The Standard reflector + honeycombs
Lencarta offers a range of different reflectors, some of which (for example the umbrella reflector, the spill kill, the 65 degree and the high intensity) are designed for specific purposes. This leaves us with the Standard Reflector, which is often seen as no more than a holder for honeycombs or barn doors
Does the standard reflector have a useful role as a light shaping tool in its own right?
Yes it does. The standard reflector is the workhorse of studio lighting and can be a very useful light shaping tool as well as being possibly the best learning tool of all.
Basically, the standard reflector is a directional light that can be used to accentuate the bone structure and good complexion of a model - which is a polite way of saying that it isn't ideal for people with poor bone structure and poor complexion because it's a hard, unforgiving light that emphasises faults as well as qualities...
It's similar to a very small beauty dish but without the central deflector, so the lighting can be uneven
It's a hard light which creates a sharp, yet still smooth shadow edge transfer. It can be used as the sole light, or as the key light.
The shot above left is classic Rembrandt lighting (or it would be if I had lit the shot from the left). There's nothing wrong with Rembrandt, but he could of course have his shadows as strong or as subtle as he wished; we need to use either a reflector or a fill light to mitigate our shadows, so here's an example with our 5-in-1 reflector picking up 'spare' light and bouncing it into the shadow areas.
Hard or soft lighting?
The light can be harsh, it’s meant to be. Soft lighting can be good for people whose complexions are less than perfect but soft lighting doesn’t bring out the best when people have good features!
It’s the shadows under the eyes, nose, lips and chin that produce the ‘pop’ and it’s the shadows under the cheekbones that emphasise the quality of our models’ bone structure.
This is how I set up the shot of 'Louisa' (my well behaved mannequin head): Louisa was sitting with a white wall 10' behind her.The wall was unlit. I leave the backgrounds unlit in this series so that you can see how much effect the light has on the background, and so that light reflected from the background doesn't interfere with the lighting on the subject.
If backgrounds need to be lit they need to be lit separately, because they are separate subjects.
Rembrandt is by no means the only type of light that the standard reflector can produce. In this shot, the light was directly above the camera, at an angle of about 30 degrees where it emphasised the cheekbones and created some interesting shadows.
What about honeycombs?
Well, honeycombs can be used in various ways, they are typically used to produce backlighting (including lighting the hair) because the light is channeled through the honeycomb assembly, which stops it spreading outwards. Because of this a honeycombed light can point more or less towards the lens without causing flare.
But honeycombs fitted to a standard reflectors can be used to create a bright centre, drawing attention to the subject. This is typically used for product shots but can be used in other situations too; this shot has a 10 degree honeycomb fitted to the standard reflector. Normally, a honeycomb would be used as part of a hard/soft light arrangement, with the honeycombed light used in front of a lower powered large softbox, but doing that would make it more difficult to see the effect of the light.
What the honeycombs actually do in a shot
Here are 4 shots, each taken with the light in exactly the same position, each with a different honeycomb fitted to it. As you can see, the wider angled honeycombs are lighting larger areas, and as the angle increases more and more light is reaching the background.
The Lencarta range of honeycombs
Our honeycombs range from 10 - 40 degrees, and produce different effects - but it's basically the area of coverage and the angle at which a forward facing honeycombed light can safely point towards the camera lens without causing flare that defines the greatest difference between them. At any given distance, each of the honeycombs has roughly the same size of light and therefore produces very similar hardness of light.
Adding another light
And finally, here is another shot with the 10 degree honeycomb fitted, but this time I have added an on axis fill from a large softbox immediately behind the camera. This was set to 1 stop lower than the honeycombed light. As you can see, it has lightened the shadows and removed the harshness of the lighting without making the shot look flat.
How we shot these photographs
All of these shots are straight out of the camera, with no post processing work whatever except for re-sizing - but of course retouching, colour adjustments etc are very much part of the normal image production process and are generally considered to be essential whenever any hard light source is used.