Photography Lighting Umbrellas & Reflectors

Video Transcript

"My name is Anthony Maddaloni and I'm going to be talking about photography lighting umbrellas and reflectors. Now an umbrella or a reflector, an umbrella specifically, is an umbrella, and it attaches to either a strobe unit or a light, and the light shines in to the umbrella and the umbrella bounces the light back. What this does, the effect this gives is that it diffuses the light a little bit, it makes the light not as harsh. Which for the most part, you really want to try to minimize. You don't want this harsh lighting. Umbrellas can range from pretty expensive to a hundred and fifty dollars for an umbrella, to fifteen dollars. It's really how sturdy they are, how big they are. Now a reflector, if you ever see a photo shoot and you go and it's on a location, and you usually see somebody holding this big white circular thing, that's a reflector. And what that's doing is it's taking either the natural light or the artificial light, and it's bouncing it back to fill in to the subject. I always think it's kind of funny when you see someone holding one of those things. They just look kind of comical. But anyway, that's an umbrella and a reflector. Now these reflectors, they sell them, any good photography shop probably has them, anywhere from like thirty bucks to a hundred bucks. But a lot of times I make them. I just get foam core, or any kind of reflective material. You can actually even get spray paint and spray paint them silver or gold for warmth. You know, a lot of times I just try to think of ways that I can save money, but I really do also like using nice equipment. And sometimes I use both. I'll keep a couple of different things around on location, or in my studio, so that I have an advantage. I also like keeping around a couple of clamps. You can clamp these reflectors to stands, and use them that way also. So that's one way that you can use umbrellas and reflectors in your photography."