Good studio lighting tutorials are surprisingly hard to come by. I’m sure loads of you are ready to vehemently disagree with me now but seriously; it’s true. There is an abundance of education out there for learning Lightroom, Photoshop, and basic camera technique, but relatively little when it comes to studio lighting tutorials. In actual fact, there is quite a lot, but much of it is poorly produced, badly taught, and, on the rare occasion, just downright wrong. That’s why we thought compiling an ultimate list of free studio lighting tutorials would be very useful.
Without further ado, here’s our list of the best free studio lighting tutorials / resources (Pt. 1) for both beginners and pros. If we’ve missed anything off that you feel must be mentioned, be sure to let us know in the comments.
1 Light With Portrait & Fashion Photographer Jeff Rojas
Jeff is an great photographer based out of New York, who has made a name for himself photographing men. On his Youtube channel you’ll find tons of free photography tutorials. They cover everything from the business of photography to one light setups, beauty lighting, tethering and so on. You’ll also get a chance to see our very own Miquel Quiles featured in many of the videos. The video I have chosen here covers three different ways to use a parabolic softbox, it’s simple but so useful, and Jeff breaks it down nicely.
You can find Jeff on his website and see more videos on his YouTube channel.
Dewy Skin with Beauty & Celebrity Photographer Julia Kuzmenko Mckim
You may already be familiar with Julia because of her great retouching videos., and she’s a part of the SLR Lounge team, however, not only is Julia a kick-ass retoucher but she’s also an amazing studio photographer, and passionate educator. The following video is an excerpt from Julia’s “Studio Beauty Course” and covers the use of contrast to photograph beautiful skin, and Julia’s ‘skin’ is top 1% in the business. Note* you can check out a detailed review of Julia’s course here, since you’ll likely want to after watching this video.
Find more from Julia on her website and YouTube account.
Profoto Don’t Just Make Excellent Studio Lighting Equipment
They also produce some really great educational content featuring photographers at the top of their game. Oh snap, looks like I found a video from Profoto featuring our very own Pye Jirsa. In this video Pye covers a technique whereby, with the use of Profoto studio lights, we can create golden hour light at any time of day.
For more instructional videos from Profoto, check out their website and YouTube account.
SLR Lounge Studio Lighting Tutorials
The fantastic content which Profoto produce leads me neatly onto some of our own. We have loads of free content to be found here on SLR Lounge and on our YouTube account, as you likely know, and in this video that’s an extract from Lighting 101, Pye covers 5 common key light patterns.
Head over to YouTube to find more of our free studio lighting tutorials. If, once you’ve finished those, you’re left wanting more, check out all of the paid content in the SLR Lounge Store. I’d recommend Lighting 101 and Lighting 201.
Who Knew That B&H Did More Than Studio Lighting Equipment?
B&H, on occasion, brings in some top talent in house to educate in depth in their specialized field, and they’re not just little short videos either. B&H hold lots of full-length seminars in their “Event Space”, where they cover the gamut of topics from copyright legalities and of course studio lighting. In this video Kevin Focht takes us through his approach to fashion and Beauty lighting, giving insight into the background and theory of it all.
Find more videos, and have the opportunity to attend future seminars, by visiting the B&H website, here.
Product Photography Studio Lighting With Photigy
Photigy is one of the few online resources which produce quality education relating to product photography. They have loads of paid courses but also produce a lot of free content on a regular basis. They’ve even got a free course which I have chosen to include here. The video below is just an introduction to the studio course; you can find the full course here.
You can find more free content from Photigy on their website and YouTube account.
Studio Lighting Techniques From The Slanted Lens
Jay P Morgan is a commercial photographer and film director from Los Angeles. Many of you will be familiar with Jay because of the free educational content he produces for The Slanted Lens. This video is an oldie but it’s still extremely useful when it comes to learning studio lighting. Jay takes us through a few common lighting patterns in a methodical approach, and concludes the video with a more complete lighting setup.
If you’d like to see more of Jay’s videos you can visit The Slanted Lens or his YouTube account.
Invaluable Studio Lighting Tutorials From Zack Arias
Zack Arias is a photographer and educator based in Atlanta, notorious FujiFilm shooter, and Editor In Chief of DedPxl. I’ve been watching Zack for years and have always loved his educational style. He’s really easy to watch, keeps you engaged, and imparts just very useful info. This video is the first of a two-part series in which Zack explains how to light a white seamless background.
You can find more about Zack on his website, and watch more videos (including part 2 of this one) on his YouTube account.
Fstoppers
Fstoppers is a little website which occasionally writes the odd mediocre article about photography. Only joking! Fstoppers is great. Not only do they regularly write fantastic free content on all types of photography they also produce excellent instructional videos like this one from Patrick Hall, one of the Fstoppers founders.
If you’d like to see more video content from Fstoppers, then check out their YouTube account here.
Last But By No Means Least In Our Studio Lighting Journey
I’m sure you’ve heard of Adorama, but some are unaware of Adorama’s massive YouTube offerings, with hundreds of thousands who follow Adorama TV. Similar to the B&H channel, Adorama cover a range of topics from studio photography tutorials to editing in Lightroom and Photoshop. This video takes us through a technique which will allow you to get three different lighting setups in 1 second.
To find more head over to the Adorama TV website, click here.
I hope you enjoyed this list of studio photography tutorials. Remember, if you have any of your own suggestions, add them in the comments below.
