How would you light this to avoid the shadows?

sk66

sk66

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I was playing around with a concept image and this is one of the versions I took. Shot on black using two spots. One for the pool of light, and one for the central pawn. The result has pretty heavy shadows cast by the pieces and I can't really come up with a good way to avoid that. The lights I used were (essentially) LED flashlights, but I am in no way limited to that.

I considered a BD. But gridded it would make "the tops" a lot hotter than the rest (unless there was a lot of bounce from the board). At 22" it would have to be VERY close to keep the pool of light tight, particularly if diffused in order to get more wrap... and that would probably prohibit the angle of the shot as well as have a lot of falloff.

Anything "smaller" than the pool of light/board is going to cast outward shadows similar to what I have. I considered fill (tried reflectors but there wasn't enough spill) but that seems likely to ruin the pool of light...maybe flagged off of the floor/board? That seems difficult at best... I just can't see getting fill that far into the scene while also keeping it off the floor.

I did a similar shot on white using a much larger light source (4ft light ~3ft away) which of course eliminated the hard shadows... but then I'm left with some tedious selection work in post in order to fake the BG/pool of light.

I really can't come up with an obvious answer... what am I missing?
About the only thing I can come up with is something like the BD with diffuser and a DIY large/reflective snoot.... it's starts larger than the board at a distance to reduce/minimize falloff/hot spots (and to allow the angle of the shot), and the "reflective snoot" helps hold the edges and pushes light back towards the middle.... sounds like a bit of a PITA.


The First Move by Steven Kersting, on Flickr
 
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Hi Steven, As you've already worked out, anything that really lights the middle more than the edges, will create shadows. I think your best bet is to light it with a large softbox overhead, and put a custom vignette on it in post (ie leave a pool of light in the middle). Not sure why this would involve selections. Use a softbox that is bigger than the board by some way from a height that renders the height of the pieces (and therefore the light fall off from top to bottom) insignificant. My favorite tool for impossible pools of light is the radial adjustment in Lightroom/ACR. For the single pawn, I would probably hand hold a speed-light on slave mode with snoot over it and take another shot. Blend this in in Photoshop. I did this to highlight the label on this vodka bottle http://owenlloydphotography.com/?p=1595 Of course this flat even light will also minimise the shadows on the pieces themselves, If you like those shadows, you may need to blend in a shot with the current light - revealing the shadowless layer on the board. Now this will be tedious :)
 
How about just flagging off the edges of a gridded softbox then tidying it up with some dodging/burning in post?
 
Owen, when I was playing with the idea of faking the lighting I was using the image shot on white... And just throwing a vignette on that wouldn't work well. But the idea of shooting this soft on black and adding a custom vignette in PS would work. (LR wouldn't work as well as the vignette wouldn't have any "perspective" to it). I can't believe I missed that. I was probably just fed up with trying to do it with the white BG...

I've done the compositing, etc... I tend to only do that if I can't get it right in one image. To do it really well takes a lot of precision in setup (not that big a deal if you only have to touch the lighting)
 
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It's always nice to get things done in-camera, and often the result is better, but not always. I'm with Owen here - finish it off in post processing. Creating a vignette/hot-spot and/or lightening the pawn with local auto-mask is the work of seconds in Lightroom, for a perfect result.

I do that kind of thing all the time, though I'd happily spend the time and effort to get it right in-camera with lighting if it would be better. But here, I can't see that it would be.
 
sk66 said:
I was playing around with a concept image and this is one of the versions I took. Shot on black using two spots. One for the pool of light, and one for the central pawn. The result has pretty heavy shadows cast by the pieces and I can't really come up with a good way to avoid that. The lights I used were (essentially) LED flashlights, but I am in no way limited to that.
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An LED torch will be OK for the single pawn, although inevitably it will cast a much harder shadow than the rest of the pieces will have. But it is totally unsuitable for lighting the whole thing, it's far too small, relative to the size of the subject. What you need here is a large, diffused, circular light source. A beauty dish of the right size will do, but it MUST be fitted with a diffuser. Or use a large softbox with a circular mask made from Cinefoil. This light source needs to be smaller than the chessboard, perhaps 75% of its size.
sk66 said:
I considered a BD. But gridded it would make "the tops" a lot hotter than the rest (unless there was a lot of bounce from the board)
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No it won't, as long as it's far enough for the Inverse Square Law not to cause significant overexeposure problems on the tops of the pieces. 6" distance will avoid that problem.
sk66 said:
Anything "smaller" than the pool of light/board is going to cast outward shadows similar to what I have.
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No it won't, a light source say 25% smaller will still cast outwardly radiating shadows (which if I undertstand correctly is what you want) but those shadows will have soft transfer edges, which you also want, if the light source is close enough.

It's actually a simple enough problem, and the solution is governed by the immutable laws of physics, so although you will need to experiment a bit, the results are very predicatable and the suggestions I've made above are bound to work. Just try it, and post the results:)
 
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HoppyUK said:
It's always nice to get things done in-camera, and often the result is better, but not always. I'm with Owen here - finish it off in post processing. Creating a vignette/hot-spot and/or lightening the pawn with local auto-mask is the work of seconds in Lightroom, for a perfect result.

I do that kind of thing all the time, though I'd happily spend the time and effort to get it right in-camera with lighting if it would be better. But here, I can't see that it would be.
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I forgot to mention that I would also use PP to enhance the final result, it's the obvious thing to do.
 
Gary, I was trying to avoid the outward radiating shadows... My issue was w/ keeping the pool of light tight without them. And I don't think I could have shot at this angle under a modifier at 6" height.

Here's a quick redo... 4ft x 2ft modifier at 2ft height. The rest of the lighting faked in PS (pawn spot/shadow and pool of light). I couldn't figure out how to do them w/ perspective in LR (yet).


SGK_3713-Edit.jpg by Steven Kersting, on Flickr
 
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prefer the black background but i think the 3rd shot actually loses something without the shadows as they give more a sense of depth . the last image looks a little to flat in that respect and the bottom white castle has alot of shadow compared the rest of the white pieces.
 
Yeah, I was thinking I should have feathered the light forward (moved it forward) or switched to another more uniform modifier/source .
 
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sk66 said:
Gary, I was trying to avoid the outward radiating shadows... My issue was w/ keeping the pool of light tight without them.
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Well, in that case I completely misunderstood what you're trying to do.

In that case, a larger light source, much bigger than the subject and at whatever distance creates whichever shadows you do want, is the answer, and then a bit of PP work to create the vignette3.
 
I would say the only way to completely eliminate shadows would be to have a softbox, much larger than the board in order that you can have it at a reasonable distance that the light would disperse evenly, but not come from any one direction in particular. Infact, if you could somehow create a large ring light that encompasses the board then you'd be able to mitigate the shadows all together.
 
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