New tutorial on lighting shiny things

Garry Edwards

Garry Edwards

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Garry Edwards
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The subject here is one of our SuperFast flash heads, lit by other SuperFast flash heads, but the principles apply to all shiny things, so hopefully it will be useful to everyone who does any kind of product photography - and especially to Cargo and Juggler
because it's all the same approach:)

This tutorial is in two parts, the next one is due to be posted next Monday and shows how to light the control panel instead of the inside of the reflector.
We're gradually improving our video production, although there's still some way to go - it's a pretty sharp learning curve. What we really need though is a new presenter...
http://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-blog/11/tutorial-black-on-black-part-1/#.VlWjbL8l-hE
 
Thanks Garry. Still amazes me how many lights one needs to photograph products well.


Gaz
 
Another excellent tutorial(y) - looking forward to part 2 and I am more than happy with the current presenter...............:)
 
cargo said:
Thanks Garry. Still amazes me how many lights one needs to photograph products well.


Gaz
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You're not wrong, but I tend to preach a counsel of perfection, and it's often possible to manage with less if necessary. Years ago, when I was just starting out, I had to manage with a lot less, despite shooting on film with no easy way of carrying out PP, partly because of the cost of studio lighting back then. For example, and as explained in the tutorial, I could have managed without the honeycombed light on the inside of the reflector, simply by plugging the head in, turning the modelling lamp on and using a longer shutter speed so that it picked up light from the modelling lamp. And although the very specific lighting in this shot means that using a reflector instead of a light just wouldn't do, this can usually be done. I often do this, simply because a reflector can be a tiny piece of material which, placed correctly, is often easier or even works better than a flash head. My reflectors include pieces of white paper, foil/white tops from takeaways and shiny silver stick-on mirror stuff from Ebay, which is cut to all sorts of strange shapes.

But I don't have a shortage of lighting here. Including stock, we've got a couple of thousand lights:)
 
Great insight there Garry. The other very hard thing to learn and I guess it is down to pure experiance is to know what your subject requires regarding lighting, straight from the off.It often seems to me that most products need the over head light to start with.Like I say though experiance is (guessig) king like any other proffession. I am a Plasterer (have been since leaving school ) a VERY long time ago. So I don't have to think too much on what each surface needs I just know with experiance and get on with it.

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Great insight there Garry. The other very hard thing to learn and I guess it is down to pure experiance is to know what your subject requires regarding lighting, straight from the off.It often seems to me that most products need the over head light to start with.Like I say though experiance is (guessig) king like any other proffession. I am a Plasterer (have been since leaving school ) a VERY long time ago. So I don't have to think too much on what each surface needs I just know with experiance and get on with it.

Gaz
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Interesting. I was once in business with a photographer who had previously worked as a plasterer (which was good because he wasn't much of a photographer) but his plastering skills were impressive.He tried to teach me but I found it impossibly difficult. It seems to be one of those skills where there is very little really technical knowlege but it requires an enormous amount of skill, plus care and physical fitness.

Lighting is different, it's a lot easier than most people think and just needs an understanding of the way in which light falls off over distance, the way that it reflects off at angles (which is entirely predicable) and an understanding that it is an additive process.
Then, all that we need to do is to stand back and look at the subject (any subject) from the camera position and decide
1. Where we want the shadows to fall
2. How deep those shadows should be
And then we literally just pick up a light, shine it at the subject and see whether the light is producing the effect visual effect we want. This of course does need the powerful modelling lamps that decent studio lights have, it's a whole lot harder if you're using hotshoe flashes. If we're not getting the visual effect we want, we need to think about whether we want the light softer (if so move it closer, use a larger modifier or both) or harder (the opposite) or change the angle to suit. OK, it isn't quite that simple and obviously if we have a lot of experience then it does shorten the process. But, unlike plastering, it doesn't actually need experience and skill.
 
Wow. These replies of yours today are true gems " Then, all that we need to do is to stand back and look at the subject (any subject) from the camera position and decide" That statement is a revelation to me as I have been sort of thinking there is a golden formular to where light should be. Yes as you know I havent got studio lights so am not used to being able to see the light.Thats not to say I would do any better if I had them.
The additive part as always confused me really maybe you can put me right there.It confuses me because the one time I used an on camera speedlight in full sun at a parade the flash didnt blow out the shiny side of the fcae but lifted the shadows.Now I am typing this I am sort of thinking that the flash wasnt adding enough power to brighten the light side of the faces anymore than the light presant but enough to bring up the shadow side ? I know that scenerio is different than in the studio butI cant shift it out of my mind.

Your spot on with the plastering too. Its a touchy feely thing you need to be doing it daily.

Gaz
 
Additive...

In very precise product lighting, light is NOT always additive in every case, simply because the positioning of the lights can be such that light only reaches the bit it's aimed for.
Ecample: The first shot of the SuperFast head, lit with a strip softbox from below is positioned so that it only really lights the bottom bit. But, because the softbox is longer than the flash head body, some light also wandered into the inside of the reflector.
So, when the second light was added above the flash head, little if any of the light reached the area lit by the bottom one, so the light there wasn't really additive - but again light from the end of the softbox wandered into the inside of he reflector, which was then lit more brightly than before, so that light was additive. And when I then added a honeycombed light that specifically it the inside of the reflector, that light was entirely additive, it added to the light that was already there.

In your own example, my guess is that there was enough light from your hotshoe flashgun to lighten the shadows a bit, but not enough for it to blow out the part of the face lit directly by the sun, simply because the sun was so much brighter. It was still additive, but not enough additional light was added to make it obvious.

Personally I only use hotshoe flashguns for the jobs that they do well, but that's just me showing off because I have studio lights too. Hotshoe flashes are extremely limited when used when studio lights are a better choice, using a hotshoe flashgun instead of a studio light is a bit like saying "Well, I'd like to have a sports car, and I would like to have a Transit van too, so I'll buy an estate car, because it will do both jobs" when in fact it will sort of half do both jobs. If your hotshoe flashgun has either strobe or HSS then of course you can use it as a temporary modelling lamp, which is better than nothing, and if it doesn't then you can still use it, but there's going to be more trial and error.

My approach is a bit down to earth, but that's the whole idea. There seem to be a lot of people out there who are either just showing off their dubious skills and who pretend that it needs a shedload of equipment and a lifetime of experience to light an egg or who produce videos that are basically just designed to sell overpriced lighting gear. I just try to show people how easy it really is.

Edit: Juggler, yes, that's another approach and a perfectly valid one. But although I do use that technique myself sometimes, it's a hard work way of doing it, and I generally go for methods that are far less prone to producing lens flare. And I'm not trying to sell overpriced lighting gear :exit:
 
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Again thanks for the indepth reply. Yes simples is best for me too. I have 2 580 ex speedlights and 1 youngo equivelent.The Canons do hss but never knew you could use it as a tempory modelling lamp.

Gaz
 
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