Portraiture in bright light is a little problematic.

You want to use your nice fast portrait lens wide open to blur the background. Check.

You want to shoot with the sun in your eyes for subject comfort and pleasant back/rim light. Check.

Need a little sparkle in the eye to literally catch the eye. Check.

So want to use flash to fill the shadows and add that sparkle, but with the above in mind….err, problem.

Wide open lenses in bright light, need fast shutter speeds. Flash generally does not want high shutter speeds unless you use the power in-efficient high speed sync option (fine with powerful strobes, but a real drain on portable flash units), which often limits your output and spontaneity.

There are a few fixes.

The first and cheapest option is a well placed reflector or diffuser. This is often a workable solution, but may need an assistant or complicated rig. Staying where you want to be, while making subtle changes to reflector angle can be problematic, again effecting output and spontaneity.

A better solution and one I have been putting off for too long, is to introduce a constant or fixed light. These lights, usually LED’s have a couple of advantages.

LED or video lights have been around for a while, but have really come into their own lately for both stills and video use.

The main advantage of constant LED lights for stills shooters is they do not need to “sync” with the camera. You simply turn them on and let them do their thing, while you do yours. In other words, you can set the Aperture and Shutter Speed you want, treating the LED like natural light (that you can control).

Other advantages such as light temperature and power controls build in, running cold, allowing a piece of paper or cloth to be a diffuser or taped on cellophane for colour changes and cordless operation are juts bonuses. Some can even be run from a remote or phone app.

I have been pondering the value of a decent sized LED as a better option to a reflector. They are not direction sensitive nor do they even require any actual sunlight (which they can replace!). They can be placed anywhere more easily than even a smallish reflector and can produce any number of warm through cool tones without gels etc.

Need a background, fill, chin or rim light? Not only do they do this well, but you get a free preview. I have struggled for a while deciding on what expensive and cumbersome clamp arm or similar I would get for a reflector to do these jobs, so a decent LED at the same price seems a bargain.

I have just purchased the Neewer 660 Bead and smaller 176 Bead lights. The smaller one will do the job as the much needed fill light, being camera mounted or hand holdable. The smaller one also comes with two batteries, which will cover both, or they can be run off AC. Once I see them in action I may buy another two 660’s as 2000 beads seems to be critical mass for this type of lighting.

The bigger, probably excessive one, will be a welcome addition to my existing lighting kit and help fight strong sunlight. When shooting groups, the light can provide fill and if I add another one or two, even take some strain off my strobes.

They are not perfect.

They are weaker than flashes by weight and considerably weaker than strobes, but can provide lovely, nearly invisible fill, with more control and that all important preview. If you want to cover large groups, LED’s are probably not practical, so stick to strobes.

A great resource for this lighting is Kirk Tuck’s book “LED Lighting” with a guest chapter by Neil Van Niekerk.