My skull is shining too brightly. What can I do?

I think I was confused as I assumed the skull was a small part in a larger scene but reading between the lines it seems as though the skull is in fact the main subject, so my "flag" idea isnt really a goer.
 
Yes, the skull is a full sized skull, but when we were doing the shoot we found that we had to get in quite close or the skull just got lost in the background of all the funerary statuary in the cemetery. Here's one of our efforts, but we were hoping to get light out of the eye sockets. It doesn't really matter what colour, it's just that blue was the easiest to cut out of the Poundland strip of LEDs that we had.

Cheer up dear. Life's not that bad! by Frank Yates2010, on Flickr
 
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Might still be worth trying the flag idea, much easier than setting up wires and switches.

When I say flag, in this case a bag of some sort covering the skull, start your long exposure and then a few seconds from the end, whip the bag out of shot. This is all assuming fairly long exposures so that an arm whipping into and out of frame wouldnt be registered.
 
That might work as regards the glow from the eyes, but it would be hard not to cover some part of the skull as well and that would probably be underexposed???? Bearing in mind also that we are working in near total darkness in a cemetery full of bits of stone etc. sticking out of the ground. Not sure it's a goer.
 
True. Like I say try asking in the Talk Lighting and Studio sub forum. Some knowledgeable bods in there.
 
Steve Smith said:
One more thought. If it's a long exposure, can you turn it on for just a fraction of the exposure time? Run a couple of wires out with a switch on the end or just hold the two ends together for a short time.


Steve.
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Looks very like what I posted further up
 
If you want the thread moving just say the word :)
 
frank i didn't realise it was you LOL ,i think your possibly making the job to hard can you simply not take out the l.e.d's and put candles in the skull to shine through the holes .i,ll have a look though my bits of electronic parts for you later though might have got an idea i have what you need and i could solder it up for you ..

p.s don't forget to put poor yoricks skull back in the coffin when your done :whistle:
 
Hello, yes it's me! Yes I could be trying to be too clever. It's just an arty farty idea that I've had. I don't do arty farty too well!

Putting it simply the idea was just to have some light coming out of the eye socket to give an "effect". Not having much clue about these things I plumped for LEDs. Don't want too much light showing through the skull itself so this seemed a good idea at the time.

I know nothing about the techy side and all the formulas above are beyond my pay grade!

If you can understand what I'm on about you are welcome to have a bash.
 
Steve Smith said:
One more thought. If it's a long exposure, can you turn it on for just a fraction of the exposure time? Run a couple of wires out with a switch on the end or just hold the two ends together for a short time.


Steve.
Click to expand...
This is the only way of doing it well
 
Now that's worth a look. My camera has that function - I'd never thought of it. Time for a play.
 
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