Cheap Lighting, part 3

This is my "dime sculpture" - an arrangement of dimes in an S shape with more dimes in bowls of the S.

Not as easy as it looks. I was trying to fill a certain amount of real estate, but I was also having to constantly move dimes around in order to get reasonably round smooth curves. Also, while the camera was looking straight down at the arrangement, I was not. So I had to keep checking my work against a series of test shots. And of course dust is always polluting the background.

The blue color comes from setting the white balance for a warm bulb and lighting with a cooler bulb. To the naked eye it would look pretty colorless.

The variation in tone for the background and the various levels of shine on the dimes are by products of a technique called axial lighting, often used to photograph proof coins. Basically you put the camera and lighting source at 90 degrees to each other with an intervening sheet of glass (acrylic in my case) angled at 45 degrees to both, and an obstruction to shadow the subject from the being lit directly by the lighting source. Instead, it is lit from reflection off the glass. See the link for a better explanation.

Coins can be a great subject when creatively lit. So can many other household objects. it just takes patience (a camera and tripod also help).









You can find product designs based on my dime shots and other object photos in my zazzle store. If you have a product in mind but don't see it, just contact me or leave a message on the store wall or product page and maybe I'll design it for you!

Cheap Lighting, part 2

This is an image from my first attempt at setting up my own lighting, and doing a planned shoot ( instead of just going out and shooting birds :) ). It appears to be suspended in mid-air because it is.

In fact, I shot this wooden knife image before I even had a proper horizontal surface available. Instead, this was supported by a wire attached to a horizontal beam. The wire and supporting tape on the knife were then removed in the GIMP.

This was a crude effort; I don't think I even used a tripod; but I got some decent results just by starting with a 3 point lighting setup, experimenting with the lights, and paying attention to the results.










You can find product designs based on my wooden knife shots and other object photos in my zazzle store. If you have a product in mind but don't see it, just leave a message on the store wall or product page and maybe I'll design it for you!

Cheap Lighting

I love to shoot birds and landscapes, but sometimes it's nice to work in a controlled lighting situation. It can be tedious to set up the subject and lights (lots of furniture to move around in my case), but very rewarding once you see what good lighting will do. Unfortunately, I can't afford a good set of studio lights yet :( so I improvise. The picture of the vases shown here was shot with compact flourescents and worklight reflectors I bought at Lowe's (next to my workplace at the time). I also don't have any light stands, so I made a few stick in a cans which I learned about from the prophotolife videos on youtube. So if you have the patience, you can shoot an everyday object and make a stunning image (these are just souvenirs from a long ago trip to Greece). Just keep in mind a few things:

• Set the white balance manually. These bulbs all have listed color temperatures, but I keep seeing a nasty greenish tint. Setting the color balance will correct this.
• Experiment with multiple bulb "temperatures". I lit the above scene and with a colder (higher K) bulb which I used as the white setting, then used a warmer bulb against the back wall to get the red-orange backdrop.
• Be careful with reflective surfaces. Make sure you're not reflecting the camera, a light, or something else in the room unless that's your intention.
• Be prepared to go through a lot of images afterwards. I like to make several modifications to the lighting setup and the shutter speed when I do an object shoot. That leaves me with a lot of very similar looking RAW files to look at later.
• Be prepared to post process. For me the toughest situation is working with images with reflections. I use acrylic, which is cheap but picks up dust like you wouldn't believe. No matter how much I dust, I need to clean up the surface afterward I shoot.
• A good tripod is strongly recommended. Although I actually managed to shoot this with my monopod (I don't recommend it).
  

There's a ton of great information on lighting setups, post processing, and more on youtube, but nothing was more useful to me than prophotolife episode 2.

You can find product designs based on my vase shots and other object photos in my zazzle store. If you have a product in mind but don't see it, just leave a message on the store wall or product page and maybe I'll design it for you!