Where to Place Fill Light

The main effect of the fill light is to eliminate all the shadows of the key lights. The reason we need it is that in most scenes where directional light is used, the contrast range is beyond the range of the sensor. When the light is flat, we don't need it because the camera can catch all tones in a flat-light scene. fill light vs reflector, how to put fill light?

How to Set up Ring Fill Light?

01. Positioning the fill light

This eliminates some guesses about lighting when you start using two or more lights. If the key light is on the left side of the subject, the fill light will naturally be placed on the right side.

1.1 The more similar angles of the key lights that can be placed the fill light, the better the effect. Try to place the lights at 8 o'clock and 5 o'clock.

1.2 Start exposure with the only key light. Now, look at your lens to see if there are extra shadows, high contrast, and "changes in lighting".

1.3 When the fill lighting is strong, you can put it a little farther away to avoid the light is too hard and tired eyes.

02. Perfect the key light

Turn on the key light and perform a test while keeping the fill light off. Note how the directional light gives the face a three-dimensional effect, but the shadow on the other cheek is too deep and have the high contrast.

03. Adjust the fill light

Adjust the fill light. As you can see from the shadow cast by the nose, the fill light makes the lighting look flatter than the key light.

The fill light can eliminate deep shadows and provide us with balanced lighting. If you use an ordinary light as a fill light, then you most likely want to reduce or increase the amount of lighting at some time. This seems to be a common adjustment. Adjusting the brightness of the light is an operation often needed to use the fill light.

Type for Fill Light:

You don't need to always use a separate light source as a fill light. If you want to save money through lighting settings, then this is a good place.

You can use something to reflect the light of the key light, and then reflect the light back to the subject and into the shadows. This reduces the darkness of shadows and produces the same effect as fill light. Maybe you can refer to the article I wrote before, some What are the Different Types of Fill Light to help you choose the suitable photography fill light.

The fill light may be a studio softbox, flash, LED lamp, sunlight, reflector... or even the flashlight of a mobile phone. Initially, we used two LED fill lights in the studio, and then we also tried to use flashes indoors and outdoors. Place the key and fill light positions correctly to help you shoot beautiful portraits in the studio and various scenes.

 

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What are the Different Types of Fill Light

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