Quote:
Originally Posted by Leif
Hello Don. I'm stuck between being flattered by your comments, and annoyed that you have not passed on some of your experience. 
Leif |
Leif,
Sorry about that. My visit last night was a bit brief at the end of a long workshop day so my head was involved in other things.
Cleaning : I use a drop of ' Mr Muscle ' glass cleaner sprayed onto ' Bounty ' kitchen roll - just enough and not too wet. After much testing I have found this kitchen roll to be softer than others so does not cause scratching. At this point I do not touch the subject with fingers but hold it in a seperate piece of tissue. An occasional blow over with a rocket air or similar blower will shift any settling dust.
When setting up the subject I do an initial placement of lights then determine the preferred camera angle. Position of the lights is then fine tuned to reduce/eliminate hot spots. With this light tent you have the advantage over me of being able to use cheap lights, but my advantage is that I have far greater flexibilty of direction of lights relative to the subject.
To return to your pic no. 2. A great subject for watching how light positioning affects the result as it has a lot of angled polished surfaces. Reflection from the white diffused surface contrasting with the dark area's that are not affected. The light on the centre ( movement ) area is totally brilliant and if you look at a far tighter crop you will see what I mean. Pieces of black art card could have been placed inside the tent to limit the area of the casing receiving the white reflection if you wanted to create more form. Compare left and right hand sides to see what I mean.
As none of us are playing with full studio lighting set ups that would allow taking on almost anything, whatever set up we have will limit us in some way.
My first tip, which is probably a bit unconventional is to forget any books, until you have had a good play. Find a subject that YOU WOULD REALLY LIKE to take a pic of and so are really prepared to spend time on. I cannot stress enough that the subject should really appeal to YOU and not be a subject primarily directed to pleasing others. ( At this stage I had to tell Foxy he did not really have to hug it
, but needed to really get involved with it ) Take a pic then leaving the camera and subject set, move the lights a bit. Take another pic and compare the results. Repeat and compare with your first and second pics. Look for how moving the lights has changed the results. If you cannot move the reflecting light surfaces as in this particular tent then ' Bluetak ' to the rescue. I use Bluetak, bits of wood. metal, wire, plastic, pipe insulation foam, anything that I can use to change the subject angle that will not show in the final pic.
Please add a pic of your set up with final result as it helps to understand how to overcome any probs you have. Also how to achieve superb results on a limited budget.
Don