Quality of light

if this was ever discussed (obviously it was) i apologize but couldn't find answears to a very simple question i have

what does quality of light mean??? ....very commonly used or rather abused phrase ...power of light, consistency ..i get all that ...but how do i recognize monolights with "good quality light" ..maybe someone has a ready samples to show good quality vs. poor quality light ... and obviously we are leaving light modifiers aside ..thats not the subject .... i guess i want to ask ...besides power and any other variables what's the difference between my cheapy alienbees and high end lighting when it goes to the final "look" of the picture

There seems to be two different areas for quality of light. The first would be colour temperature. Early morning light is directional and "warm" in so far as there is more red in the light. By mid day the light is above, the shadows horrible and the colour temperature cooler. At sunset we repeat the early morning situation. "Warm" almost always is preceived to be better than "cool" and of a hiring "quality".

With artifical lighting direction is often the key to good light, although early morning light is directionsal as well. Camera based flash is very bad and the light is flat. It's literally flat. The flash goes out and strikes the subject. Assuming that the subject is exposed properly then everything behind them is dark and everything in front of them is over exposed. The is one plane the is properly illuminated and planes are flat.

The trick is to move the Main light away from the camera. Make it approach the subject from a different angle. This creates a depth to the lighting. Try this: Have a subject stand in front of you in a dark room. Take a bright flashlight or some type of house pot light and shine it on the subject from dead in front of them. Now have the subject turn their head to their left. Place the light source in front of them and go back to where you were. Now all of the light is coming from your right and the subject is looking into the light. See how the light creates a depth as it fades on their face?

This is a quality of light. You can further modify the lighting with a fill to reduce the contrast and to open up the shadows. After Fill and Main you can add hairlights, accent lights, and background lights, but I think that the quality of light is mostly Main and Fill, but propely used those other lights can enhance the overall image and the quality of light.

Here's a shot where the Main light is to the left. I used a Fill flash, at the camera position, to maintain detail in the shadow. With the Main coming from this off camera position I've also created an artificial depth to the image. If you were standing at the Main light position you can see how that light evenly lit up his face. But from this position you can see how it tapers off.

Althought here are bound to be more comments this is how I would define quality of light.

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Wow, what a good question. A question not easily answered. I will try to touch on a few points. Good light is light that is flattering to the subject, be it human, animal, or a scene. Man has been studying the quality of light, and how it affects our perception, for millennia. Read about, or simply observe painters like Rembrandt. If they wanted to render their subjects as masterpieces, then the lighting had to appear masterfully rendered. As lighting is used in photography, there are important aspects of it that can be manipulated to flatter the subject. Color temperature, softness, and direction are the main considerations. When using artificial light, such as flash or continuous, it is usually beneficial to soften, ( diffuse ) the light for human faces, and products and such. Now, if you manipulate this light so that it is the most flattering, the person will not be able to tell if you used an Allien Bee, a Speedotron, a Dynalite, or whatever. There is a saying that, "light is light". There is truth to this saying, but the more you study, understand and learn to manipulate light, the better your photography can be. There is one very important difference between artificial light and sun light that you should know, and that is light fall off. when you use your flash the light intensity decreases rapidly, as apposed to sunlight. One can diffuse, angle, and change distance to have this light wrap around, so to speak, the subject and create the elusion of being three dimensional. The main difference, to me, in the various studio lighting is, power, ease of use, accessories ( ability to almost endlessly modify light quality ), and dependability. I hope this helps.

thx for reply guys ...so Don what you are saying is that employing right technic will alow me to get proffesional results even with cheap alienbee ?? ..ok what about bulbs, amount of bulbs, the temperature of those bulbs temperature is obviously a matter of WB adjustment ...but still there is got to be something that makes those extremly expensive light appealing for proffesionals ...it can't be just power and customization options ..i don't think that 1600 ws bee would not be enough for most of studio setups ...still a lot of people will raher pay 6x more for other lights ..... maybe i am dragging the subject a little but i am new to studio lighting and that is my learning process i can't continue with another step until i get all my answears first

Don Powell wrote in post #2738018
Wow, what a good question. A question not easily answered. I will try to touch on a few points. Good light is light that is flattering to the subject, be it human, animal, or a scene. Man has been studying the quality of light, and how it affects our perception, for millennia. Read about, or simply observe painters like Rembrandt. If they wanted to render their subjects as masterpieces, then the lighting had to appear masterfully rendered. As lighting is used in photography, there are important aspects of it that can be manipulated to flatter the subject. Color temperature, softness, and direction are the main considerations. When using artificial light, such as flash or continuous, it is usually beneficial to soften, ( diffuse ) the light for human faces, and products and such. Now, if you manipulate this light so that it is the most flattering, the person will not be able to tell if you used an Allien Bee, a Speedotron, a Dynalite, or whatever. There is a saying that, "light is light". There is truth to this saying, but the more you study, understand and learn to manipulate light, the better your photography can be. There is one very important difference between artificial light and sun light that you should know, and that is light fall off. when you use your flash the light intensity decreases rapidly, as apposed to sunlight. One can diffuse, angle, and change distance to have this light wrap around, so to speak, the subject and create the elusion of being three dimensional. The main difference, to me, in the various studio lighting is, power, ease of use, accessories ( ability to almost endlessly modify light quality ), and dependability. I hope this helps.

Great anwer Don. Thank you.

Yes, I am saying that one can get professionl results with less expensive lights. There are differences, of course, in the ease of use. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Alien Bees only have 100-150 watt modeling lights, while the more expensive units have at least 200-250 watts. The more expensive units have shorter recycle times. With brighter modeling lights, and faster recycle, it is easier to focus, capture a look when shooting people. Usually one would think that more expensive is more reliable, but I have heard some bad things about some expensive stuff. I have White Lightning and Speedotron, and they have been easy to use and very reliable. They are old now and I don't use them much anymore.

yeah i have only 100 w modeling bulb ..i can get 150 but with tracking off it seems to be enough