Home strobist studio - night 2.

[BLWNHR]

Tonight I rearranged my spare room to make it more photography friendly. Being only narrow I couldn't get the light stands far enough apart to get the backdrops in between. The solution; put them on the long wall!

I am pretty happy with the results. All these had only levels adjustments. If anyone wants to know anything of the technique please feel free to ask. Likewise, if you have any idea of improvement of the lighting I would be very interested. (In keeping with the rules of this forum I'm not after critique of the photos, only technique.)

My old K10D which no one wants to buy.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6081-1.jpg


K10D detail shot.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6085.jpg


K10D rear shot. I need another backdrop to camera right to stop the reflection of the wall behind.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6088.jpg


K10D and my 'disposable' K100D. Does anyone know if lighting the background from behind would fill the shadows between the two?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6090.jpg


Circa 1970's Pentax M50. You can see the reflection of the bows in the umbrella. How would I avoid that? Is a softbox the only option?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6092.jpg


After taking photos of everything interesting in the spare room I turned my eye to the bedroom. I found this guy.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6093-1.jpg


Notice in this shot the reflections of the umbrellas, but also the bright dot of the built in flash firing the CLS.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6094.jpg


I grabbed my nearly empty bottle of Hugo Boss, but clear on white doesn't really work. I had the lights perpendicular to the lens (left & right of the subject) but still get reflections of the lights. I didn't think of it at the time, but would using the umbrellas for bounce rather than shoot-through help this?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6096.jpg


I changed to a black background which made for better contrast. Can anyone offer some technique advice on how to prevent light spill onto the black background? This is one area I need to look at.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6099.jpg


Finally, a setup shot. The stand to the right is actually a clothes rack my g/f used at her last house. They were about $20 from Target. I have a white background on one side and a black on the other. The 'backgrounds' are just $5/m black and white fabric from Spotlight, fixed to the top of the stand with safety pins. The 'curved' background is just some more of the white fabric held with weights at the top and the subject at the bottom. The beauty of the clothes rack is it's on little casters so I can change from a black background to a white background in about 30 seconds.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/blownhr/Photography/_DSC6097.jpg

[MarkChap]

Good stuff Adam,

With your reflections, remember the angle of reflection = the angle of incidence.

So the angle that the light strikes at is the same as the angle it will reflect off at, then you need to keep the camera out of that angle

Rounded glass is very difficult, do you a copy of Light, Science and Magic ?? Has some very good stuff in there for photographing glass

[maccaroneski]

No criticisms of the lighting here other than those you noted yourself - excellent stuff.

Ya gotta paint those walls though... not for the photography though :)

[nick351]

Congrats on the home studio!

An idea I saw on Strobist, was when using a white back ground and having a clear object as the subject, place, some black cardboard either side of the shot (out of the shot) and it should give some contrast to the edges.

[DesmondD]

I changed to a black background which made for better contrast. Can anyone offer some technique advice on how to prevent light spill onto the black background? This is one area I need to look at.

I 'cheat' in this respect - I wait till dark and make 'outside" my black background .

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/dvdowns/high%20speed/zready001.jpg

There's no way the flash can light the distant hills to show in the image :)




.

[joeyvaldezjr]

@blwnhr, i think the umbrellas are too close that's why the reflection on the cute puppy. DO you have a flash trigger? I think that can help a lot thus avoiding the reflection from your built in.

Or have you set the built-in in you commander mode menu to nil or zero?

[BLWNHR]

@blwnhr, i think the umbrellas are too close that's why the reflection on the cute puppy.

Ah, interesting point. I will move them out a bit (though the room is only tiny).


Do you have a flash trigger?

No. Well, yes. I have a single Cactus Tx/Rx pair. I got these when I bought the light stands etc. I don't use them because I want to fire two flashes, so use CLS which is far more handy anyhow. Using triggers would completely eliminate the flash from the internal flash as it wouldn't be up. CyberSync's are on the 'to buy' list. But there are some other things I need to buy first.


Or have you set the built-in in you commander mode menu to nil or zero?

Yes it is. There was quite a lengthy discussion on one of the photography forums (either here os somewhere else) about the reflection from the built-in, even though it was not contributing to the exposure.

The end result was; there is nothing you can do about it. Not even insanely fast shutters will eliminate it (a long shot, but still didn't work).

[kaiser]

You can stick a bit of card on the built-in flash, skewed at an angle so long as it can still escape to the side and bounce to reach the optical slaves, thats what I do if I have something reflective to shoot anyway.

[bigdazzler]

Try a piece of exposed film across the onboard flash. It will not emit any light whatsoever but still transmit the IR signal to fire the slave flashes.