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cargo

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As title really, not a question but didnt know where this would fit on the site. I came accross this video link just a mins ago. I was amazed at what went into this and at the same time found it very inspiring. Makes my little still lifes of fruit seem rather weak and they take me yonks to set up.
There is lighting in there too.

Purely posted for the creativity here and nothing to do or say about the politics.
Please move/delete if of no interest.

Gaz

View: https://vimeo.com/199389863
 
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That was interesting, thanks for posting. Very striking visual effects.

Never seen water cooled lights before!

These powder shoots always puzzle me, either amateur or pro as people seem so careless about breathing in the powder. Our local supermarket is installing more tills and the area is boarded and sealed off with big signs warning the installers not to enter without masks as breathing in various stone, mineral and silica dusts will cause permanent long term lung damage.

I have never seen anyone doing powder shoots talk about checking the safety issues of the powder itself to the humans and none of the people in the video are wearing masks, despite saying how the material goes everywhere and the efforts they can be seen to have gone through to contain it from the rest of the studio. I have seen occasional comments on the explosive fire risks of flour, but I am guessing this powder paint (?) is mineral.

Lensrentals posted on their blog some while back the huge amount of damage 'colour run' events do to the internals of photographic equipment.
https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/05/how-to-ruin-your-gear-in-5-minutes-without-water

I guess the inside of peoples lungs look much the same.
 
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Brilliant Gary - thanks for posting that. I love a good bit of engineering in a photo/video :)

I wouldn't go anywhere near one of those events Jay. The holi powder used in the colour run events is normally rice flour mixed with food colouring. It would probably have a temporary effect if you breathed it in (or maybe you'll make dough in your lungs....:P ) but you'll recover in a few days. However, as with anything these days, unscrupulous people will make it out of anything they can lay their hands on and everything from heavy metals to ground glass has been found in these powders. Check out this medical report of one 10 year old boy in Mumbai:-
http://www.pediatriconcall.com/Jour...d=280&type=T&tid=18&imgid=&reportid=&tbltype= He did make a full recovery (ie had no symptoms) after 3 days or so, but who knows what else will become apparent later on in his life.

Poster paint is normally made from chalk (backintheday it may have been made from white lead) and is not hazardous although of course you'd still cough it up for a few days if you breathed it in. Here's the data sheet on Reeves poster paint:-
http://www.artifolk.co.uk/images/resources/12828ReevesTemperaCOSHH.pdf

Particles like glass fibre, metal, glass and asbestos on the other hand can lodge themselves in the soft tissue in your lungs, and cause abnormal growth and mutation, cancers etc Concrete contains Chromium and Silica, and repeated exposure to concrete dust can cause silicosis and may also cause cancer.

So I think these guys were ok if that powder is poster paint, but I agree - you should wear a mask!

Water cooled LEDs :) You can get 1200 lumens out of one CREE XML2-U2 chip now, without water cooling: just a moderate heatsink will be enough for a few minutes run. I wonder how many of those I can get on an aluminium CPU cooling block with a 120mm fan on it? :D Also love the big rubber membrane he made to "explode" the powder - and big extractors to shape the plume of dust. Great video.
 
MidnightUK said:
These powder shoots always puzzle me, either amateur
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Whoops ! I attended a small colour blast run which a local charity was hosting in September last year. Went along as I thought it was something different to photogragh. I was right in the thick of it too as I used my 50mm lens. Tbh I never gave it a thought about me breathing it in but was concerned about my camera. Which I sealed in a water proof bag so just the front of lens was visable.
Glad you liked the video.
Scooter said:
normally rice flour mixed with food colouring
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Hi Owen. Happy you too liked the video. Quite amazing what went into creating it. I hope the event I attended was using the above.
That said I have been a Plasterer since the age of 16 now 51 so I think some damage as been done allready !

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Makes my little still lifes of fruit seem rather weak and they take me yonks to set up.
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Scooter said:
Water cooled LEDs :) You can get 1200 lumens out of one CREE XML2-U2 chip now,
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Amazing how fast lighting with LEDs is developing.

I think this shoot is more mechanical and patience than deeply artistic, though I think its done well. Sill life is a lot more art based as tiny moves to objects as well as the choice of them initially, causes huge impact. I think a good still life is harder to do.
 
MidnightUK said:
Amazing how fast lighting with LEDs is developing.

I think this shoot is more mechanical and patience than deeply artistic, though I think its done well. Sill life is a lot more art based as tiny moves to objects as well as the choice of them initially, causes huge impact. I think a good still life is harder to do.
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It is all about the engineering and high setup-to-shot ratio for sure, but I wouldn't underestimate how hard that is - it's pure innovation and sometimes creation. I agree the light in this powder shot is very safe though - I guess after all the other factors and potential for things to go wrong, and massive setup time for each shot, they went with a flat, light-all-around option that would at least deliver well exposed footage with lots of detail.I know what you mean about the minute adjustments necessary to get a good product shot, however I think that's a different kind of hard - more perseverance than invention.

I think this video from Karl Taylor illustrates the work that goes into a product shot or "still life". He's not doing anything new here (he has done on other shots though). but you can see the effort, and drive to perfect it.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLlR56ZUD4w


Right I'm off to nick Karl's lighting for this on some chocolates - think I'll paint the highlights though - I've only got one spot projector :)
 
Scooter said:
Right I'm off to nick Karl's lighting for this on some chocolates - think I'll paint the highlights though - I've only got one spot projector :)
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Ha ! Again amazing what goes into creating light/shots like that., Some great tips to be had in there, having said that and only being a speedlight owner I think the bar needs to be lowered a touch :-) That said having his studio would make no differance to me anyway as it's about experiance and knowing what and why a certain light is needed. Really good to see someone on top of there game at anything.
Still makes you wanna try and light something though.
Thanks for the link !

Gaz
 
You can definitely do this with speedlights - the key to a lot of it is diffusion. Put up a large screen and point the light at it from behind. Here's my rather more modest small product studio. Space in the studio has a knock-on effect on everything: for example I have to get the diffusion screen closer as it's not as big as the one Karl is using, because I couldn't fit that in the room. This has a knock on effect on camera position and so on. Best thing to do to start with this is just stick the camera on a tripod, aim a light at something and start playing around:) If you have a spare HDMI TV or monitor and your camera has an HDMI output, connect it up and put the camera on live-view - so you can see the shot from the cameras POV as you move lights about (use a torch to test out position, and then you can replace that with a speedlight later). Or just take pictures -


View media item 12618
 
Scooter said:
the key to a lot of it is diffusion
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Hi Owen thanks for the reply and link showing your space. I too have a small Garden cabin/shed area to use but also clutter the house up when I cant be mithered to trudge down to the bottom of the garden :-)
Going off of Mr Edwards tutorials (Products) he generally starts off with a large diffused light source above/behind the subject. I take it that is a general starting point but every object as to be treated differently. Again this must be down to experience.

Gaz
 
It is for a lot of shots: typically you'll project a ball of light onto the back of the diffusion. The panel needs to be much much bigger than the subject - or at least large enough for your projected ball of light to fall off to nothing before it reaches the edges of the panel. Otherwise, you'll see the edge reflected in shiny curved objects. I use a combination of tracing paper which you can see surrounding that bottle in the article above, and some plastic stuff called Translum from a company called Savage. Translum has the advantage of being waterproof, and generally more hard-wearing. It's also much more difficult to set fire to :-/ )

You can also project colours, patterns and all kinds of things onto the diffusion panel - which will be reflected in shiny bits of the scene. I nicked this idea form Alex Koloskov photigy.com In this one, I projected a star pattern onto a Translum diffusion panel (frame made from 21.5mm overflow pipe and push joints from B&Q) using a Lightblaster with a teal gel in it as well as the star gobo. It is reflected in a black acrylic panel the bracelet is sitting on:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/owenlloyd/29404661001/in/album-72157632561901524/

Light on the subject is an overhead softbox. All the lights were speedlights on this one as I was doing a 1:! session for the designer of the jewellery on some ideas for creative product shots on a relatively small budget. It's funny that studio strobes are not really any more expensive than speedlights, but if I wheel those out people assume there's some magic in them and that they can't replicate it. Most of the extra gizmos you pay for on fancy speedlights (HSS, iTTL) are not much use in the studio. I do use the zoom function on my SB900's though.

For things to look glossy though, you need hard edges to the reflections. Small strip softboxes are good here - without any extra diffusion in front of them. For this sort of thing:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/owenlloyd/15129521358/in/album-72157632561901524/

Gary's tutorials are excellent, this one is a very effective technique: https://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-blog/lighting-glass-part-2/#.VjyI1Csl-hE

and "Lighting the SuperFast" is also a very useful real-world demo.
 
Scooter said:
before it reaches the edges of the panel
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Love nuggets of info like that as I would most likely not work that out for myself. I really appreciate the in depth reply.
I have tried Gary's lighting glass tutorial all be it a good while ago. It was a good thing to try and very enjoyable, if I remember correctly I was not shooting at the right height continually ;-) Seemed every time I tried I was still at the wrong height. It looked ok to my none trained eyes though.

Gaz
 
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