flash heads are pretty powerful and punch out a lot of light, which means that when the light source is so close to the model we’re restricted to apertures of around f8. To get around this we use a set of neutral density gels which effectively reduce the output of the lights without affecting the colour temperature.
The image on the left was produced using studio lighting. We used an umbrellabox at 45 degrees to the model slightly above her head height, and as close to her as we could without it being in shot.
We balanced this with a large white reflector on the left. We used a neutral density gel on the main light so we could shoot at f2.8, and then used a second light with a snoot positioned above and behind her to give a gentle outline around her hair, which helped separate her from the background a little.
So which do we prefer? That’s a difficult question to answer, but I think that I would probably go for the studio lighting. With a bit of thought and practice you can achieve a lovely, soft light with very gentle 
shadows, but with the benefit of absolute consistency shot after shot. Window light is beautiful, no question about that, but the controllability of a good set of well made flash heads with the right light modifiers on arranged in the appropriate way is hugely beneficial.
