Anyone want to reverse engineer an image?
 

Quiet here on the Flash technique forum, so thought I would see if anyone fancies a 'reverse-engineer the light' challenge rather than a straight behind the scenes. It would be interesting to hear how different people would tackle the same scenario.

How did I do this single exposure with standard PP?

Mark,

I was impressed with your photo when we were fooling around with laptop photos. The lighting is great and gives the impression of being lit solely by the screen. My guess how it was done is....

Slow shutter allowing light in from screen to be shown, I believe the screen is genuine not pp'ed like mine. A snooted flash to illuminate the bear to trick the viewer into believing as I did about the screen.

Am I close?

Getting close Stephen...

OOOoooo, but where am I adrift?

Its looking like this now, based on your guess so far...

I forgot to mention, f16 and 0.6 sec - spot on for the screen :)

Excellent image Mark and a great idea.

No time to get involved at the moment but I expect/hope to be totally clear to get involved in around 3 weeks time. I missed the laptops last time round.

Don

Okay, flash must have been used otherwise it would not be posted in the flash technique forum. So if a snooted flash was not used the light would have had to be from above and rear of the scene behind the laptop aimed at the bear.

No, you were right about the flash...but you haven't got everything lit yet - compare the original with the second one I posted which just has the snooted light on...maybe you need to see the keys better...

The lighting of the top of the bear's head suggests the use of flash as Foxy has described in post #7. The lighting around the right paw and front right edge of the laptop suggests another light source from that side. This is a very tightly controlled light, suggesting further use of a snoot as very little of it has spilled up beyond the bear's shoulder. I think this light is possibly level with the back edge of the laptop, off to the right hand side, pointing at about 45 degrees towards the right paw.

I'd thought this picture was good when it was first posted, now that I've been made to look at it in detail, I can see just how good it really is. Kudos to Mark for the work that has gone into it.

Duncan

Duncan jumps in to take the prize! Thanks everyone for the kind comments about the image.

This was shot in ambient light of about 1/8, f2.8, ISO 100. I only wanted the laptop and bear lit, removing any distractions and giving the impression of a late night computer session browsing the web/playing a game etc.

9" bare snoot aimed just over the top of the laptop screen to light the bear's face and front. I put a pale lavender gel on the end of the snoot just to colour the light slightly to mimic light from the screen.

6" bare snoot camera right, level with the top of the screen, aimed at the keyboard by the paw.

I turned up the screen brightness to max and set ambiant exposure for the screen with enough DOF for the whole keyboard. I have attached the screen light only image.

I then set the flash powers to light the keyboard and bear as I wanted.

Looking at this again, I should have dropped a 3rd light behind the screen on a very low power to highlight the edges slightly.

Who wants to set the next one then?