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Useful Photography Tip

Useful Photography Tip #72: Mimic the Look of Window Light By Bouncing a Flash at a Window Shade

Chris Gampat
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11/08/2013
2 Mins read

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer With and without flashes for a window lighting tutorial (1 of 2)ISO 4001-40 sec at f - 2.8

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Everyone loves the look of window lighting. But in order to get that very soft, diffused look that we all see in some of our favorite food photos, we either need to wait for the right light or we need to crank the ISO levels up to the really high levels. That can provide a fundamental logistical problem because it requires the right scheduling. This is only true though if you don’t have a single speedlight.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer With and without flashes for a window lighting tutorial (2 of 2)ISO 4001-40 sec at f - 2.8
This is the same photo that leads this blog post. However, the flash is off and the camera settings are the exact same.

 

Let’s take a look at the situation above: NYC is currently extremely gloomy. In order to get a photo that looks like there is glorious sunlight outside being diffused by the blinds, I’d need to crank up the ISO levels if I were just using natural/available light. By turning the flash on and aiming it at the window shade, I’m adding more light to an already large and diffused light source. By adding more light to the area, I’m giving the area enough light to make it look like there is beautiful sunlight outside.

And the result is below.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Pentax K3 first impressions product photos (1 of 8)ISO 4001-50 sec at f - 2.5
ISO 400 1/50th f2.5

 

We encourage you to try this out for yourself and show us your results.

In order to get this shot, we used the Canon 5D Mk II, Sigma 35mm f1.4, Phottix Odin and Mitros+ flash. It’s crazy what a single flash can do in the right spot. The flash was given an extra boost of 1 stop in the EV compensation.

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flash mimic Photography tip tutorial window lighting
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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