Final images

Colour gels – Studio Shoot

During the studio shoot, we used different coloured gels as a filter for the lighting. This made the lighting a different colour and offered a overall mood for the portrait. We used three different lighting methods to accomplish this: Split, Butterfly and Rembrandt. We would place the coloured gels gently over the top of the light (so it is covering the lightbulb.) This would obviously change the colour of the lighting to whatever coloured gel we used. A diagram of our studio is presented below:

(‘1’ and ‘2’ are our lights with gel over the top of them.)

The different colours of gel that we used had seemed to present different moods within the portrait. (For example: The darker blue seemed to output a more relaxing emotion, although creating a darker and depressing feel too. When brighter colours are used (like green or orange) it seemed to present a more happy feel to the portrait although a bit of a strain to look at in some cases.

The Exposure Triangle

So what are the three main settings you can change on a DSLR camera? 

1. ISO – the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. It is typically measured in numbers, a lower number representing lower sensitivity to available light, while higher numbers mean more sensitivity. More sensitivity comes at the cost though, as the ISO increases, so does the grain/noise in the images. Examples of ISO: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600.
2. Shutter Speed – the length of time a camera shutter is open to expose light into the camera sensor. Shutter speeds are typically measured in fractions of a second, when they are under a second. Slow shutter speeds allow more light into the camera sensor and are used for low-light and night photography, while fast shutter speeds help to freeze motion. Examples of shutter speeds: 1/15 (1/15th of a second), 1/30, 1/60, 1/125.
3.  Aperture – a hole within a lens, through which light travels into the camera body. The larger the hole, the more light passes to the camera sensor. Aperture also controls the depth of field, which is the portion of a scene that appears to be sharp. If the aperture is very small, the depth of field is large, while if the aperture is large, the depth of field is small. In photography, aperture is typically expressed in “f” numbers (also known as “focal ratio”, since the f-number is the ratio of the diameter of the lens aperture to the length of the lens). Examples of f-numbers are: f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4.0, f/5.6, f/8.0.