Tutorials on specialised lighting techniques?

[Garry Edwards]

I've done some a few tutorials in the Lencarta Blog on still life lighting, and plan to add more.

2 Questions:
1.Am I pitching them at the right level? Should I go into more detail and explain things more thoroughly at a technical level, or is there too much detail, or is it about right?
2. Is anyone interested in the more specialised aspects, or should I just write about general techniques? As an example, the next one I have in mind to do is lighting a curved glass surface properly (specifically a lens) but does anyone actually want to know how that's done?

Opinions welcomed - and be as rude and honest as you like.

 

[arad85]

Just had a quick gander... It may be better to split out the testimonial style reviews from the technical stuff Garry. Quite a few of the articles appear to be about how good the Lencarta stuff is (I'm not complaining, I'm very happy with mine ) but it would be good to see some product agnostic stuff there in s a separate section a la controlling specular reflections - which I found very interesting when you posted it the first time.

Are we interested? Yes, I certainly am - finding out how people light things and why is a great way to understand how things are done. Lighting a curved glass surface - bring it on - especially if you tell us why you light it in the way you do.

 

[Garry Edwards]

JIt may be better to split out the testimonial style reviews from the technical stuff Garry.

There shouldn't be any mixture to split...
Basically it's in sections. Lencarta news about Lencarta so yes, that section tells you about new products and anything else that the Company wants you to know about. Then there are sections on studio lighting and location lighting, written by a lot of different people, and then there's lighting tutorial, which is what I linked to - so far most of those are mine but other people have contributed too. These tutorials are not about promoting products, although I tend to use whatever happens to be handy as a subject, and of course there happens to be Lencarta gear handy in my studio... but the last two featured one of my cameras and some food and I will probably photograph a shotgun on one of them, they are quite difficult to light well and as shooting is a hobby of mine I have a ready supply of subjects - these tutorials are about techniques, not Lencarta.

But thanks for your comments. It's quite difficult for me to know how useful these things are, especially as nobody ever seems to comment on the articles.

 

[srichards]

Good stuff. Pitched about right I think.

I was just wondering whether you can do half decent still life lighting with just the one flash head and looks like you can

I was also idly wondering whether you could use a light tent as a make shift soft box over either a standard flash gun, continuous light or a normal flash head. (not that I'm cheap or anything...) I'd be concerned whether they are properly fire proofed in the same way I'd assume standard softboxes were; being meant to be stuck over hot lights.

 

[arad85]

There shouldn't be any mixture to split...

Perhaps it's just me but the first three articles I read on the link you posted felt more like an advert for the Li-on rather than a "how to light this" (which your specular reflections was) tutorial. Don't have a problem with that per-se (the guys are all FAR better 'togs than I'll ever be and, as I said, I love my Lencarta stuff) but it doesn't sit comfortably with a title of "tutorials on specialised lighting techniques" as it feels more like "endorsements of products that we think are great with a little bit of technique thrown in"

After all, you did ask for comments - warts and all!!

 

[Garry Edwards]

Perhaps it's just me but the first three articles I read on the link you posted felt more like an advert for the Li-on rather than a "how to light this" (which your specular reflections was) tutorial. Don't have a problem with that per-se (the guys are all FAR better 'togs than I'll ever be and, as I said, I love my Lencarta stuff) but it doesn't sit comfortably with a title of "tutorials on specialised lighting techniques" as it feels more like "endorsements of products that we think are great with a little bit of technique thrown in"

After all, you did ask for comments - warts and all!!

I did, and thanks for being frank Apart from me, everyone who has blogged on it is a Lencarta customer, people are helping out by sharing their lighting knowledge. Harry, who owns the business, has admin control and so can edit posts, but doesn't - they are all exactly as written.
As well as being a customer, Jonathan Ryan also hosts lighting workshops for Lencarta, and he will be working on the stand at Focus again this year, and Michael Sewell is going to be working on the Focus stand for the first time this year. BTW, Jeremy Nako will be there again, and the stand is bigger and better this year, with lighting demos each day, so we will have a model there too.

I can see that my "How to light a simple product shot" tutorial could look like an advert because I used the Li-on as a subject. Actually I picked on it partly because it was there and partly because it has features that need attention in terms of lighting, for example the vertical fluting on the case, and I showed how how to reveal that texture by using a honeycombed light running along the side of it.

 

[GDHphotography]

Nice article on the camera but

'That’s done the job, we might want to adjust the power a bit. It really wants to read about f/11 on the meter (but leaving the camera aperture on f/13) so that the bright bits are a tad overexposed.'

Isn't that the wrong way round, the lens is stopped down a third of a stop (F13) more than the light is reading (F11) so it would be a tad underexposed. To over expose the highlights a tad the lens would have to be at F10 or the meter at F14

 

[arad85]

I can see that my "How to light a simple product shot" tutorial could look like an advert because I used the Li-on as a subject.

No... IMHO, yours are the least advert oriented and I ALWAYS pick something new up from your tutorials.

Take the one about lighting Concorde (just an example..). The headline that comes with it is "Using the Safari Li-On" and the next line is: "So what happened on the day and why did I use the Lencarta Safai Li-on for this shot?". Whilst the article does cover some of the techniques you need to light a large subject, it's coming at it from the aspect of how good the Li-on is...

I fully admit I may be being "touchy" here, but if you are posting them as tutorials, the thing that needs to take precedence is the problem and what you need to solve it.

 

[aethelstan927]

I liked your tutorials, and to be frank I'd rather have some more subtle advertising, ie "use a snoot such as our bla bla bla" than say a YouTube video with adverts every five minuets blazing across the screen or have to give some personal details and watch my inbox become a new spam repository....
So in effect thank you level about right maybe some lighting diagrams would clarify some aspects?

 

[mike weeks]

Garry,

if you compare your tutorial on lighting the camera with the Blog entry on the concord then they are poles apart. Yours is informative and understandable however the concord one in the words of Gordon Ramsey is blowing smoke up Lencarta's a*** and is about as useful as t*** on a goldfish.
Personally I think that if you work your way through the different attachments showing how they can be employed against different subjects you will have a very beneficial body of work.

Mike

 

[Garry Edwards]

Garry,

Personally I think that if you work your way through the different attachments showing how they can be employed against different subjects you will have a very beneficial body of work.

Mike

The intention is to build the Lencarta blog up into a very useful reference source over a period of time, so that it becomes the first port of call for anyone who wants accurate and useful 'how to' info on studio or location flash techniques, in the same way that the Strobist blogsite has become the main reference site for hotshoe flash.

Eventually, the Lencarta blog will replace the existing 'Learning Centre' on the website, it's more user friendly, it can include videos and it allows people to comment (I only wish that they would) which means that questions can be asked and answered.

The trick is to pitch it at the right level - which is what this thread is all about, because the more people comment on it, the more relevant it will be to most people.

As for other contributors, everyone has their own style of writing just as everyone has their own style of photography. Lencarta doesn't ask or expect contributors to push Lencarta, it isn't something that we want to control.

 

[Michael Sewell]

My own contributions to the Lencarta blog explain how I set the shot and the equipment involved. I used to only write about the methods used, and basically brushed over the equipment specifics. However, I would frequently be asked which was better, or where could they find the same item, or what specifically had I used.
Embedding the links saves me a lot of wasted time later.

 

[Spoony]

Garry

I have just read your blog on diffused specular reflections and it’s a great read, In fact all of the blogs are. What I would have liked was maybe a pulled out shot showing the set up to get an idea of distance and angles of the light source.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Garry

I have just read your blog on diffused specular reflections and it’s a great read, In fact all of the blogs are. What I would have liked was maybe a pulled out shot showing the set up to get an idea of distance and angles of the light source.

Thanks for that, that's a fair point and I need to do shots showing the setup for the tutorials that I'm too lazy to do a video of...

Problem is, I get absorbed in the actual shoot and sometimes forget

It does actually say though

But we’re not there yet, the softbox isn’t much bigger than the subject, and it’s too far away. To get diffused specular highlights on most subjects, the softbox needs to be at least 3 times the size of the subject and so close that it’s only just out of shot. And with convex shapes like these, it needs to be even bigger!