The Rotolight advantage

Lighting expert Jake Hicks explains how Rotolight gear has enabled him to take some of the best images of his career - while saving time, money and hassle

- Jake Hicks

It's far easier to take a fantastic image with great lighting and a dodgy camera than it is to take a fantastic image with dodgy lighting and a great camera.

Quite a sweeping statement, but let me elaborate. 'Quality of light', 'clean light' and 'even lighting' are terms we all hear a lot, but what do they really mean? To me, these terms describe very authentic and natural-looking light, light that doesn't get in the way of the image itself and allows the subject or story to be the main focus. Some lights struggle to do this for several reasons, but a lot of it boils down to their size.

Many speedlights, and even strobes, all produce light from a very small point. Think about it. A speedlight forces light out of a tiny tunnel, while strobes - even the ones with exposed bulbs - also generate light from a small source. So it's very hard to create natural, even and clean-looking light, and this is why very expensive modifiers like fresnels and parabolic reflectors are so popular with high-end studios and pros. These modifiers take that single point of light and spread it evenly over a much larger area.

Collimation station

The light produced by these parabolic and fresnel modifiers is now travelling in parallel lines to the subject and it's this type of light that we call 'collimating' light. These parallel lines of light are as close as we get to the look of sunlight and this is ultimately why this type of light is so coveted. As you'd expect, this light is very clean, even and natural-looking.