Understanding Grids - Lighting Tutorial by Jay P. Morgan

Here you have the last Lighting Tutorial shared by Jay P. Morgan and his Team ( theslantedlens.com) this year on YouTube "Understanding Grids":

Today we are shooting at the YouTube Space for the first time. It’s a wonderful facility with great equipment and helpful people. I have been looking forward to shooting here for some time and today is the day! We are going to shoot a film noir shot using grids on strobe heads and mix that with a similar looking light from the film world called a Source 4. I want to show how grids work and how you can light with them while at the same time mixing them with tungsten light.



As we have covered in past lessons, grids are a honeycomb metal insert that goes into the reflector. They restrict the area of coverage for the strobe. I love them because they help give you more control of the light.

First, we take a look at how the different sizes of grid look with our subject against a white wall.

Grid light is very directional and not soft. The spill in the shadow areas of the image increases as you go to larger grids. Grids are perfect for a film noir shoot with hard light and deeper shadows. Take a look at our shoot and how we set it up.

I shot on the Canon 5D Mark III with a 24-70mm Tamron lens. Using grids for this shoot was the perfect choice. They are directional and hard looking and look more like fresnel hit lights. The different degree grids allowed us to light only the area that we wanted to. A small grid for her face and a broader grid for the rim light that will cover both her and him. This is an effective way to work and can produce some amazing images.

I love this type of stuff and look forward to doing it again soon.


Keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’.


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