Work flashlight can aid aiming speedlights in studio settings

     When you start using off-camera flashes, usually the first lights you're going to use are your speed lights.

    One drawback with they have, compared to their larger, brighter studio cousins, is the lack of a modeling light.

    A modeling light is a small lamp, incandescent or now, LED, that shows the photographer where the light from the flash will fall, especially if it's used with a modifier. You likely saw these if you ever went to a photo studio for a portrait, or when you had photos taken at school; it's that glow you see coming from the umbrellas or softboxes before the picture's taken.

    Modeling lights are helpful if you're trying to set up a Rembrandt lighting (that's when one side of the face is illuminated more than the other side, but you have that triangle of light on the cheek on the darker side), or trying to adjust a rim light.

    You can still work without a modeling light, but that can involve quite a bit of trial and error, which might not go over well with some subjects who might question your competence behind the camera.

    But there is a way to at least get a similar effect and get your lighting within the ballpark, and just require a little bit of fine-tuning.

    Remember the flashlights I mentioned earlier as a night-photography light? You can use that as a makeshift modeling light.

    And it will only set you back 99 cents at Harbor Freight, unless you catch one of their free giveaways.

    For this to work, you make sure the main light is on, and center it over your flash head, or the center of your softbox. This will show you where the light is generally falling, and you can adjust the light's position as needed.

    It won't be as WYSIWYG* as a modeling light, but it will give you the general idea of where your light is going to go, and that should mean fewer adjustments when you start shooting.

    

    *What you see is what you get. It's a term first coined when word processors began to show you how your document would actually look with the chosen fonts and text styles.

Night-photography lighting in your pocket

    The folks over at Digital Photography School had suggestions on how to use your cellphone for dramatic night photos.

    In the article, it suggested using the LED lamp on your smart phone as a key light for portraits. It throws adequate light on the subject, while at the same time preserving the ambient light. It works better than flash which tends to create a harshly lit image of the subject against a nearly pitch-black background.

    This is not the first time someone has suggested this. Jared Polin over at FroKnowsPhoto.com has also advocated this technique for years. The best example is his photo of a meetup in front of the Kolner Dom in Cologne, Germany.

    But the DPS article acknowledges that there is a problem with this technique. The LED on the phone is not the brightest light, as it's a single bulb. That means you have to hold the phone pretty close to the subject and possibly boost your ISO to boot.

    But there's a way to shed more light on the subject without breaking the bank. Harbor Freight has 144-lumen led flashlights for less than $4 that can put out more light than a phone. I keep a few of them around my house (I usually pick them up when I get the coupon to get one free) for emergencies, but I think I might add it to my photo bag as well.