What lighting would you reccomend for this set up?

[JayEssKay]

I need to light up this mannequin as best as possible with so little space and money to spend.

Here is the original:

Here is the resized version with some slight photoshop adjustments:

The photos have been taken with a Panasonic TZ5 with the flash on. The only lighting within the room in a basic bedroom light!! I have noticed that the main problem is lighting up the lower half of the mannequin sufficiently.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[schpleep]

Why don't you take it outside?
Use tin-foil/white sheets/paper to bounce more light onto where ever you need it.

 

[JayEssKay]

Why don't you take it outside?
Use tin-foil/white sheets/paper to bounce more light onto where ever you need it.

Not an option really, what with the poor English weather and having alot of stock to move up and down stairs etc..

 

[Garry Edwards]

Not an option really, what with the poor English weather and having alot of stock to move up and down stairs etc..

So does that indicate that you want to take shots that will help you to sell your stock?

If so, you either need to employ a pro photographer or invest whatever money and time is needed to get the results you need. You won't achieve anything with the flash built into your camera. That may not be what you want to hear, but it's a fact.

To answer your original question - not that it helps - the reason that the lower half is darker is that you're pointing the camera down at it, so the flash has further to travel to the lower part.

 

[JayEssKay]

So does that indicate that you want to take shots that will help you to sell your stock?

If so, you either need to employ a pro photographer or invest whatever money and time is needed to get the results you need. You won't achieve anything with the flash built into your camera. That may not be what you want to hear, but it's a fact.

To answer your original question - not that it helps - the reason that the lower half is darker is that you're pointing the camera down at it, so the flash has further to travel to the lower part.

Well at the moment it's just stock that's selling on eBay, but the quality needs to be good as it's expensive clothing.

I've been getting some pretty good results when photographing on a white board, just with the flash:

Thanks for the tip, it's difficult getting the height of the photo right as there's not much room to mannover.

Can you recommend any simple lighting solutions, so to light up the mannequin against the white background any better?

 

[n30_mkii]

If all you have to work with is what you say, the only help I could suggest would be to go to the kitchen root out some kitchen foil, place some on the floor infrontof the manakin, some to the sides if possible hanging down but out of view, then create some sort of bounce card to even out the flash a little. Hope for the best. That should give you maximum light from your small flash by bouncing and filling to loose some shadow.

The other thing you could try is maybe a longer exposure and paint the manakin with a good LED torch, but that would require a tripod, and manual control of the camera.

Does the camera have any manual controls of either aperture or flash?

It's by no means a great solution but with what you have that's about all you can do, i'm sure you can't affrod a pro photog so hopefully my advice is welcome

 

[JayEssKay]

If all you have to work with is what you say, the only help I could suggest would be to go to the kitchen root out some kitchen foil, place some on the floor infrontof the manakin, some to the sides if possible hanging down but out of view, then create some sort of bounce card to even out the flash a little. Hope for the best. That should give you maximum light from your small flash by bouncing and filling to loose some shadow.

The other thing you could try is maybe a longer exposure and paint the manakin with a good LED torch, but that would require a tripod, and manual control of the camera.

Does the camera have any manual controls of either aperture or flash?

It's by no means a great solution but with what you have that's about all you can do, i'm sure you can't affrod a pro photog so hopefully my advice is welcome

Thanks for the advice.

I'll try both techniques in the next few days and see how it goes.

As for employing a professional photographer, it's really not financially viable.

I'm thinking of doing a college photography course, so I may pick up some skills there.