Studio Lighting Term

Absorption: The process by which light falling on a surface is partially absorbed by the
surface.

Ambient light /Available Light: Available or existing light.

Aperture: circular hole in the front of the camera lens which controls the amount of light
allowed to pass on to the film. The only exposure control that is available on your camera
when dealing with strobes, excluding ISO.

Back-lighting: light coming from behind the subject.

Barn doors: Metal shutters attached to light source or reflector. Bam doors control the
light angle and keep light from striking the camera lens.

Bounce Lighting: Bounced light is an indirect light source, where the actual light is
pointed away from that which you wish to illuminate, and bounced off of a reflective
surface back towards your subject. This can be achieved in flash photography with
reflector panels, umbrellas, and even reflective surfaces such as a wall or ceiling. Bounced
light is used when you desire a softer, less harsh light quality than is produced with direct
lighting.

Bulb or B: letter on the shutter dial indicating that the shutter will stay open while the
release is depressed.

CCD: electronic sensor used by most autofocus cameras, capable of detecting subject
contrast. Canons use the C-MOS chip.

Circle of confusion : disks of light on the image, formed by the lens from points of light
in the subject. The smaller these disks are in the image the sharper it appears.

Color Balance/Color temperature: A numerical description of the color of a light source
measured in degrees Kelvin (K).

Contrast: The difference in brightness between the darkest and lightest areas of the
image or subject. High contrast photographs are a result of high contrast lighting, where
there are sharp differences in the dark and light, and less in between. High contrast
lighting can be achieved with both direct and bounced light that is not softened or
diffused, but often reflected from a bright silver surface.

Cyclorama: Visually seamless studio.

Daylight balanced film: Refers to color balance of film referenced to a standard daylight
color temperature (5500K for film). Typical daylight-balanced film includes electronic
strobe (flash).

Diffraction: light rays scattered and change direction when they are passed through a
small hole or close to an opaque surface.

Diffuser: Thin, translucent material used to diffuse light, and can be tracing paper,
translucent plastic, umbrellas or even a bed sheet. Diffusers change the character of the
light, reduce hard-edged shadows and make the light more diffused.

Diffused light: Light that has been scattered by reflection or by passing through a
translucent material. An even, often producing soft shadows or shadowless light. Produces
diffuse reflection.

**Directional light: Produces direct reflections also called specular highlights.

Directional/diffused light: Light that is partly direct and scattered, softer and less
harsh than direct light.

Effects light: A light that is neither the key light nor the fill light. These are usually used
as backlights to create a variety of effects including a vivid halo around the subject's hair,
or sometimes as a background light used to create interesting patterns on the
background.

Fill: Lights that fill in the shadows on the subject. Not as bright as the key light, or simply
placed further away from the subject than the key light to reduce the intensity.

Filters: Colored glass, gelatin or plastic disks, which modify the light passing through
them, mainly in terms of color content. They can be used at the camera or printing
stages.

Filter factor: A number provided by the filter manufacturer that informs how much to
increase exposure in order to compensate for the light absorbed by the filter. NOTE: This
process is unnecessary with TTL metering systems as long as the filter is attached during
the metering process.

Filter Factor
1
2
3
4
8

Flash Duration (t.1, t.3, t.5): When a flash system fires, although it may appear so to
humans, the light emitted does not come on and go off instantaneously. In reality, the
flash tube 'turns on' very quickly and then dims gradually as the flash capacitors
discharge. Short flash durations are important to prevent blurring when the subject is in
rapid motion such as a pirouetting ballerina or a Michael Jordan slam-dunk. Flash
manufacturers do not rate flash duration as the entire time the flash tube is emitting light
however, because the end of the slowly dimming 'tail' does not contribute much to the
overall exposure (or to blur). t.1 is defined as the time during which the flash lamp output
is above 0.1 (or 1/10) it's peak intensity. t.3 you may guess is the time the output is
greater than 0.3 (about 1/3) peak, and t.5 is how long its above 0.5 (half) the peak value.

Flare/Light Spill: Unwanted light entering the camera and falling on the film plane
causing a loss of contrast in the image.

Proportion of Light Transmitted
95-100%
50%
33%
25%
12.5%

Number of stops
0
1
1 2/3
2
3

Flag: The opposite of a reflector, these are sometimes used in studio lighting. They are
dark and absorb extra light in order to maximize shadows. A piece of black foam-core
board comes in handy for a flag, or you can paint the other side of a white piece of foam-
core board black and to make handy a two-in-one photographer's tool is created.

Flat lighting: Lighting that produces very little contrast or modeling on the subject and a
minimum of shadows.

Focal plane shutter: Shutter which lies just in front of the focal plane. A light sensitive
sensor positioned at the focal plane is progressively exposed as the shutter blinds move
across it

F-stop: An f-stop is a designation to indicate a camera’s aperture opening, and a flash
unit’s power level. Our flash units are measured in power over a range of available f-
stops, indicating the high or low power level setting of the unit. Each f-stop (shown on the
back panel of our flash units) lets in twice as much light as the f-stop before it, and half as
much light as the f-stop after it. Over a 5 f-stop range, the power is adjustable from Full
down to 1/32 of the total power. For f-stops in relation to your camera’s lens opening, see
aperture.

Gel: Translucent or transparent colored material used to modify the color of light. Gels
were common in stock photography in the late 1980's and early 1990's when many stock
photos had vivid hues.

Gobo: A sheet with cutouts that creates interesting shadows when placed in front of the
light source. Imagine a metal sheet with squares cut into it. If you angle your light at 45
degrees to a background and put this piece of metal in front of it, you'll get geometric
effects. Also used to prevent light spill from lighting setup either into camera lens or in
areas where light is not desired.

Graduated filter: Filter with a colored section, which gradually reduces in density toward
the center of the filter. The rest of the filter is clear.

Gray card: A card that reflects a known percentage of light falling on it. The Gray card
has a gray side reflecting 18% of light and a white side reflecting 90% of light. The Gray
card is used to take accurate exposure meter readings (meters base their exposure on a
gray tone of 18% reflectance). NOTE: Most gray cards are not neutral and should not be
used to white balance an image.

Highlight/Hot Spot: Highlights or hot spots are very bright, well-lit and often overly lit
areas in your setup, causing a very dense, dark spot on your negative. Hot spots appear
when one area of your scene is overly lit, and can be avoided by diffusing or lowering the
output of light on that area.

High key: Photograph which contains large areas of light tones, with few middle tomes or
shadows.

Hot Shoe: A hot shoe is a u-shaped mounting point, usually found on the top of 35mm
SLR cameras. This feature provides a slide-in mounting of small, battery operated flash
units. In addition, it provides an electrical circuit connection which fires the flash when the
shutter is tripped. If your camera does not have the necessary PC connection to wire our
flash unit sync cord, you can purchase a hot shoe adapter piece, which fits in your hot
shoe, and allows the sync cord to be plugged into your camera.

Hot spot: Often undesirable concentration of the central beam of a flood or spotlight on
the subject.

Honeycomb grids can be attached to a standard reflector. Grids are" available in
different mesh sizes for varied light intensities. They create spot-like effects.
."
Incident-light meter: Typically a handheld exposure meter that measures the amount of
light falling on the subject.

Inverse square law: A law of physics stating that the intensity of illumination is
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between light and subject. This means
that if the distance between light and subject is doubled, the light reaching the subject will
be only one quarter of the original illumination.

ISO: An ISO number rating refers to the speed of the chosen film. These days it refers to
the sensitivity setting to CCD or C-MOS chip. A lower ISO, such as 100 speed film, will
require more light. A higher ISO, such as 1600 speed film, will require less light, but
produce more noise in the shadow and even midtones of the image.

Kelvin (K): The Kelvin is a unit of temperature measurement starting from absolute zero
at -273º Celsius or 0º Kelvin. Degrees Kelvin (or color temperature) is used in color
photography to indicate the color balance or spectrum of light emitted from a light source.
If you were to heat a chunk of iron to 3000K, the light emitted from the iron (a dull red
glow) would be said to have a color temperature of 3000K for the purposes of color
photography. Midday sunlight measures about 5500K, while candle light measures around
1900K.

Key light: The main light source, casting the dominant light and shadows in an image.

Kicker light: A light used to elevate an area from oblivion, and to direct some attention
that way. Usually low power and possibly with a snoot; also known simply as kicker or as
accent light.

Leaf shutter: A shutter usually placed within the components of a compound lens close
to the diaphragm.

Light: Visible radiated energy, which forms part of the electro-magnetic spectrum in the
wavelength range of 4000-7000 Å (400-720 nm).

Lighting ratio: Ratio of the brightness of light falling on the subject from the main (key)
light and other (fill) lights.

Light Meter: An instrument for measuring the amount of light falling on or being
reflected by a subject.

Main Light: The main light in a lighting setup is the primary light used. This primary light
source is typically the brightest in your setup, casting the most prominent shadows.

Modeling light: Any incandescent or fluorescent light source used to preview the lighting
effect in a studio flash unit. It helps the photographer judge the effect of various light
positions because the duration of flash is too brief to be judged directly.

Monolight: Also known as Monobloc. A self-contained studio flash that plugs directly into
an AC outlet and comes with the flash head and power supply in an integrated housing (in
contrast to a powerpack system). A central control panel system is found at the back or at
the side.
Advantages: ease of use, fast setup and modest price.

Opacity: The light stopping power of a a material. The greater the opacity of a substance,
the more light its stops. In photography, opacity is expressed as a ration of the amount of
light falling on the surface of the material to the amount of light transmitted by it.

Painting with light: Technique of lighting large, dark interior. The camera, mounted on
a tripod, is given a long time exposure. The photographer moves continuously around the
interior, giving flash or battery powered photoflood illumination to the shadow areas.

Polarization: A light said to travel in a wave motion along a straight path, vibrating in
all directions. Polarization can be brought about with a polarizing filter which causes light
to vibrate in a single plane only. Polarizing filters are used over camera lenses and light
sources to reduce or remove specular reflections from the surface of objects.

Polarized light: Rays of light that have been restricted to vibrate in one plane only.

Polarizing filter: A colorless gray filter made from stressed glass. Polarizing filters are
used over light sources or camera lenses to reduce or remove specular reflection from
certain types of surfaces.

Powerpack: Also 'called generator. A powerpack is the central power supply to which
flash heads are attached and through which they are controlled and monitored.
Advantages: Powerpacks tend to be more robust than monolights.

Recycling speed: Refers to the recharging time in electronic flash units between one
burst of power (flash) and the next. When you fire your flash unit, it releases all of the
energy stored in its flash capacitors in order to emit the flash of light. Before you can fire
the unit again, the capacitors must have time to recycle, or build up enough energy in the
capacitors in order to fire again.

Red eye: An effect encountered when light from a flash unit travels parallel to the lens
axis during exposure.

Reflected-light meter: An exposure meter that reads the amount of light reflected from
the subject.

Reflections: When rays of light which strike a surface and bounce back again. Specular
reflection occurs on even, polished surfaces; diffuse reflection occurs on uneven surfaces,
when light scatters.

Reflector: A reflective (generally white, silver-toned, or metallic) surface used to' bounce
light from the light source onto a subject or setup. Reflectors are available as a collapsible
disc or panel, among others.

Rim light: Outline around a subject created by a light source. Ex. Beauty Dish

Ringlight: A circular light that fits over the camera lens, with the overall effect of a
beauty dish, but more specular highlights.

Scrim: Heat-resistant fabric diffuser for softening lighting.
Ex. Softbox Cover

Shutter Speed: Shutter speed is a term, which refers to the length of time your camera’s
shutter is open. As the shutter opens and closes to expose your film, the shutter speed
measures in seconds the length that light is reaching your film. With ambient light, the
longer the shutter speed, the more light you are letting in. In regards to strobes or
electronic flashes, sync is the only concern. When using a camera with a focal plain
shutter (most SLRs), a shutter speed that is too fast will result in partial exposure of the
sensor.

Seamless paper available in rolls that is very versatile. A bar suspended between two
poles (autopoles) holds the roll with the paper sweeping forward onto the floor or set.

Side lighting: A light striking the subject from the side relative to the position of the
camera. It produces shadows and highlights to create modeling on the subject.

Silhouette: A photographic image in which the subject is seen as a solid black shape
against a light background. See Back-lighting.

Slave: Remote firing system for multiple flash heads. Slaves are typically optical or radio
triggered.

Snoot: A cone-shaped item you can place over the front of your light. Conical snoot
restricts the light angle, creating spot-like effects. A snoot is ideal as hair light, or for
emphasizing important elements within the setup. It intensifies the light and gives the
ability to direct the light source in very specific areas. Snoots come in various shapes and
sizes depending on whether you want stronger or softer lighting effects.

Softbox: A large, diffuse light source made by shining light through a diffuser. These
offer the same soft, flattering lighting as a north-facing window in Rembrandt lighting.

Specular highlight: The brightest tone in an image that is not absolute white. Pure
direct reflection.

Spotlight: An artificial light source using a fresnel lens, reflector, and simple focusing
system to produce a strong beam of light of controllable width.

Spot meter: A reflected-light exposure meter with a very small angle of view, used to
measure the brightness of a small portion of a subject.

Strobe: 5800K light sources that can fire repeatedly at regular, controlled intervals. Also
called electronic flash.

Subtractive Lighting: An effect achieved by pulling light off the subject through the use
of black cards or black fabric to remove extraneous light and reflections, add contrast and
depth.

Sync cable or cord: connects the camera to a flash unit or light meter. (In this studio we
DO NOT connect the sync cord directly to the camera at any point!!)

Sync speed: The fastest shutter speed that will produce a full sensor exposure.

Transmitted light: Light which is passed through a transparent or translucent medium.
The amount of light transmitted depends on the density of the medium through which it is
passed and on the brightness of incident light source. Transmitted light is always less than
incident light, but the amount of loss depends on the density of the medium.

Translucent: Material that allows for partial light transmittance.

Transparent: Material that allows for total or near total light transmittance.

Through-The-Lens Meter (TTL): A TTL meter is a light/exposure meter which is built
into your camera, and takes light readings through the lens to determine the correct
settings when in automatic mode. Often, this meter sends out a pre-flash or infrared
sensor in order to detect the amount of available light. This signal may inadvertently trip
your unit’s built-in slave tripper, and therefore can not be used with flash units.

Track lighting: Lighting that is repositionable along overhead rails, most often in a grid.

Tungsten lighting: Continuous light sources that are tungsten-halogen and quartz-
halogen 3200K - 3400K lights. Also called hot lights.

Umbrella: One of the photographer's best friends, the umbrella can be used either by
shining light directly at it and then using it to bounce that light onto the subject, or by
shining light directly through it, creating a soft box of sorts. Therefore, umbrellas can be
divided into two categories; diffusers and reflectors. Transparent umbrellas are used to
diffuse the light between the light source and subject. Reflective umbrellas are coated
with white, silver or gold and cast reflected light onto the subject. Umbrellas are
particularly useful on location, since they can be set up quickly for use as a main or fill-in
light. Transparent umbrellas produce a soft light. White umbrellas yield a gentle portrait
or beauty light; silver ones are used for extra kick or punch; and gold umbrellas cast a
warm light.