Lighting a retroreflective emergency vehicle

[markmullen]

I am involved with a charity and need to shoot an emergency vehicle.

I photograph Porsches quite a lot and the look I want to go for on this is one I use a fair bit, a big dramatic sky underexposed and gradded down and the vehicle fill flashed back up.

I have a set of Quadra Rangers and on normal paintwork have no problem, I am just thinking the Battenburg stripes on the vehicle might cause issues.

Has anyone photographed a retro reflective vehicle before and have any tips?

 

[Peter_Hartland]

On most emergancy vehiclles flash will present a major problem, I used lamps last time I did a shoot like this as I could control the reflective surface, allowing me to exposure for the vehicle & High Viz jacket the guy had on, whilst darkening the sky as I did it late evening in Sept.

 

[Garry Edwards]

On most emergancy vehiclles flash will present a major problem, I used lamps last time I did a shoot like this as I could control the reflective surface, allowing me to exposure for the vehicle & High Viz jacket the guy had on, whilst darkening the sky as I did it late evening in Sept.

It doesn't make a scrap of difference whether it's flash or continuous lighting, what matters is
1. The direction of the light
2. It's relative size.

So, use a softbox at an acute angle, so that the reflections from the hi viz bits ping off harmlessly in directions other than your lens, and the job's done. It won't work 100% of course (the only surface on which it could work 100% is a perfectly flat, smooth surface) and high viz is designed to reflect light in all directions, but it will work well enough, and will be the best that you can do.

 

[markmullen]

Lovely job, thanks Garry.

 

[st599]

It doesn't make a scrap of difference whether it's flash or continuous lighting, what matters is
1. The direction of the light
2. It's relative size.

So, use a softbox at an acute angle, so that the reflections from the hi viz bits ping off harmlessly in directions other than your lens, and the job's done. It won't work 100% of course (the only surface on which it could work 100% is a perfectly flat, smooth surface) and high viz is designed to reflect light in all directions, but it will work well enough, and will be the best that you can do.

It isn't. The tape is retro reflective. It reflects back in the direction the light came from

 

[Garry Edwards]

It isn't. The tape is retro reflective. It reflects back in the direction the light came from

Only to a very limited extent. Mostly, the light reflects back from square on, so that it shows up well in headlamps, torches etc. Obviously some light is reflected from acute angles and equally obviously even more light is reflected from a curved surface, but the method I described does the best job in this situation. Try it and see, rather than just saying that my method won't work - because I know from personal experience that it will.

 

[Peter_Hartland]

It doesn't make a scrap of difference whether it's flash or continuous lighting, what matters is
1. The direction of the light
2. It's relative size.

So, use a softbox at an acute angle, so that the reflections from the hi viz bits ping off harmlessly in directions other than your lens, and the job's done. It won't work 100% of course (the only surface on which it could work 100% is a perfectly flat, smooth surface) and high viz is designed to reflect light in all directions, but it will work well enough, and will be the best that you can do.

What you said I was actually saying, yes you can use flash, but positioning is tiresome with taking many hit & miss shots unless you use the modelling lamps if using flash blocs, the continuous LEDs I have give me greater control just looking through the view finder for the optimum position so you don't get reflective surface taking over. I didn't mention softbowes as in my shoot I can adjust spread of light plus I used barn doors with a fog gel.

 

[Garry Edwards]

What you said I was actually saying, yes you can use flash, but positioning is tiresome with taking many hit & miss shots unless you use the modelling lamps if using flash blocs, the continuous LEDs I have give me greater control just looking through the view finder for the optimum position so you don't get reflective surface taking over. I didn't mention softbowes as in my shoot I can adjust spread of light plus I used barn doors with a fog gel.

OK, I didn't read your first post that way.

Modelling lamps can be useful, but not in bright lighting conditions. The OP has a Quadra, it has LED lights that give off the equivalent of about 70 watts, so they would get a bit lost in bright ambient light.

If you're just using LED lights for your own shots, I assume that you're shooting in the dark - they certainly wouldn't do anything in sunlight.

 

[Peter_Hartland]

OK, I didn't read your first post that way.

Modelling lamps can be useful, but not in bright lighting conditions. The OP has a Quadra, it has LED lights that give off the equivalent of about 70 watts, so they would get a bit lost in bright ambient light.

If you're just using LED lights for your own shots, I assume that you're shooting in the dark - they certainly wouldn't do anything in sunlight.

My LEDs are equiv to 1000W each I have 3 so more powerful than a lot of flash blocs

 

[Garry Edwards]

My LEDs are equiv to 1000W each I have 3 so more powerful than a lot of flash blocs

Actually, no.
Take a typical 300Ws flash and a typical shutter speed (when working outside) of 1/250th. Equivalent output is 300 watts.
Take your 1000 watt continuous light, that's 1000 watts equivalent with a shutter speed of 1 second. At the same shutter speed as used with the flash, the equivalent output is just 1/250th of the theoretical output, i.e. 4 Ws.
Of course, you could use a longer shutter speed, but it would need to be 1/3rd of a second to output the equivalent of a 300Ws flash, and 1/3rd second would create its own problems, not least of which is that it wouldn't just be your LED light that was 75 x "brighter" - the effect of the ambient light that you were trying to overpower would be 75 times brighter too!