Portrait photography with clamshell lighting means that two light sources are placed in front of the subject. A softbox above and one below, obliquely angled towards the subject.
Here we show you how to easily recreate clamshell lighting with just a studio flash and a reflector screen.
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Overhead light with smoothing is a budget variant of Clamshell lighting which is normally set with one light above and one light below. With this solution, you get to control the height of the reflex screen to adjust the smoothing instead of adjusting the effect of the flash below.
The main light is a studio flash with an octa-shaped softbox 100 cm that is placed between the model and the camera. Feel free to use a boom stand so that you don't have the lighting stand in the way when you take photos. Aim the light just in front of the model, the center of the light between the model and the camera, about a 45° angle.
Illuminating light from below comes from a reflective screen. Angle the reflex screen at an angle of about 45° upwards so that the softbox and reflex screen create an opening between the camera and the model. In this example, the reflex screen has a silver surface, but try also with a white surface and you will see what suits your photography best. Fine adjustment of smoothing is controlled by moving the reflex screen higher up, for more smoothing, or lower, for less smoothing..
When doing this setup, aim the main light and reflector just in front of the model. It gives a nice fading between light and shadow on the motive.
This setup can be used with any background you want. In our example, we have used a white background. På the picture is the gray då we didn't dedicate enough light på the background causes it to be exposed as white. The same applies to other background colors, i.e. the background will be darker than it looks in reality. If you want a completely white background, or the same background color as when viewed in the room lighting, it is required that you have an additional light source dedicated to illuminating the background.< /p>
You can äeven ächange the tone onå the background by moving the model and lighting closer to the background, to bring the background brighter, or move the model and lighting further away from the background, to get the darker or even all black.
When shooting with studio flashes, the camera should always be set to manual exposure, a fixed ISO number and preferably manual white balance. Lenses with a wide aperture around 85 mm to 100 mm provide a nice perspective and a suitable shooting distance.Set the camera's shutter speed to 1/125 sec and ISO 100. For portrait photography with a plain or white background, aperture f/8 is excellent.
When using more than one light source, always start by activating only one light source and set it has the desired effect. Add after that the other light sources to be used during the photography.
Start with the main light and adjust the brightness until the exposure is correct to the selected aperture, in this case f/8. Angle and move the softbox in height and depth until you reach it.
Then you place the reflective screen below the softbox. When you use the Manfrotto HaloCompact reflex screen, it can be easily mounted on tripod with ball joint, which means that you can control the reflex screen with high precision. Test both the silver and white surface as well as the j-sink reflective screen until you get the desired result.
Here you will find the equipment you need for portrait photography clamshell lighting with reflex shield.