How To Combine Daylight With LED Lights

Photography Tips

Combining different light sources can be tricky if you’re not already familiar with doing so. In addition to all the camera settings and posing the subject, getting the contrast, brightness, and color temperature correct can be a little overwhelming. In this brief tutorial, Jay P. Morgan shows us how he does it with outstanding results:

When combining window light with any kind of studio light, you want to make sure that the studio light is daylight balanced so that it matches the outside light. Morgan uses the Photoflex NorthStar LED light coupled with a Photoflex LightDome to achieve this look. Add in a Canon 5D Mark III with a Tamron SP 70-200mm lens, along with some reflectors, and you will have yourself a setup similar to what Morgan uses in the photo below:

This is the setup Morgan used throughout the shoot.

Now, let’s take a look at some before and after images. The first image you see was taken using only the ambient window light, whereas the second image shows the addition of the LED light.

The settings for both of these shots was 1/50 of a second shutter speed coupled with an aperture setting of f/3.5. The addition of the LED key light really made the subject pop from the image and offered more separation between him and the background. It all goes to show that diversifying your lighting setup can amp up your portraiture a few notches!