Shooting On Location at Night

Intro by Skip Cohen

Every week I share a new post in the ProShow Annex. They rotate between "Building Your Business," my own "Photodex Friday" and "Suzette Says," but they all share a common denominator - helping you bring slideshows into your business model. 

Slideshows need to be a part of the products/services you offer and thanks to technology, they're easier than ever to create, but don't forget the importance of your skill set as an artist. Great presentations need great images, not just creative dissolves, transitions and good music.

In this archived post from the "Queen of Hybrid", Suzette shares some solid tips for shooting at night. As the weather starts to remind us Spring is just around the corner, it's time to be practicing and raising the bars on your skills so you're ready to capture the very best images.

Suzette captured the images with the LUMIX GH4 and the FZ1000 and then created the short slideshow with ProShow Web. Learning more about ProShow Web and taking it out for your own FREE "test drive" is just a click away!

by Suzette Allen

Shooting on Location at night for video requires continuous lights, but makes it super easy to shoot in the dark! It also offers the ability to use cool or warmer lights and even flashlights for accents.

In this shot of Karlee on Lowry Bridge in Minneapolis, we lit her with LED lights. Typically we travel with a 6”x12” Dracast battery operated light for location work, but we borrowed some Yongnuo LED’s from a fellow photographer and since then purchased some for ourselves. They are small, portable, and so easy to use on location because they are battery operated.

Besides the small size (6”x7”), I like the built in barn doors to control the light and the warming filter to match the available light. LED’s also have a softer edge than a flash, and are much less harsh, so even without diffusion, it looks good. While there are light models that offer color temp variation, we typically avoid them because it usually diminishes power since half the bulbs are colored and half are not.  The short video video from this shoot was so easy to put together in ProShow Web.  

​Photographed with Rod Oman and Karlee Callender.

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