Lightbox Experiment 02

Okay, so I guess that I must be some kind of anti-social or something if I spent my Friday evening building a lightbox while watching my recording of the Kennedy Center Honors. Haha!! :-)

 

Anyway - I DID build a lightbox, and am now attempting to teach myself about lighting. I want ANY and ALL suggestions or help that you can possible send my way!

 

For example, I set my aperture for f8. Why is the DOF so shallow (see the end of the wrist strap)? And what about those shadows and reflections ... should they be there? I've got four lights bouncing off of just about every corner of the box. For this shot, I also put down a piece of green poster board to add a colorful background. But I don't like the green cast that it puts on the camera. Is that a problem with the set up or is it a problem with the post processing?

 

Thank you!!

As for the shadows.... yes, they need to be there or the camera would appear as if it was floating in mid-air. It creates an anchor for the camera. The DOF is fine. The camera strap is not that important to the subject matter. As for the green background, while it is eye-catching, it's a little distracting to me. Green is not my favorite color so I may be influenced by this :) It also seems a little blotchy, was the ISO pretty high? Neat idea Lou Ann :)

No, in fact, Jayme, I don't know what to do with the noise. The ISO was set at 100! I can't figure it out... Thanks for the visit!

I like the green color - immediately appealing to me, but then green is my favorite color (although generally NOT lime green!). :) F8 is often the setting I use for my bird shots and often the beak/head is sharp, but tail is blurry, so you may need to try f11 to get sharpness all over. To be honest, I didn't even notice the strap was blurry as I was looking mostly at the camera.

I am brand new to studio lighting ... built myself a very small

lightbox and am working on lighting and other techniques. This is one

of the first few images. Please help! Thanks so much!!

At a guess the blotches are a result of PhotoNet's reduction of the image to fit the screen, if you look at the larger version it doesn't seem to be there. It doesn't look like high ISO noise anyway. Regards, Robert.

I like this photo. ^_^

This is the camera I use to shoot w/. =]

With regard to the grain, are you shooting in RAW or jpeg? If jpeg, then this plus PN's compression software could be the culprit, if not... I have no idea. :) See.... Kim likes green :) So there you go, I'm a pink person :) LOL

Jayme - I was shooting in RAW. I guess that the question isn't so much the specific color green ... but the cast that it gives to the camera. I would love to get a color background without the cast on the object being photographed. Is that possible?