back once again
I just realized that four months have passed since my last entry ... whoops ...
I have been up to some shenanigans ... I have been reading up on The Strobist blog off and on for a while now. The latest Strobist inspiration has been the DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio. Read about it here:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html
While this "studio-in-a -box" is great for the diffuse wrap around lighting for products ala Amazon product shots, I find I prefer a more dramatic lighting effect. So inspired by the DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio, I set up a box with only one diffusion panel. I used a sheet of parchment paper from Costco. Then I set up a black "back drop" - using a long sheet of printer paper from a roll Karol has. Painted it black. Then painted a piece of cardboar black for use on the side opposite of the diffusion panel as a light absorber (what's the opposite of reflector?). So now I can control reflections and spill light pretty effectively. Here is an early attempt:
I guess I like lighting on one and only one plane - light only on the subject, and everything else going black. I like the illusion that the subject is "floating" in space. I suppose this is an extreme form of isolation.
Here is another shot of my Leatherman:
I find that this lighting effectively isolates the subject.
Here is a beer shot in the the set up:
Great Divide Brewing Company Rumble IPA rocks! Still need to work out how not to lose some of the copy on the bottle in the shadows.
For these strobe shots, I picked up a couple Pocket Wizard Plus-X tranceivers. These little gems really make shooting with strobes a pleasure. When I was using the PC cord set up, I found that when changing camera position often messed up the cable connections and therefore the strobe would not fire. I found myself having to check cable connections constantly. With the Pocket Wizards, I can almost forget about stobe triggering.
And speaking of strobes, I realized that I have had my older strobe for almost 30 years. It is starting to get broken in ... :-) I wonder if the lens age is imparting a color cast on the light it throws, but why worry about marginal details now, after all this time?
Now that I have set up the DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio, I will be shooting a lot of still lifes (lives?). I will post the results. And hopefully more frequently than every four months.
I have been up to some shenanigans ... I have been reading up on The Strobist blog off and on for a while now. The latest Strobist inspiration has been the DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio. Read about it here:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html
While this "studio-in-a -box" is great for the diffuse wrap around lighting for products ala Amazon product shots, I find I prefer a more dramatic lighting effect. So inspired by the DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio, I set up a box with only one diffusion panel. I used a sheet of parchment paper from Costco. Then I set up a black "back drop" - using a long sheet of printer paper from a roll Karol has. Painted it black. Then painted a piece of cardboar black for use on the side opposite of the diffusion panel as a light absorber (what's the opposite of reflector?). So now I can control reflections and spill light pretty effectively. Here is an early attempt:
I guess I like lighting on one and only one plane - light only on the subject, and everything else going black. I like the illusion that the subject is "floating" in space. I suppose this is an extreme form of isolation.
Here is another shot of my Leatherman:
I find that this lighting effectively isolates the subject.
Here is a beer shot in the the set up:
Great Divide Brewing Company Rumble IPA rocks! Still need to work out how not to lose some of the copy on the bottle in the shadows.
For these strobe shots, I picked up a couple Pocket Wizard Plus-X tranceivers. These little gems really make shooting with strobes a pleasure. When I was using the PC cord set up, I found that when changing camera position often messed up the cable connections and therefore the strobe would not fire. I found myself having to check cable connections constantly. With the Pocket Wizards, I can almost forget about stobe triggering.
And speaking of strobes, I realized that I have had my older strobe for almost 30 years. It is starting to get broken in ... :-) I wonder if the lens age is imparting a color cast on the light it throws, but why worry about marginal details now, after all this time?
Now that I have set up the DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio, I will be shooting a lot of still lifes (lives?). I will post the results. And hopefully more frequently than every four months.
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