Great Reflections?

[Barney12]

Hi

I've been playing around this evening with shooting items on top of our black hob (all started by the weekly photo comp in the comp forum). I've got some ok'ish results (below) but it was rather point and shoot rather than science
I was hand holding my sb-600 and just moving it around and trying some different app settings in app priority mode.

My question is......what do you need for great crisp shadows (other than a nice reflective surface of course!)? Any tips greatly received. I guess my questions is equally about lighting close up subjects?

Thanks in advance

Barney

 

[Garry Edwards]

Reflections are controlled in various ways, try varying your camera height and see what happens.
See this article if you want to control the specular reflections (reflections of your light source)

 

[Barney12]

Reflections are controlled in various ways, try varying your camera height and see what happens.
See this article if you want to control the specular reflections (reflections of your light source)

Thanks Gary. Useful link. Now I need to buy a softbox! DOH!
/me points SWMBO at Garry and blames HIM!

Barney

 

[starabo]

A link to specular highlights that's not Strobist! Amazing! There goes the next 1/2 hour!

I'm no expert, but hold off on the softbox and try shooting through a sheet of normal white computer paper (you might need a third hand to hold it!). It's all about size of the light source relative to the subject - a sheet of paper is pretty big to a tomato, but quite small to a person, so you shouldn't need to shell out the hard earned cash quite yet!

If you're looking for more reflection off the hob-top, I suggest moving the light source further down. The light needs to reflect off the tomato / sugar-coated nut? then off the hob and then into into your lens - like a very complicated trick-shot in a game of snooker. You'd lose a bit of the nice catchlight - but that'd fade with a more diffuse light source anyway.

Just in case you haven't read it try:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/07/lighting-102-unit-22-specular-highlight.html

In fact read anything by him - it's all amazing!

Starabo