Beginner studio for black dog photography

[chuck_robinson1]

<p>Hello!<br>

I would like to set up a home studio to photograph my black dog and know very little about artificial lighting. I have a particular look that I am going after and an example of this can be found on this website <a href="http://caninenoir.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">http://caninenoir.tumblr.com/</a> From seeing the reflection in the dogs eyes on this site, it looks like the photographer is using a light right of center and maybe a second light above the dog. I'm not sure and have no idea what type of lights to purchase. I don't want to use any flashes since I'm working with a dog. So my questions are:<br>

1) What type of lights do I need? monolights? LEDs? 100-150Ws or something like 300Ws? <br>

2) Is a softbox used and what size? 24", 40" or some other size?<br>

3) Where would I place the lights in relation to the dog to get the look that I'm after?<br>

4) What material should I use for the black background?<br>

I'll be setting this up in my basement and have plenty of room with a 9' ceiling. It may not be useful information but I'm using a Nikon D700 with a 70-200mm lens.<br>

Any info would be greatly appreciated since I know nothing about artificial lighting.<br>

Thanks!</p>

<p>Chuck</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>Shooting black on black and making it look natural under artificial lighting is not easy. First of all you are going to need a light meter to measure the dog and the background, or there is a good likelihood that one of them will come out grey or worse. The dog has to be placed at a certain distance from the background to give you a meter reading so good luck with that.<br>

I hope you know how to handle dogs. I don't mean to scare you, but even with hot-lights(which is the easiest set-up) it's not easy. I would recommend getting a good book on the subject of lighting such as "Light Science & Magic" and practicing a little with non-moving subjects, before you even attempt something like this. </p>

[Wayne Melia]

<p>Link 1.: http://super.nova.org/DPR/Fur/ --lighting fur tutorial from Chuck Garner<br /> Link 2.: http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=2344388 --Matt Laur is photo.net's resident expert on dog pix</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>The lighting on each of those linked pictures is slightly different. One is lit with soft light from camera left, for example, while another obviously has a hard kicker at rear. In fact using a rear kicker is probably the best way to get good separation between black dog and black background.</p>

<p>As for lights - definitely not LEDs. At the current state-of-the-art they're well overpriced and well underpowered. They're also nearly all of the "panel" type construction which makes them useless for giving a hard light or for snooting down to a spot. Whether flash would be suitable depends on the temperament of your dogs. Some animals are spooked by flash, but domestic pets usually take it in their stride and don't even seem to notice it much.</p>

<p>The good news is that most of your lighting can be done by careful placing of reflectors. You probably need only three lights at the most to achieve the sort of effects seen in the linked pictures. Getting the dog's coat glossy enough to catch the reflected light is another matter!</p>

<p>Why not email Fred Levy, the author of the "Black Dogs Project" and ask him what lighting he uses and how he goes about setting it up?</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>If you look at the shadows in the pictures you can see that the light appears to be coming from off to the side and in some cases there is a strong backlight or rim light casting shadows in front of the dog. That means it is somewhere behind the dog. Picking up the texture of the fur is key. Otherwise the black of the fur can just blend into the background.</p>

[chuck_robinson1]

<p>OK, so I understand the location of the lights and why. But what I still don't understand is the type of lighting to use. Can anyone suggest the appropriate type of lights that I should purchase? Keep in mind that I only plan on using these for my dog and a few of his friends. Yes, he has neighborhood friends that just "stop by" on occasion. So I don't professional grade lighting. I did email the author of the Black Dogs Project some time ago and did not receive a response.</p>

[djthomas]

<p>Do you know how much you want to spend on lighting? While there are a number of options available to you, I agree with Rodeo Joe that LEDs are probably not the way to go. It sounds like you have some nice gear, so it seems like you have more than a passing interest in photography, so once you get past the dog pics, it would be nice to be able to utilize your lighting on other subjects. Personally, I would suggest something like the strobes you can pick up at <a href="http://www.paulcbuff.com/">Paul C Buff</a> -- but it would be nice to know your budget first; there are lots of options there, and the prices aren't bad.</p>

<p>You could also go down the speedlight trail and grab a couple of those to use. A bit more portable, and you can get good results using them. Unfortunately, the Nikon brand, while nice, is extremely expensive for a speedlight. That's why you'll often see off-brand flashes recommended in place of brands like Canon and Nikon. A good place to learn how to use these can be found at <a href="http://strobist.blogspot.com/">Dave Hobby's Strobist site</a>--just check out his Lighting 101 archive.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>"...the Nikon brand, while nice, is extremely expensive for a speedlight." I have to agree that new Nikon speedlights are well overpriced. However, you can pick up used SB-25s for not very much, considering how powerful and flexible these little units are.</p>

<p>No budget monolight is going to give you the luxury of controlling power from the camera or having TTL, so you're more or less stuck with fully manual control of the lights anyway. I have 3 SB-25s and an SB-24 (the SB-25 offers more features). They have the same power as a modern SB-910. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend an SB-25 as a good manual or Auto-Aperture flash for this sort of job. You really don't need the power of a studio strobe, because dogs are generally fairly small subjects and you can gets the lights in pretty close.</p>

<p>Buy the SB-25s well, add some stands, swivel adapters, a set of cheap radio triggers and scrim and foamcore for home-made diffusers and reflectors, and you could probably bring your home studio in for under $350 US.</p>

[chuck_robinson1]

<p>Thank you for the input. I do have a SB-800 but I have no idea how to use flashes. I was wanting to stay away from strobes because I'm not sure how my dog will respond to it or if the constant flashing of the lights are even good for him. I'm very protective of him. Besides, if I have a constant light on, I will be able to see what the light is doing as I move it around him. Just my rookie reasoning. As far as budget, I was looking to spend $300-$400 for lights, stands and anything else I might need. I know in this hobby that is not a whole lot of money but I don't plan on using this equipment on much of anything else than my dog and maybe a few of his friends. I'm a nature/landscape guy and that is where my real interest is in. <br>

So, can someone recommend a pair of monolights and size of diffusers or are the flashes really the way to go?</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>Chuck, monolights <em>are</em> flashes. It's another name for a studio strobe, one that usually contains a modelling lamp as well as the flashtube, and has a combined power pack built into the back of the flash-head. A decent set of monolights will be well outside your stated budget.</p>

<p>If you don't want to use flash, then IMHO your only other sensible option is to use compact fluorescent type photo-lamps. These have a colour temperature very similar to daylight and give out very little heat. Conventional tungsten lamps OTOH are quite uncomfortable to work with because of the heat they generate. You'd need about 1.5 to 2Kw of Tungsten lighting to get a decent level of exposure whereas CFLs will give you a similar amount of light for an input of only about 300 to 400 Watts. That's using clusters of 3 to 5, 30W or 45W tubes per lamp. I'd recommend using a smaller cluster of tubes of a higher wattage, because you'll get a smaller number of shadows and a harder light. It's easy to soften a hard light, but nearly impossible to harden a soft light.<br>

CF lamps also have some of the drawbacks of LED lamps, in that it's difficult to get a properly hard light from them and their light output isn't very high per tube. However, they're very affordable and slightly more flexible than LED panels. CF lamps are available in a range of powers, sizes and cost from one's like this: <a href="http://www.photosel.co.uk/studio-lighting/continuous-lighting/light-kits/table-top-studio-light-kit-26w-1300lm-5500k-90-cri.html">http://www.photosel.co.uk/studio-lighting/continuous-lighting/light-kits/table-top-studio-light-kit-26w-1300lm-5500k-90-cri.html</a> upwards.</p>

<p>WRT flashes causing eye damage to animals or children. There is no evidence that this can occur, provided the flash is used sensibly and not repeatedly fired directly into the eyes of the subject. Even then it's probably no more than temporarily uncomfortable and causes no permanent issues. I know because I once accidentally fired a quite powerful speedlight directly into my own face. I saw a large spot for some time, but my sight completely recovered within an hour or so. Naturally you wouldn't fire a flash into your subject's face from a few inches away in the normal course of things, I hope. And after all, indirect flash lighting only has around the same brightness as daylight, and nobody claims that a quick glance out of the window can cause eye damage!</p>

[twmeyer]

To make photos that look like Fred's, you'll need two strobes, of not great power, one of which should be in a softbox,

perhaps even a smallish one (16x20 or 24 square). Place the softbox to one side or the other of the camera and the

other, zoomed to its longest focal length (or in a gobo or gridded) and set somewhere behind the dog and pointed at

him/her.

 

You could make this work with a second SB800 and an umbrella (or umbrella box) instead of the softbox. And of course

the backdrop. Google Duvetine or Commando Cloth. You'll need fairly small apertures, possibly higher ISO (like 800) and

a relatively dark room (no windows) to keep your shutter speed high. Your dog will get bored before you do… t

[chuck_robinson1]

<p>All good info! I think I'm getting closer. How I understand it now is that the continuous lights will be just too hot and he doesn't like to be hot. He wouldn't tolerate sitting under those for very long. Since I already have the SB-800, I'll look into getting a second speedlight and the diffusers. I'll also give the Strobist website a look and read up on the Lighting 101. <br>

Thanks all for the helpful information. At least now I have path to go down which is far more than I had when I started.<br>

Thanks!<br>

Chuck</p>