How to observe light and get better photos?

If you learn to observe light, you often get better photos. Light is often even more important than the subject of you photograph.

[@WoodNasher]

After watching this I went out with my camera and set myself the challenge to use light as the subject of the pictures. I got some nice results and I'll definitely pay more attention to the light in future. Great video and great photos, one of the best photographers on KZbin in my opinion

[@ShootOnFilm]

Oh wow, thanks! But seriously, just thinking about light and paying attention to it improves at least my photos. I too quickly get excited about the subject and forget about the light!

[@dewaynecarver9592]

This and the north-south light video were very instructive and inspirational! Thank you for these great videos.

[@tedphillips2951]

I watched this video & I wanted to comment because I liked it so much but I honestly could not put into words how good I thought it was. I waited hoping that maybe the words that sum up my thoughts would come & then I saw your video about your fathers funeral & I was so moved. I realized then that you videos are so real & human. Thanks

[@qnetx]

Beautiful. As my spiritual-minded friends say, “Love And Light”. 😏

[@ShootOnFilm]

Love and Light -- I like the sound of that. Especially as verbs!

[@Harry-eq5yy]

I learned something new after watching this video about light. I always use my light meters in 'incident' mode but never thought of them giving me middle-geey.... The penny dropped in my mind as I watched this video ...!! Ofcourse... The light meter is a dumb tool. I need to over or under expose to get depth and emotion into my images.... Thank you for this video, Ari...

[@stephenm103]

Great work on that Wurlitzer, Ari. I always found it to be a bit of a tricky axe to "fit" but you clearly bring out its best character in this performance. Thanks for sharing (again).

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thanks thanks!! And thanks for watching!

[@skleung3]

Very useful information. Thanks for sharing !

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thanks for watching!

[@luxseven1]

You're a light-into-poetry converter/translater/interpreter ... This video is the logical suite of the previous video and I hope for more to come!

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thanks, Jos. Appreciated!

[@vitaligent]

Great job Ari. Happy to have found your channel.

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thanks, David. Thanks for watching!

[@retter2critical]

Love the advice, these videos are hidden gems... Would be cool if you started making them in 4K, even if it was just for the photo-scans.

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thank you, thank you!! And thanks for the suggestion for 4k. Let me see what I can do. I could certainly do that for scans. I shoot these with a Nikon 7100 which probably won't go to 4k.

[@retter2critical]

@@ShootOnFilm Yes, scans is the important bit, the video doesn't need to be 4K. Just make sure you edit on a timeline that is set to 4K. Hopefully I get my first TLR soon.

[@ejorbe]

Hahaha I was very shocked you said my name on your video! I feel very honored! This actually showed me that I was “metering correctly,” and the part I was missing of I don’t always have to go with the light meter readings. I use the same LightMeterPro on my phone. Thank you very much for this video as it really did shed some light on the situation of what I was doing and how to shoot the pictures of what I see and feel. Thank you very much!

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thank YOU. It's this dialogue that I like!

[@peterlund4501]

Hey Ari, nobody makes so beautiful videos about light! 💡 love it. And it always reminds me to be more patient! And pls make an album of your Musik. It’s great 😊 all the best peter

[@ShootOnFilm]

Peter, thanks thanks!! Let's see :-)

[@peterlund4501]

@@ShootOnFilm reminds me of captain beefheart : this is the day ☺️

[@jamesrice670]

As always, not only instructional but entertaining. When you dropped the focusing hood and had a look of horror, for some reason it reminded me of the night I was attending a boys basketball game; the coach stood up and ran towards the playing floor to yell at a player, and his false teeth went flying out of his mouth and slid all the way to the center of the court! He dashed out onto the court, picked them up, shoved them in his mouth, grinning like a Cheshire cat, and went on like nothing had happened.

[@ShootOnFilm]

Ha haa!! What a story. Lucky, all my teeth are still mine! Thanks for watching!!!

[@DI-cm5xc]

Groovy Ari, groovy. Very interesting. You're showing signs of great stability and structure, if I'm correct in my interpretation.

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thanks, thanks. We are approaching a more rooted and balanced season. Maybe?

[@ggaffrey8573]

I was thinking the same thing.

[@utekopka7920]

Great video Ari! Shooting against the light is my favorite too. I have made the experience that my FT-2 panoramic camera sadly cannot handle it well and gives me some banding which requires some more work in post. I have the same app on my phone but rather love to use my Weimar Lux meter for 35mm and 120, or for 5x7 my old Pentax Honeywell and the zone system.

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thanks thanks. Yeah, my FT-2 also is not very good with front light. The lens overall has a very low contrast and is soft.

[@genegoranov5865]

Just occurred to me how you strive to combine sound and light not only to enrich the art, but on some level you want to hear light and see music. It's like some fantastic revelation where totally alien entities like sound and light waves somehow intermingle to produce total explosion of the vision of being. Not in this body, not in this..

[@ShootOnFilm]

Gene, I'm not sure if I succeed at all but this is exactly how I think. And you put it in words! I believe there is an art form yet to be discovered that combines light and music (photography and music?) in a new way.

[@danncorbit3623]

In photography, there is nothing but light. The ISO number is how sensitive the camera is to light. The aperture is how wide open the hole is to let in light. The shutter speed is how long you will let the light go through the lens. So the only thing that happens when we take a photograph is we are toying with the light or the light is toying with us.

[@ShootOnFilm]

That is so true. As I explained in my previous video, there is no other art form to which light is so essential. And it's already in the name :-)

[@williamshaffer9216]

What an inspiration you are, both with your Photography and your Music! I went out this morning with my Mamiya C-330 and shot two rolls of Pancro 400.I used a Voigtlander auxiliary light meter as a place to begin. In 4-5 days, I will know how well I did. I have always accepted the lighting conditions that presented themselves and adjusted accordingly. I've never enjoyed shooting into the light. You are a great source of inspiration to me! One last question: Is that a French Horn on top of your piano? Thanks!

[@ShootOnFilm]

Thanks thanks. Yes, it is a French horn. Good catch. 😊

[@mrca2004]

Photographers work in light and need to understand the characteristic of it so they can find, modify or create it. It has direction and the main light created shadows that reveal or hide shape and form. On camera axis is like a circle on a piece of paper, flat. Shade the circle with the side of the pencil and you have a ball shape. Diffusion is the degree the rays are scattered or parallel. Parallel like from the sun produce hard shadow edges, diffused soft. One dramatic, the other gentle. Intensity is the amount of light and also considers the relative amounts or ratio between the main and the shadow. The darker the shadow the higher the ratio. Classic portrait is 3:1. Finally, light has color and digital folks are familar with white balance to neutralize light color and we can use gels on lights or colored reflectors to change light color. All these can be in the control of the photographer who learns and understands them.

[@ShootOnFilm]

I agree. There are so many things you can do with light -- it is the essence of photography. And a life long learning process!

[@future2300]

I shoot in the same way, glad to see that :D

[@ShootOnFilm]

Excellent :-) I find it important to find a way to shoot that feels right, feels your own. I follow my instincts and ... well .. here we go. Good to know I'm not alone!

[@DEFilmProductions]

I’ve been shooting more on my mamiya c330 but have been having trouble with only having my phone to meter with. Are there any external light meters that aren’t too expensive or bulky?

[@ShootOnFilm]

The one I introduce in the video. It's really small and handy.

[@spuggym8986]

Ari have you ever shot with a box brownie No.2 camera? I used mine for the first time recently and am yet to develop the film, there's very little content on the box brownie cameras, it'd be cool to see what you could do with it, you and cameras is always a good combination

[@ShootOnFilm]

I have not. They are cheap -- maybe I should try :-)

[@spuggym8986]

@@ShootOnFilm to me it feels like a pinhole and a holga had a baby, I'm sure it would be up your street

[@tomklein_photo]

+1 to that! I love shooting with the brownie box. It's so simple and sometimes the results are surprisingly beautiful!

[@FTropper]

I find it pretty hard to shoot into the light. Even with a digital camera. I mean everybody can do a basic silhouette shot. But shooting against the light, having details in your subjects shadows and doing it with film - I have no idea how you do it. 🙂

[@ShootOnFilm]

Maybe that would be the subject of another video. But three things: Overexpose. Let the sun burn through -- digital is harder because film burns through beautifully, digital (at least my gear) burns through harshly. And then put the sun into the corner of the frame -- never in the middle. And finally, know your lens. In my Hasselblad / Rolleiflex comparisons, for example, i discussed how my Hasselblad planar is better handling this situation compared to my otherwise perfect 2.8F Rolleiflex. And how the artifacts (hexagons, lines etc) are different in every lens: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gWrcl2Znq7acgdk

[@SilntObsvr]

The old rule for simple cameras back when an Autographic Vest Pocket Kodak was new technology was "bright sun over your shoulder at midday." This gives enough angle there are shadows to define depth, but keeps the sun out of the (then inevitably uncoated) lens and (usually) keeps your own shadow out of frame. Your "sun in frame" technique is pretty much asking for heavy flare, especially with a pre-1945 lens (like many of mine). Scattered light from the inside of the camera also adds to flare, and flare fills in the shadows -- which can be used to advantage, but can also squash the contrast you expected (not to mention driving you nuts trying to find the light leak that's actually just a scatter from the interior of the camera). I'm going to disagree with you on metering -- I prefer spot metering. I use an app on my phone that includes a spot, and my preferred meter otherwise is an old Honeywell Pentax 1/21 spot meter. This lets me directly control how bright a particular part of my scene will be -- the meter wants to make whatever's in the spot a middle gray, Zone 5 to use that system. If I want that dark (a deep shadow, perhaps), I subtract two stops, or maybe three if I don't care about losing some detail in that area, and if I want that light (say, a wall with white siding) I'll add two or perhaps three stops to make it very light, even barely textured. If I can't spot meter, I'd usually rather use incident metering; incident dome on my Sekonic 398 Studio Deluxe -- which reads the light *falling on the scene* rather than what's reflected from things in the scene. That (usually) automatically makes dark things dark and bright things bright, though I can still adjust a stop or even two stops up or down to make the overall scene lighter or darker. IMO, an averaging reflected meter is the hardest to use well (though you seem to do just fine). And if I dropped the prism viewfinder from my RB67 like you did the waist level hood from your C220, I'd probably dent the flooring as well as bending the mount on the viewfinder...

[@ShootOnFilm]

I know using a spot meter is more accurate. I totally understand why you prefer it! I just seem to be doing pretty ok without, so …. 😊. This mamiya has a very loose hood. Actually, as you know there is a release knob in the back a bit too exposed ….

[@SilntObsvr]

@@ShootOnFilm Actually, Ive never handled, much less used a Mamiya C series TLR. In fact, I think the RB67 and my Mamiya Six folder are the only Mamiya cameras I've ever used. That too-easy release seems like a design flaw, though.

[@maxbooth8611]

European Adam Savage

[@ShootOnFilm]

Haa :-)

[@gueorgui29]

Bnw low light! That's, how they call it, "the shit"!

[@buyaport]

"Bad light" is a myth. You can use any light to your advantage if you are a bit imaginative. -- The other day I heard a famous British "landscape photographer" say: "If the light is not right, I just walk away." Of course he cannot take pictures of anything else than landscapes, and most of his pictures look similar, because they are taken in early autumn about 15 minutes to sunset. This is his "style", but I find it just very sad.

[@ShootOnFilm]

There is a point in what you say. However, light is the most important element of my photographs. So bad light to me is any light that I cannot make good IN MY photos. So it's up to me!

[@buyaport]

@@ShootOnFilm Different people, different attitudes -- that is ok. My point was just that one can always find something interesting to photograph, in any light. Today I was out with my digital camera, a wide angle lens and pol filter to a local car show -- at noon. The bright light really made the colours and the chrome shine, great. And the other day I was out in nature to take some macro shots of some rare orchids I had found, in broad daylight, which gives more natural colours than flash, I find. (Just two examples for not needing to stay home just because of the "bad" light). Your night pictures are another example, by the way. Could there be any "worse" light than street lamps?

[@drewh79]

I have no diea why anyone would teach you to shoot light from behind you.... we were always taught to have it shooting into the light

[@ShootOnFilm]

Just google and this is what people say :-) www.thefrugalgirl.com/how-to-take-good-pictures-put-the-light-behind-you/