Lips close up Shoot - Lighting Advice

[kujina]

Hello all

Tomorrow I will be do a collaborative Lip and nail art shoot to produce shots similar to the following

Goal

Equipment

Lens

I'll be using an old Vivitar VMC 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (with macro mode) this lens becomes a 140-410mm lens on my GH2 camera (2x crop).

Lights

I intended to use use a Ray Flash 2 to take these shots but I'd like to hear any other suggestions on the lighting to create images like the above.

I also have available more speed lights and;

2x Lencarta SmartFlash 2

7" Standard Reflector (for SmartFlash 2)

80x80cm reflector (gold/silver)
2X 60x60cm softbox
80x120cm softbox
120x120cm octagonal softbox

 

[Kodiak Qc]

•
I understand that the submitted picture are what you aim for.

So here are my observations:
• The model is beautiful for sure, nevertheless, they thought to PP her
skin to porcelain look… good or bad?
• in #1 & #2, the specular highlights are an other choice… good or bad?
• lips and nails are clean, due to PP?

I haven't seen that Vivitar lens since a long time!
DoF will be a major issue.
Colour saturation and specular control may be a challenge with the ring flash.

The four times I did a similar shoot I used 3x "1x4" gridded stipboxes all at the
same power output on 3x D1 flash heads, in a reversed pyramid configuration,
with a 70~200 on D800E. The 37MP came to good use!

Have a good shoot

 

[sk66]

Those are all pretty hard lighting with some diffusion. Either smaller, farther away, or some combination... you won't get the same results from a ringlight or BD.

 

[kujina]

Thanks for the replies guys.

DoF will be a major issue

I did do a test a few months back, I think I was at f/18 and 90mm, dof was fairly thin but generous enough as I'm using a m4/3 sensor so I get quite a bit more dof than full frame the lens was designed for.

Either smaller, farther away, or some combination...

What do you mean by this?

 

[Garry Edwards]

The ringflash would produce different (but interesting) results if used extremely close, but Kodiak QC has the right approach, much larger light sources would be much better because they would create better (subjective) and much more easily controlled (objective) diffused specular highlights on the shiny surfaces (lips) and nails.

DOF really will be a problem at any sensible aperture, my guess is that the smallest aperture you should aim for with your small sensor is around f/8. f/18 will produce apparently greater DOF but at the expense of overall lack of sharpness caused by diffraction limitation.

Your example shots owe far more to PP than to either the lighting (which personally I consider to be average at best) or to camera craft. And I don't think much of the PP either, but if that's the way that this shoot is going to go, then poor lighting won't be as obvious.
BTW,

I'll be using an old Vivitar VMC 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (with macro mode) this lens becomes a 140-410mm lens on my GH2 camera (2x crop).

it will still be a 70-210mm lens, it's just that you'll be effectively cropping the frame to use only the centre area, which will be a good thing, given the limitations of that lens at the edges of the frame..

 

[simonbarker]

What do you mean by this?

If you're trying to reproduce the earlier photos a Ringflash is the wrong choice because the shadows will be hidden as your main light source surrounds your lens and almost all shadows will appear in areas not visible to your lens.

You may prefer the results but they won't be the same as those photos, you should try with just the standard reflector and go from there.

 

[sk66]

What do you mean by this?

Because the specular highlights are hard (very bright and hard edged) that means the light source was hard... i.e. relatively small (in physical size and farther away). It's also what gives the hard shadows which you won't get with the ringlight.

Personally I think a 3ft softbox/umbrella 1-2ft away would give better results, but it wouldn't be like the examples.