silhouette help

[shakes]

Hey,

I've been trying to get a silhouette shot of my girl who's currently 31 weeks pregnant but I'm having heaps of trouble getting a nice clean shot thats even remotely close to where I want to be. which is a nice shadowy shot.

The basic bit of having light behind and dark in front, but as far as camera set up I have no idea where to start.

Any advice would be ace.

Cheers

Simon

[Susan Ashworth]

I find silhouette's hard too.

Are you looking for completely blocked out sillhouette, or do you still want a little bit of definition on the subject?

I hope that someone has some better advice than me, but i took a shot metered for the background, and then just upped the exposure by playing with the apperture, and ss to the point where i still has a little definition. I think i maybe even needed to change to Full manual so that i had complete control.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

Susan

[OzzieTraveller]

G'day Simon (&Susan)

Getting a good silhouette is not as easy as it appears - obviously lighting & exposure are vital to success. Without knowing anything about your 'studio' or lighting available, may I assume your house/loungeroom and some sort of household lights?

I have noticed that many homes have a lo-voltage reading light/bed light that is very bright at night ... not as bright as sunlight, sure, but very bright all the same. Try mounting one (or two if touching each other & pointing the same direction) onto a coffee table, and shining onto the white wall. Have no other lighting in the room, and meter off the wall.

First problem here is that the meter will try to convert the white wall into a grey wall (quite normal) so give +1EV [maybe even +2EV] to overexpose the wall and return it to white

Place your beloved away from the wall and (tripod mounted) "shoot her" :) :) in profile
Maybe, wrap her in some silk [scarf??] to give her profile a bit of mystery as well

For a full silhouette, it is important that there be no light on your beloved - but once you've made a start, then you can play and modify the setup from there

Hope this helps a bit
Regards, Phil

[bigdazzler]

Shoot it outside at dusk into the setting sun. Shoot in Aperture priority and meter for the highlights. Done. :th3:

[edenconnell]

Great advice!

[shakes]

Cheer's OzzieTraveller you pretty much hit the nail on the head in regards to my "studio", I will hopefully get some time in the next couple of days to try. I've also got a couple of work lights that might be too harsh but I'll play with a few different ways and frustrate my girl hehe.

bigdazzler victoria + winter = no real sunsets, if it was summer I'd be down the coast looking for some nice ambling along the beach photo's.

[OzzieTraveller]

G'day Shakes

If you like the idea of making up your own "home studio" via lights rather than flash. you might like to consider these lights ...

http://www.onlinelighting.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=60_153&products_id=9803
plus the transformer
http://www.onlinelighting.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=60_98&products_id=962

I use them, mounted onto microphone boom stands, with the transformer screwed to one of the mic tripod feet as a counter balance

3x lights + xformer + 12v cables to each light + 240v powerboard & 3x mic tripod/boom stands etc etc came in at about $600

Regards, Phil