Lighting set up ?

[louisekennedy]

I'm posting this here because I am shooting with all nikon equipment.

 

So I have a shoot on Monday where I will be shooting more products similar to the ones I am attaching.

The first shoot was more about testing angles to show the houses etc. Now that we have the look exactly

how we want it, I want to get the lighting exactly as I want it so that the background is pure white.

 

For the last shoot I spent a few hours masking out the background, and I'd rather just get it right in the

camera. But shooting a white background has me vexed. I know it can be done.

 

So I will be shooting with a D200. 60 mm (same as these two images) 2 sb800's and one sb600. Three

light stands. One silver umbrella. A white seamless background.

 

I have the products on a table with about 3 - 4 feet between the back of the ginger house and the white

background. No other lights wil be on in the area. No outside light. No tungsten/halogen etc.

 

Should I overexpose the background so that it's almost blown out?

 

I need to figure out a system, that's relatively fool proof so that once a month I can go in, spend a short

amount of time setting up, and re shoot new products, using the same set up.

 

Thank you for your input, I really, really appreciate it. Shoot is on Monday and there is no luxury of

another test round.<div></div>

[louisekennedy]

here is image two

[juanjo_viagran]

here is an easy set up that seems to work every time..

I use 3 SB-R200 but you can do the same with 600 or 800's.

 

<img src="http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc112/Juanjo_Viagran/BS/DSC_3842.jpg">

 

<img src="http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc112/Juanjo_Viagran/BS/DSC_3840-1.jpg">

 

for this one I use a D70s with the built in commander, a Nikon 60mm in Manual 50speed, 3.2 aperture.

[ellis_vener_photography]

To me Juanjo, it looks like you are over exposing your backgrounds causing a loss of edge separation from the background, and a loss of detail.

 

Louise: light the background separately from the subject, maybe from over the top of your set. You don't want to blow out your background ,but you want even bright tone (like 248/248/248 in R/G/B numbers).

 

Image #2 looks good to me.

[juanjo_viagran]

Ellis,

I did that on the fly, but IMO that set up works.

 

here is another one I took some time ago with the same set up.

<img src="http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc112/Juanjo_Viagran/BS/DSC_0003-2.jpg">

[mr. sullen]

A soft box is what looks like what you need here.

[elliot1]

I had a similar problem with some full body sports portraits I was shooting. We ran out of white background paper and had to use light blue. It turned out the blue was much better for me when it came to eliminating the background. Using the magic wand tool in Photoshop, I was able to select the background generally with just a few clicks and then, using levels, was able to eliminate the background in seconds.

 

It is not any different with a white background but I find I have to set the tolerance to a lower number - it just takes a few more clicks of the magic want. I guess the background color should be dependent on the color of the subject matter.

 

The sample below took under 1 minute to 'fix'.<div></div>

[elliot1]

Just for fun, I 'fixed' your sample picture. Had to set the tolerance to 5 because of the light color of the subject matter so it took a few more mouse clicks - still about a minute or so.

 

You probably need at least one more flash, if not two, to balance the lighting a little better to virtually eliminate all shadows and eliminate PP.<div></div>

[louisekennedy]

Juano, thanks for the tips. I'm interested in what settings you had the flashes on, manual

or ttl. I would prefer to go manual. As much as ttl seems to work when I am using one

flash, I want more control for the background. Also, I'm curious why you opened up the

aperture so much? I know that I did the same, but I would prefer to shoot at f 5.6 or f 8,

which I find is the sweet spot for the 60 mm. At least in my humble opinion.

 

Elliot, thanks for the mask. I know I can mask, and that will work. I spent several hours

masking out about 20 images with vertus fluid mask, which is very good. But I want to

achieve the white background out of the camera so that I don't have to keep relying on

masking. I believe that I should be able to achieve this without photoshop, but by setting

the lights correctly. I also prefer to have ever so, ever so slightly a shadowed (but not

much) foreground, so the image doesn't completely float in flat white.

[elliot1]

As I mentioned, I think you will need a 4th flash to even out the light.

 

I am not familiar with the Fluid Mask program but have downloaded the demo version and will try it out. In my opinion, you don't need it for what you are doing.

 

What I did was with the magic wand tool and if you shoot right, each picture will take just a minute or two to fix. Using curves and the brightness/contrast controls, you can adjust the intensity of the background. I typically leave a slight shadow effect to give the shots more dimension.

[juanjo_viagran]

Louise,

 

the flashes are in TTL (iTTL) the camera in Manual.

I'm sure 5.6 would work as well, IMO 8 is asking to much to the flashes.

[elliot1]

Louise, I tried the program you are using and think you can achieve the results you are looking for faster and easier with Photoshop's magic wand tool and just adjusting the brightness/contrast to your liking.

 

This took less than a minute and a half to complete. I selected the background with the tolerance set to 5 (took about a dozen clicks), set the contrast to -15 and the brightness to +15.<div></div>

[louisekennedy]

Thanks Elliot. I'm pretty comfortable with PS masking and magic wand, and Vertus. But I

really do want to go in there, shoot on a white background, and get the result I want in the

camera. I know I can adjust in PS, but I don't want to have to rely on that as a fall back when I

know I should be able to get the results in the camera. I hope that makes sense. I may pick

up an r200 and see if that fourth light helps.