WEEKLY LIGHTING THEME: Combining Techniques

[brooks short]

This weeks lighting theme has to do with using several of the

techniques that we've discussed in recent themes: controlling

specular highlights, using a fill card, short lighting, split

diffusion and a simple special effect for a surprise twist. This

setup involves only two lights. I used strobes but hot lights could

easily be substituted.

 

I started with a medium 36"x48" softbox overhead and to the rear.

Placing the main light slightly behind the set creates a form of

short lighting where the shadows point back toward the lens.

Positioning the light in this location emphasizes both texture and

form.

 

The close, 2' distance between the overhead softbox and the set

creates translucent highlights in all of the shiny objects and soft

yet directional lighting. Light from the overhead softbox was blocked

from the rear of the set with a black card to darken the tree

branches.<div></div>

[brooks short]

A medium 24" x 36" white foamcore panel is positioned on the left, parrallel to the left edge of the box, just out of the camera's view. This closely positioned fill card makes a huge amount of fill light and creates secondary specular highlights which define the left sides of the ornaments and all of the beads and bells.

 

If you look at the reflections in the ornaments you can see that the white fill card is like a wall that reaches all the way from the table's surface up to the overhead softbox.<div></div>

[brooks short]

Here's the simple special effect for this shot. During the initial setup, the box of ornaments had its bottom panel removed and the box was positioned over a hole in the table (sheet of foamcore on two sawhorses). Strips of wood flooring were positioned around this hole in the table and the box of ornaments to create the illusion of a real wood floor underneath everything.This hole in the table allowed a second light, 11" reflector with amber gel, to be positioned underneath the box and project a warm light up through the box and around the ornaments.<div></div>

[brooks short]

Top overhead softbox, bottom amber gelled light and a fill card complete the effect.<div></div>

[brooks short]

In this last version, a diffusion filter was held over the camera lens when the bottom, amber gelled light was flashed. The filter effect is very subtle but you can see the effect in the outline of the ornaments against the white straw.

 

You can easily try this type of work yourself. In these themes I've been using still-life subjects because they're easy for me to do without going to the expense of renting models. I can do them by myself and they take maybe an hour or two.

 

I realize that not many of you are familiar with shooting still-life and the art of arranging objects. Here are some tips.

 

Put big objects in the back and smaller objects in the front.

 

Use a lens longer than normal if you want size relationships between objects to be more accurate.

 

Try to incorporate movement in your static arrangement by using diagonal and "S" lines.

 

Now go out and shoot some still-lifes for yourself. Play with the lighting and try to use as many techniques from this series as you can in one shot.

 

technical info: 400ws Softbox, 800ws amber light, f 22.5 at 100 ISO, digital campture with a slight telephoto 110mm lens.<div></div>

[mark__5]

more specifically it is the exposure that defines the amount of translucents in a reflective highlight.

[roger_stevens]

Brooks,

 

This is a fantastic example of lighting a still life scene. Thank you for taking the time to put together a well-written tutorial.

[brooks short]

Mark,

 

A few weeks ago I did a Lighting Theme dealing exclusively with translucent, specular highlights. It was a shot of shiny tomatos on equally shiny black rocks.

 

I started with a small softbox which created small, hard, opaque white specular highlights on the tomatos. Switching to a larger medium softbox created larger more transparent speculars which were no longer pure white and revealed the color of the tomatos in those highlights. A third change was to move the medium softbox as close as possible to the tomatos which resulted in a closer, larger diffused source. This closer larger diffused source created transparent specular highlights which revealed even more of the color of the tomatos showing through in the specular highlights. All exposures with these differing shots were identical.

 

So, while you can overexpose or underexpose for these specular highlights, it is the relative size, and proximity to the set, of the diffused light source which determines the translucency of the specular highlights, not the exposure.

 

Currently previous lighting themes can be found under the Administration heading in the Lighting Equipment and Techniques Forum.Check it out for yourself.

[mark__5]

Sorry to take so long to respond�.

 

 

Brooks,

 

I should be more specific.

 

The exposure value of a reflection is constant. If you move your lights in closer or further away this value will not change. Therefore, the translucence of a highlight reflection is affected by the relationship of its own exposure value to the exposure value of the overall image. When moving a light source closer, the light source grows more intense in relation to the subject (but not for the reflection), requiring the photographer to stop down the lens. An example:

 

Say the reflection value is f/16 and your overall f/stop is f/16. If you then move in your strobes or hotlights and get an overall exposure of f/22, the reflection has thus darkened by 1 stop.

 

Again, moving in the lights without adjusting your f-stop will only lighten the overall image but will not affect the reflective highlight.

 

I looked at the tomato exercise and it appears to me that the main variable that makes a highlight difference is that each light modifier changes the amount of light getting to the subject, in other words, the highlights were affected more by how much light was being blocked off, rather than by how close it was to the subject. In reality, you may have had the same exposure settings on the camera, but each photo surely did not receive the same amount of exposure.

[brooks short]

Mark,

 

You are correct in that using a larger diffused source closer to the subject does change the amount of light hitting the subject. And because the light source is diffused and larger than the subject, the light rays strike the subject at many random angles, lightening the shadows and midtone values more than if the light source was smaller and farther away.

 

So you are quite correct in saying that the translucence, or opaqueness, of a specular highlight is affected by the relationship of it's own exposure relative to the overall image. In effect, non-specular areas do receive more exposure which places their value closer to the value of the specular highlight.

 

There's another thing happening as well. The larger diffused light source does also create larger specular highlights which do help to define the shape of the objects.

[mark__5]

"In effect, non-specular areas do receive more exposure which places their value closer to the value of the specular highlight."

 

yes, moving the light source in does bring the values closer together, but then you must stop down to retain the overall "correct" exposure, if not then you have the same highlight brightness as before but now with an overexposure on the non-specular objects.

 

Please don't think that I am nit-picking, its just that those who are being exposed to this for the first time may retain it better if they understand exactly why and how this all works.

 

I just "found" this forum with this thread and think it is great, nice to see a studio/lighting forum at photo.net.

 

looks like fun!

[john_harding]

*controlling specular highlights, using a fill card, short lighting, split diffusion and a simple special effect for a surprise twist.* Could you explain please what short lighting is?

[brooks short]

John,

 

Sorry it took so lonbg for me to get back to you. I've been in the Florida Keys for the past week.

 

In portraiture, short lighting is lighting the side of the face that is farthest from the camera.

 

In still-life and other types of non-portrait photography like furniture photography for example, short lighting is any lighting in which the shadows are directed towards the lens. The main light source can be above or off to one side but for short lighting that light source is also somewhat behind the subject as well.

 

A natural example would be shooting overlapping mountain ridges with the sun low in the sky and in front of the camera.

[brooks short]

John,

 

Almost forgot. In the sample I made for this theme, look at the shadows underneath the sleigh bells in the left forground of the shot. The shadows are directed to the lens and are positioned under the FRONT part of the bells.