Balancing Strobes with Daylight: A Lighting Tutorial

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In this Slanted Lens Lesson we are going to show you how to balance strobes with daylight. When I shoot on location I usually use the ambient light {Sun or Shade) as one of my light sources in the scene and then bring in strobes to make that light more interesting. Using strobes and daylight together is most successful when I control the ambient with the shutter speed and the strobes with the aperture. I use a low ISO and then pick an aperture based on how much I want in focus and how much power I can get from the strobes. If my strobes can give me f8 then I know that I need to adjust my shutter speed up and down to balance the sun light with the strobes at F8. The strobe is constant so the aperture is constant but the sun is changing so my shutter speed will be changing. This is a successful process that allows for the constant changing of the sun. If I want the sun as the rim light then I will lengthen the shutter speed to allow the sun to be one stop brighter than my strobes. With practice this process will make more sense and become very intuitive. This was a great shoot that we did out at Universal Studios Back lot that illustrates this principle.
 
#1 Here is the first frame. It shows the ambient light only. This becomes the over all light of the image. We are going to add highlights to make it more interesting.  The sun is half on the truck and it looks terrible.We will need to wait until the sun goes behind the building.  I’m using F8 as my aperture at 1/30th of a second. 
 
 
#2 The first strobe was set just outside  the door way aimed at the guys as a rim. The meter reading for this light was f8 so its not to bight. We will probably dial it up one stop as we go. 
 
 
 
#3 We added a net to take the exposure down on the cement.
 
 
 
#4  Now we set a light in the alley in the background to brighten up the bricks and give the scene more depth. 
 
 
#5 I dialed up the rim light to f11 because it was to dark. Its now working better.
 
 
 
#6 I now added 2 heads on the side of the truck to brighten it up. The sun has just gone behind the building now.
 
 
 
#7 I now added 2 heads on the side of the truck to brighten it up. The truck is finally in the shade now so we can see the effects of these two lights. 
 
 
 
 
#8 The second light is going to lighten the end of the truck and brighten the side of the box and lighten the back of our talent. 
 
 
 
#9 I now added a rim on camera right form behind the truck. You can see its effects on the worker camera left.
 
 
 
#10 I added a light on the building in the background as a  last touch.