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Good choice, strobe_flash. This one is loose enough to allow developing photographers to publicly verify that what they are doing is right, but it also allows accomplished photographers to parade their achievements.
People new to this group, post your work! If it's good, you'll get praise, If there are problems, someone is likely to tell you how to fix them. If it's in between, you'll probably get no comment. and you will learn from that also.
Posted 44 months ago.
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This is my first attempt at the LSM challenge #3.
For lighting information see my setup shot. I am fairly happy with the results. I would like to have had more falloff on the background, more detail in the shadows, and reduced the hot spot on the back of the rabbit. The curved and fairly glossy surface made it more difficult to gobo. I might chouse a deferent (easer) object for my next attempt.
Setup shot:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3281/2985972017_cd83fb1778_o.jpg
Originally posted 44 months ago.
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Ethan Parker edited this topic 44 months ago.
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Here's mine...
Posted 43 months ago.
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Here is my first atempt.
I don't seem to be getting a good fall off on the background, I'll probably try this again when I have time.
Posted 43 months ago.
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Ben J. Boyle [deleted] says:
Quick and dirty entry
Originally posted 43 months ago.
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Ben J. Boyle edited this topic 43 months ago.
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This is my second attempt at challenge #3
I think that the falloff on the sweep looks better on this one.
Chrisngayle2001, is that a Napoleon chess piece?
Originally posted 43 months ago.
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Ethan Parker edited this topic 43 months ago.
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Ethan Parker , No it is an actual bust of Napoleon, stands about 9 inches tall.
I've been attempting white on white on and off for the past couple of months, so it was perfect for this challenge.
-chris
Posted 43 months ago.
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Chris,
I was able to improve the light falloff in my second shot by switching from a large softbox to my small homemade one. I also taped a piece of black foam core to the rear of the softbox to act as a barn door.
Posted 43 months ago.
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Hi Ethan,
Thanks for the tip with the black foam core, it actually gives me another idea with a slightly different setup I'm trying at the moment
Posted 43 months ago.
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I try to make only technical comments here, but this time I want to do an esthetic one. It borders on technical, though, so I don't think I'm breaking my rule too much.
The top of the subject is bright. The background is graduated from whatever color to black. This technique works best (imho) when the black part of the background falls BEHIND the bright part of the subject.
Ethan and Ben, you're almost there (and may win a free book if no one does better), but if you can get that black area to move down a bit lower behind the subject, you'll be happier with your pictures.
strobe_flash has completely accomplished this. Notice how his background goes to its darkest value behind the subject, not above it. Still, there's a second issue to talk about here. Once the background transitions to its darkest, it needs to stay there all the way to the top of the picture. strobe_flash's picture gets to its darkest at about the vertical midpoint, then lightens slightly at the top, probably because of fill light getting into areas where it ought not go.
These are very small adjustments which make a big difference,
Posted 43 months ago.
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Ben J. Boyle [deleted] says:
Thanks Fil :) I should have time to reshoot this weekend, I hope!
Posted 43 months ago.
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My car with a gobo for reducing part of reflexions
without gobo
Set up
Josep M
Posted 43 months ago.
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Here's my second attempt. Does the specular on the violin bother anyone else? Suggestions for improvement?
Single SB800 1/4 power in 16 X 16 softbox above subject feathered to give graduated background. Triggered by PocketWizard. PP: cropped, WB adjusted, slight tweaking of curves.
Thanks,
Terry
EDIT: Please see new version below.
Originally posted 43 months ago.
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Terry Moore (a group admin) edited this topic 43 months ago.
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This was harder than I thought it would be. I'm really glad I'm no longer shooting film - the number of shots taken to figure out the graduated background was embarrassing but I was kept motivated by seeing how all you posters above succeeded!
Lighting info: red gelled sb-800 in homemade softbox above/ behind to get graduated background (thanks for the idea Ethan - I was trying with an umbrella previously and had light spilling all over the place). Foam-core board was used to reflect light down/ act as gobo just above above the bucket.
Setup shot below:
Posted 43 months ago.
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I wasn't entirely happy with my first entry so here is the final version. Please C&C. EDIT: this is no longer my final version please see below.
Ok so I bought a larger softbox for a different project and then it occurred to me to use it to try and improve my previous entry. Do you think this is better?
Only PP on this is cropping and sharpening. Your C&C would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Terry
Originally posted 43 months ago.
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Terry Moore (a group admin) edited this topic 43 months ago.
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Need to have added a reflector to bounce some light back toward the underside of the lens. If I get time I'll do this and re-post.
Right! Today I have re-shot the saame lens using the same settings and the same handheld, read lazy, setup only this time used some tin foil to reflect the key light back into the shaded area of the lens. Quite a marked difference.
Originally posted 43 months ago.
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Paul Hodgson @ Box of Frogs (a group admin) edited this topic 43 months ago.
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This has been a difficult assignment for me. First off, finding a subject. turned out to be difficult as most everything in my house is either flat or uninteresting. 2nd, I don't have a boom or any other way to position a light above a subject. I tried a bunch of different things and finally settled on leaning my light stand against the table but as you can see, I still couldn't get the light directly above the subject. Next was that I couldn't get the falloff right. It was either very sharp as in this photo or else it didn't fall off enough to provide the depth I was looking for. Finally, I couldn't get the reflector positioned in a way that lit the red and blue 'totems' on the subject without blowing out the white background.
I think I'll try one more time so any suggestions are welcome.
Posted 43 months ago.
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I handheld, a combo of laziness and time constraint, my flash gun with a small softbox attached just out of the frame of this old Nikon lens. The softbox was directly overhead and pointed back toward the camera; in my free hand I held an envelope acting as a gobo to stop flare and triggered the shutter with my Phottix wireless release.
The floor is a darkish grey which explains why the underbelly of the lens is so dark...a reflector would have helped for sure.
Camera on a tripod.
Posted 43 months ago.
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Thanks for the feedback Fil. I adjusted my pic in PS to make the top darker, but I won't re-post it here so as to leave my submission and your feedback "as is" - and besides the PS adjustment is not in the spirit of getting this right in-camera :)
Posted 43 months ago.
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True. And while there's nothing technically, artistically, or morally wrong with fixing it in Photoshop, that's not what L–S&M is about.
I read this five minutes after posting a Photoshop discussion in another thread!
Posted 43 months ago.
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[http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldmountain/3031950982/]
I'm still on my first reading of the book so be gentle...
I don't own a softbox so I used a reflector lamp from Lowe's with a 100W bulb. The kind of light you can get for $8. I taped a piece of tracing paper loosely over the front as a diffuser. (It hung well below the bulb so it wouldn't start on fire.)
When I was first setting the shot up I kept moving the light back to try and get the shadows softer. But I remembered reading that a bigger light would give more diffuse light and softer shadows. Since my light was fixed size I moved the light very close to make it bigger.
This caused a lot of shadow under the top of the vase which didn't look very good. So I used a piece of white foam board propped up on some books and taped to the display surface to bounce light up under the lip. To get the family of angles right I needed to move the light forward and position the card just out of frame below.
The mouth of the vase was very bright in some of the early tries so I used a quarter taped to a piece of wire as a gobo to reduce the light coming off the mouth. But I didn't need it in this shot.
I'm learning that figuring out the family of angles concept is the most powerful part of LSM.
Posted 43 months ago.
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Excellent start! And the idea of using a quarter taped to wire as a gobo is pretty sophisticated.
You still need to further darken the top of the background, though. The light foreground to the dark "horizon" works well, but letting the background get lighter toward the top of the picture undoes the effect, imho.
Try another gobo, a much bigger one, to keep some of the light off the upper background. Black foamcore works best, but anything, including unpainted scrap plywood or a piece cut out of a corrugated cardboard box, will work.
Support it in any way you can: a $1000 boom arm or a stack of bricks. (I have my $1000 boom, but I still have the black painted bricks I first used.)
Posted 43 months ago.
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[http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldmountain/3037577737/]
This is my second try. When setting this up I was getting very frustrated because I couldn't get a good fade to dark in the background. Then I realized what was happening. I setup the shot in my dinning room during the day. Behind the setup was two windows and I realized that I couldn't get a good fade because of ambient light coming from the windows. Now I understand why studios are dark except for the lighting setup. I waited until dark to take the picture.
I also noticed that my fade was circular. This comes from the round reflector and smallish diffuser I was using. I learned why people buy those huge softboxes. Looks like I'll need to go to the art store to buy the biggest piece of tracing paper I can find.
Posted 43 months ago.
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Bald - just remember though that buying a large piece of diffusing material will not allow you to get the gradation unless you uncover a way to gobo the light spill; just fyi, hate for you to pull your hair out.
Posted 43 months ago.
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Well, I think it will if the curve of the background if far enough back. But you are right about the diffused light from the surface lighting the back of the gradation. (The issue in my first picture.)
Now that I've had time to think more, the circular fade is probably due to the light not filling the full area of the diffusion material uniformly.
This seems like a simple setup, but there is a lot to keep in mind.
Posted 43 months ago.
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This is my final Light Science & Magic challenge #3 attempt.
I lowered the small soft box very near the candle holder and also put more slack in the white paper sweep. This combination created the extreme light falloff I was looking for. Finely! The SB800 in the soft box was set at 1/128th power and the aperture was set to f/8. At ISO 200 a shutter speed of 1/250th sec. gave the test exposure here.
farm4.static.flickr.com/3240/3038503798_95c92bf241_o.jpg
I then lit the candle, turned out the lights and slowed the shutter speed to 1/30th sec. but found the flame too dim. I tried a few different shutter speeds and settled on 1/10th sec. as the best exposure.
I made small reflectors out of mat board to fill the shadow below the curve of the candle holder. I also used a small strip of mat board as a barn door on the back of the soft box. These can be seen in my setup shots here.
farm4.static.flickr.com/3190/3038504068_f85243d166_o.jpg
farm4.static.flickr.com/3041/3038504192_d5a860b99f_o.jpg
farm4.static.flickr.com/3056/3038504312_8a8f7cf210_o.jpg
Or just see them all in my photo stream.
Posted 43 months ago.
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Here is my second attempt for challenge #3
Lighting: A homemade softbox with a 285HV located directly above Napoleon. A gobo is placed between the softbox and the top of Naploeon's hat. A second gobo is placed above the camera lens to prevent flare from the flash.
Posted 43 months ago.
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I figure I'll have one more try. Sorry about the lame tablecloth as surface, but it was the only thing I had large enough to get any kind of fade.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldmountain/3066001771/]
Oh and the setup. I really need to get some light stands with booms. I replaced the white poster board with an old white tablecloth. The foam board and light are hand held.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldmountain/3066842278/]
Originally posted 43 months ago.
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baldmountain edited this topic 43 months ago.
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Light Science and Magic (the book) /
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I handheld, a combo of laziness and time constraint, my flash gun with a small softbox attached just out of the frame of this old Nikon lens. The softbox was directly overhead and pointed back toward the camera; in my free hand I held an envelope acting as a gobo to stop flare and triggered the shutter with my Phottix wireless release.
Bald - just remember though that buying a large piece of diffusing material will not allow you to get the gradation unless you uncover a way to gobo the light spill; just fyi, hate for you to pull your hair out.
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