Statue Forum 





Go Back   Statue Forum > Other Stuff > Digital Photography

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 05-22-2014, 01:14 PM   #1
S-tier Adam
I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
 
S-tier Adam's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Cleveland, OH
Posts: 58
Lighting setup for figures

Anyone have a great lighting set-up they would like to share for photographing figures? I'm an experienced photographer, but lighting has always confused me.
S-tier Adam is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2014, 02:49 PM   #2
OrangeCrush
Kindly Asked To Leave
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Farmington Hills, MI & La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Posts: 4,525
Quote:
Originally Posted by S-tier Adam View Post
Anyone have a great lighting set-up they would like to share for photographing figures? I'm an experienced photographer, but lighting has always confused me.
I have wanted to start photographing my statues for some time, but just havent gotten around to it yet. That being said, I have done a lot of product photography over the last 10 years and have a lot of expereince with lighting (both hotlights and strobe) so I can definitely recommend some gear that would be perfect for statues. I definitely recommend using LED or Tungsten over strobe. Using strobe is FAR more expensive and its much harder to control. Using LED or Tungsten allows you to see the light as your setting it up. With strobe, you have to use light meters, polaroid or do test shots to see your overall light level.

I would recommend two or three Lowel i-Lights with gel frames and 1 Lowel Blender. Or you could go 2 and 2, but the Blender is a bit more expensive than the i-Light so going the 2 and 2 route would cost a bit more. Add to that some stands for the lights, various gels for the gel frames, some homemade reflectors made from foam core, and some black Cinefoil and some Gaff tape and you would be all set. You could do some really high end shots with a kit like that.

If you wanted to photograph multiple statues at once, I would recommend 3 i-Lights and 2 Lowel Blenders or 4 i-Lights and 1 Blender. The more lights you can afford to add the better as the lighting options increase substatially with each light you add to your kit. With just 2 lights, your really limited as you need at least 1 light on the statue itself and 1 light for the background. You really need at least 2 lights for the statue and 1 for the background. That is really the minimum if you want quality lighting. Its always nice to have at least one light that you can use for bounce light, to help fill in a lot of those shadows.

Of course, there are a lot of different lighting companies out there that you could choose from. Lowel is definitely the one I would recommend above all others, at least in regards to LED and Tungsten. I have been using Lowel lights since roughly 1995 and I have used them in just about every situation imaginable and they have never failed me. They are just outstanding lights in every regard. My Lowel Omni lights have been rained on more times than I can count, yet they keep right on working. Its really amazing the amount of abuse some of those lights can take.

Here are some other Lowel lights that could be useful:

Tota-Light - great for backlights and background light.
VIP-V light - Same as Tota, great for backlights or background light.
Rifa-ex - Basically a self contained soft box light. Great for softer lighting set-ups.
VIP Pro-light - Very similar to the Lowel i-light & id-light.
OrangeCrush is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2014, 10:02 AM   #3
S-tier Adam
I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
 
S-tier Adam's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Cleveland, OH
Posts: 58
Thanks, that was very helpful! Do you know who carries those, or should I just go straight to the Lowel website? I dunno I would feel nervous shipping lights.
S-tier Adam is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2014, 09:47 PM   #4
Sithlord32
New Republic
 
Sithlord32's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Land of 10,000 Lakes
Posts: 2,419
I would concur with orange crush about having at least three lights but I have no knowledge of the actual lights as a product.

I do not know what it is exactly your trying to achieve using lights. That can translate to many outcomes. Here is some perspective i can accommodate.

Although using lights can give a very clean polished look to the figures or statues it can be deceiving. I believe you cant outsource natural lighting. I take my pictures of my statues in a spot well lit by the sun but not where my camera is pointing directly into the sunlight or where it casts too many shadows in a really direct source.

I feel these pictures reflect the product more accurately as it would appear to your eyes and not a polished end result. With a turing of the statue or figure every side is lighted identically with no need for polishing minus a bit of contrast and color control via whatever editing programs you use.
Sithlord32 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-22-2014, 11:09 AM   #5
OrangeCrush
Kindly Asked To Leave
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Farmington Hills, MI & La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Posts: 4,525
Quote:
Originally Posted by S-tier Adam View Post
Thanks, that was very helpful! Do you know who carries those, or should I just go straight to the Lowel website? I dunno I would feel nervous shipping lights.
The 2 companies I use are B&H photo out in New York and Calumet out in Chicago. Both carry pretty much every piece of photography equipment on the market and have AMAZING customer service. Unless you can find a sale, pricing is pretty much the same regardless of where you go, unless your thinking of buying used.

So I would recommend either one of those companies. I am not sure if Lowel sells directly to the public or not. If they do, that would certainly be a viable option as well as Lowel also has amazing customer service. Either way you go, you wont have a problem with any of them in regards to shipping your lights. I guarantee they will arrive in pristine working condition and if by chance something does happen, they will replace the light no questions asked.

I forgot to mention one other thing you should buy, scrims. Scrims are little mesh screens that cut down the intensity of light. Here is a picture of one of Lowels full scrims, half scrims and graduated scrims:



They are extremely helpful in tabletop lighting. Here is an actual page over at Lowel that explains what scrims do

http://lowel.com/edu/light_controls/scrims.html

You should definitely pick up a couple of scrims.

One last thing you should have are flags, but you can make those yourself at home using black cardboard or foam core.. If you have the money, you can buy nicer quality flags that are plastic and already cut to specific shapes. Basically flags are used to block light from spilling onto unwanted parts of the frame.

They are also used to stop lights from flaring in the lens of the camera. using flags in this manner is basically like creating your own lens shade, just from pieces of black cardboard or plastic held in place with stands and clamps. When you set up your lights, you can actually look right at your lens and see if any lights are glaring. If you see the light reflected in the exterior of the lens, its going to flare the picture a bit. When you set up some lights and look at the enterior of your lens and see it for yourself, you will understand what I am referring to.

Here is a picture of a lens that has flare.



Once you have all your lights set up, you should look into the exterior of your lens just like this picture shows and if you see any white dots on the lens, you use flags you block them out. If you do a search online for "photography flags", you should be able to find a wealth of informtion on the various shapes and methods for properly flagging flares and such. Flares can significantly degrade your overall image quality and color accuracy.

Beyond that, the only other things I would recommend would be a basic studio lighting book and a basic book on portrait lighting. Those will give you a basic understanding of studio lighting, the different lighting set ups, the different qualities of light, the different tools available, etc. Then its just a matter of digging in and starting to set up some shots. Lighting is like everything else in photography, the more you do it the better you will get at it. You will start to develop an eye for the different qualities and characteristics of light, and how best to take advantage of them and how to replicate them. Statues are actually a really unique item to photograph in the studio as on the one hand its an inanimate object, but on the other hand they are human figures that are extremely lifelike so techniques on both product lighting and portraiture lighting will be extremely useful.

For example, classical portraiture has some specific lighting techniques. Rembrandt lighting, split lighting and butterfly lighting are 3 of the more popular examples. Those lighting techniques could very easily be applied to a statue. One of the first shots I want to do myself is a Rembrandt style shot with the new Catwoman Maquette from Tweeterhead. I knew the second I saw that statue that I not only had to buy it, but that I also had to shoot a Rembrandt style picture of it some day. That statue just screams for dramatic old school lighting.

I hope this info helps you out. Just remember the internet is absolutely loaded to the gills with photography sites, many of which have tons of quality information on them. And of course you can always shoot me a message if you have a particular question. I am more than happy to help people aspiring to create great pictures. I am actually planning on teaching eventually. Another 5-7 years in the field and I will definitely be ready for a nice cozy teaching job. And just remember, you don't have to have a complete lighting kit to start shooting. If you don't have the money to buy a complete kit right out of the gate, just buy what you can and add to your kit slowly. Buy a light here, a barn door there, a scrim here and a flag there. Thats how I aquired my lighting kit when I first started out. I slowly added on here and there and before I knew it, I had a pretty sweet set up.

Anyways, I really do hope that helps and again if you have any questions, just shoot me a message.
OrangeCrush is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-22-2014, 12:30 PM   #6
OrangeCrush
Kindly Asked To Leave
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Farmington Hills, MI & La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Posts: 4,525
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sithlord32 View Post
I would concur with orange crush about having at least three lights but I have no knowledge of the actual lights as a product.

I do not know what it is exactly your trying to achieve using lights. That can translate to many outcomes. Here is some perspective i can accommodate.

Although using lights can give a very clean polished look to the figures or statues it can be deceiving. I believe you cant outsource natural lighting. I take my pictures of my statues in a spot well lit by the sun but not where my camera is pointing directly into the sunlight or where it casts too many shadows in a really direct source.

I feel these pictures reflect the product more accurately as it would appear to your eyes and not a polished end result. With a turing of the statue or figure every side is lighted identically with no need for polishing minus a bit of contrast and color control via whatever editing programs you use.

I am not sure what you mean by deceiving. The advantage to using lights is you have 100% control over the light and you have almost no control over natural light. You mention that lights give you a clean polished look. Yes, they can if that is the look your going for, but they can also give you TONS of other looks depending on the quality of the light you want to achieve. You can achieve any quality of light you desire with a lighting kit and the proper accessories. If you want a soft natural light, you use diffusion. If you want harsh light with strong shadows, you use direct light. If you want something in between, that can be achieved. You can control every aspect of the lighting, including the color, and you can do so in tiny increments. There are literally hundreds of different diffusion gels and materials out there, each giving its own unique quality of soft light. You can bounce light using an unbrella, use a soft box, use diffusion gels, etc. The sheer number of options are nothing short of mind boggling. I have been shooting in the studio for roughly 15 years and I still havent mastered all of the different lighting techniques available. Natural light cant even come close to touching what you can do with a nice kit of lights and accessories. There is simply no comparison. You wont find a single product/tabletop photographer on this planet that doesn't use lights, and for good reason. What you can achieve with a set of lights absolutely blows away what your limited to without them, regardless of the quality of light you prefer or the quality of light your after.

As for suggesting that using natural light reflects the product more accurately....well, that is purely subjective and considering you can achieve lighting that is 100% identical to natural light with studio lights, that just isn't an accurate statement at all. Anything your capable of doing with natural light, your capable of doing with studio lights. Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy using natural light then by all means, continue using it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using natural light for your pictures if that is the method of lighting/shooting that you enjoy. That being said, it is a VASTLY inferior method of lighting as your extremely limited in your options. Artificial lighting is the exact opposite, you have nothing but options, including producing a quality of light that is 100% identical to natural lighting. The only difference is you actually have control over the lighting when you produce it with lights. I can produce lighting in a studio that is 100% identical to natural lighting. If I shot a picture with natural lighting and a picture using studio lighting that was set up to replicate natural lighting, you would be completely unable to tell the difference between the 2, right down to the color temperature

The bottom line - pictures shot with a nice lighting kit will blow away pictures shot with just natural lighting, at least if the person has some expereince with lighting. The quality of the lighting you prefer for statues is purely subjective and ultimately irrelvant as again, you can achieve any quality of light you desire with a lighting kit with the proper accessories. If someone is serious about taking high quality pictures of statues then lighting kits are without question the way to go.
OrangeCrush is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-24-2014, 09:20 AM   #7
S-tier Adam
I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
 
S-tier Adam's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Cleveland, OH
Posts: 58
Thank you so much for all of your insight. It's funny I've actually been doing photography for about 3 years, and I worked in a high-volume portrait studio for a year, and this is the most concise advice I've ever gotten on lighting. All of my internet research always yielded the same results: wishy-washy answers with way too many options and "well it depends...it depends...it depends". I do most of my personal shooting outdoors because I do pet portraits mainly, but now that I'm getting more professional with my sculpting, I really need to get a photo set-up in my studio. I'll start building my kit soon, and let you know if I have any questions. It shouldn't be too hard for me though as I am pretty familiar with this stuff overall.

Oh I also have a built-in white vinyl in my studio, can you believe that? It's just the blinds to the window, its a solid seamless white material on a roller. I've already tried attaching other backgrounds to it as well and this also works! I was wondering though, if you have any suggestions for a good neutral background for figures; Grey seamless paper?

Also I'm curious what it is you do professionally, you said you work in a studio right?
S-tier Adam is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-24-2014, 03:18 PM   #8
riteguytu
I was arrested for selling illegal-sized paper.
 
riteguytu's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Hertfordshire, U.K
Posts: 2,839
Here's some useful information:

http://www.modelbuildersonline.com/Tutorials

Read through 'Filmy's Foto Fantastic' and 'How to Build a Light Rig'
riteguytu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-29-2014, 08:54 AM   #9
OrangeCrush
Kindly Asked To Leave
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Farmington Hills, MI & La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Posts: 4,525
Quote:
Originally Posted by S-tier Adam View Post
Thank you so much for all of your insight. It's funny I've actually been doing photography for about 3 years, and I worked in a high-volume portrait studio for a year, and this is the most concise advice I've ever gotten on lighting. All of my internet research always yielded the same results: wishy-washy answers with way too many options and "well it depends...it depends...it depends". I do most of my personal shooting outdoors because I do pet portraits mainly, but now that I'm getting more professional with my sculpting, I really need to get a photo set-up in my studio. I'll start building my kit soon, and let you know if I have any questions. It shouldn't be too hard for me though as I am pretty familiar with this stuff overall.

Oh I also have a built-in white vinyl in my studio, can you believe that? It's just the blinds to the window, its a solid seamless white material on a roller. I've already tried attaching other backgrounds to it as well and this also works! I was wondering though, if you have any suggestions for a good neutral background for figures; Grey seamless paper?

Also I'm curious what it is you do professionally, you said you work in a studio right?
If you have a space already set up for a studio then I highly recommend getting a system like Manfrotto's Autopole system for your backdrops. I purchased a set back when I was in college. We did have access to really nice studios, but there was always a lot of competition in regards to signing them out and you could only sign them out in 3 hour blocks. So I wound up buying a set of the Manfrotto Autopoles for my apartment so I could do some studio work on my own when needed. It was great as I could set up shots and just leave them, without having to worry about time limits or having to break everything down in a couple hours. I could go to class, come home and do some shots, go back to class, come back home and do some more shots etc.. I wound up falling in love with the system as its easy as pie to set up/tear down and its really easy to add new backdrops to it.

Basically, its just a cantilever locking system or more simply put, poles that have soft rubber pads at the top and bottom that lock into place between the ceiling and floor. You push the poles to the ceiling and them lock them in. Once you have the 2 poles locked, you can add different backdrops to it including seamless paper rolls, cloth backdrops etc. Since its not something that you need right away, you can always think about adding it later down the road. They really are perfect for people looking to create a studio at home, either in a misc room or in the garage and one of the best aspects to the system is you can tear it down or set them up in no time at all. Once they are set up you can switch between different backdrops in no time at all. I always kept mine loaded with 3 different rolls (white seamless, black seamless and black velvet). If I wanted to shoot with something different, I could always switch them out in a matter of minutes.

Here is a picture of the Autopole system with some accessories.



The Manfrotto set is a really nice set, but it is a bit pricey. It will set you back around $500 but it is absolutely worth it if you looking to set up a nice home studio. I think there are less expensive systems out there now that are basically the same type of system. It would be a great system to use for your pet portraits as well if you ever wanted to start shooting studio styled shots.

As for neutral backgrounds for figures, I myself would go with something like a grey blotted muslin. Something like this:



You can get some really nice background effects with a muslin like that, especially when you light it and throw it out of focus. Gray seamless, as you suggested, would also be a good neutral background as you could use lights on the backdrop itself to add some variation to it if needed.

I used to shoot architectural models and I can't even begin to estimate how many hours I spent trying to replicate a sky with clouds on a backdrop without having to spend $300-$500 on a painted backdrop. I wound up coming up with a system using blue gels and lights bounced into silver reflector material that worked really well. A blue sky with clouds would be a great neutral background, especially for super hero statues like Superman, etc.. If your interested in playing around with that type of backdrop, just light a white seamless paper backdrop with 2 lights that have blue gels on them. Roscolux #74 Night Blue or Rosco CalColor #4260 are both good colors to use for this. Then shoot a 3rd light into a crickled up sheet of silver reflective gel. You really have to play around with the crinkled ball of silver reflective gel and the light, but basically it will bounce patterns of white light into your blue backdrop, basically cancelling out the blue. The idea is to get patterns that look like clouds. It works really well when you finally get a handle on it, but it can take some time getting the right pattern. You just have to be patient and play around with it. Again, this would work really well as a neutral backdrop for a lot of statues.

Of course, you can use any colors you want. It doesnt have to be blue. There are just so many options when it comes to gels/diffusion/reflector material. You could simulate a deep red sky with clouds or you could revese them and bouce red or blue patterns into a white backdrop. The options are really only limited by your own imagination. Thats where playing around in the studio really comes into play. Just diving in and experimenting with different materials and different colors, different lighting set-ups etc.

One of my favorite diffusion materials to use while printing in the darkroom is actually used fabric softener sheets that are stretched out and one of my favorite diffusion materials for lights is actually a white tissue paper made by hallmark back in the day. Someone gave me a gift bag with some gift cards in it for my birthday like 10 years back and it had that white tissue paper in it. It had a really unique quality to it so I decided to try it as a diffusion material and I wound up loving it. So I drove to my local Hallmark store the next day and had them order me 2 cases of the tissue paper, which wound up being like 200 packs, basically a lifetime supply, lol. In other words, don't be afraid to experiment, even with things that aren't specifically designed for photography.

As for myself, I started shooting pictures when I was like 9-10 years old, but didnt decide to actually persue photography as a career until I was into my senior year of environmental engineering at the Univeristy of Michigan. The closer I got to graduation, the more terrified I became at the idea of being an environmental engineer for the rest of my life. Its not that I hated engineering. There was just always a part of me that wanted to shoot pictures for a living. I was just talked out of it for most of my life. So I wound up taking an 8 week trip out west and hiked the Grand Circle of National Parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, Zion, etc.) a couple months before my senior year started. I basically just got away from everyone so I could figure out, on my own, what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. I ultimately decided to drop out of the engineering program and enrolled in a private art college. I figured I could always go back and finish my engineering degree if I ever had too. My family thought I had absolutely lost my mind and my girlfreind at the time actually broke up with me over it and we had been dating for roughly 18 months, lol. I can laugh about it now, but it was without question the toughest decisions I have ever made.

Anyways, I enrolled in art college and those were without question 4 of the funnest years of my life. We had 24 hour private dark rooms so I would shoot pictures all day and then developed and printed all night. I was in heaven and loved every last minute of it. I wound up becoming really good freinds with the head of the photography department. We would go out and drink beers together over the weekend. He was just a really great guy and an amazing photographer. He convinced me to continue on and get my masters degree, so I could go on to teach someday at the college level, which is something I definitely want to do a few more years down the road. After I got my M.F.A., I went to work for an architectural photography firm based out of Chicago called Hedrich Blessing. I worked there for roughly 4-5 years and eventually left to start my own photgraphy business and I've been shooting on my own ever since.

I mainly focus on architecture and furniture these days, but I have shot a lot of different products over the years. I used to focus mainly on outdoor equipment and recreational vehicles. Things like tents, backpacks, mountain bikes, kayaks, 4 wheelers, etc.

Animal portraits sounds like a cool gig. I am actually a HUGE animal lover and I actually started out shooting pictures of animals. I used to go to the Detroit or Toledo zoo with my parents and shoot pictures of the animals. That was really how I first got interested in photography. I focused on the Humane Society for one of my documentary photography classes in college and shot the Exotic Feline Rescue Center down in Indiana for another documentary class I had. I even applied to the Detroit Zoo when I first graduated from art school. Being one of the staff photographers at the zoo would have been a really cool job. I would have definitely enjoyed that. So shooting animals has always been something I enjoyed doing. I actually got really lucky when I was down at the Toledo Zoo. Their Snow Leopard just had a batch of kittens and they somehow managed to get out of the enclosure they were being kept in. There were like 3-4 peope chasing them down in the enclosure and I looked over and there was one just looking right at me. I grabbed my camera and took a shot right before he was snatched up by one of the zoo employees. I really consider it to be one of my first decent photographs. I think I was 10 or 11 when I shot it.



Actually, if your ever in Indiana, you should think about stopping into the Exotic Feline Rescue Center. Its an amazing place and you can get some really cool shots while your there. They actually have overnight packages you can buy where you can actually stay there overnight. They have these little cabins set up where you can stay. Those overnight packages are great as if you wind up buying one, they wind up giving you access to cats you wouldn't have seen otherwise. They basically give you access to everything if you wind up buying one of those packages, including being able to see any kittens if they happen to have any at the time. I actually got to spend time with 3 tiger cubs when I was there. They were like 30 pounds each at the time and they were extremely playful. It was an amazing experience, one I will never forget. Here is the link to the website in case your interested:

http://www.exoticfelinerescuecenter.org/home.html

Anyways, sorry for the long post. I can get carried away when I start to talk photography, lol.
OrangeCrush is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-30-2014, 11:22 AM   #10
S-tier Adam
I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
 
S-tier Adam's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Cleveland, OH
Posts: 58
wow, you've got an amazing story there. I feel like most great artists probably come to that crossroads at some point. I kind of did the same thing, except there weren't really any difficult decisions involved...however I might be forced into a difficult decision here pretty soon. I'm gonna be interviewing for a great job that I don't really want, but my dad really wants me to get. Either way I'd be letting people down. If I take the job, by all means I can still work on my art as it's just a teaching job. Right now, I'm content though. I live in the guest house at a mansion, and I'm also the caretaker. I take care of the place and of an elderly woman living there. This also allows me ample time to work in my studio which is on the premises as well. You would love the mansion...there's actually a darkroom in the basement. Unfortunately I know nothing about film, so I couldn't use it.

At the end of the day, I want to be a professional artist, and I don't care what other people say.

The feline rescue sounds amazing. I'm gonna have to look into that. You know what we should probably move this to a PM because it's turning into a chat room lol.

Back to something actually on topic, what the heck are gels? I'm so not familiar with those.
S-tier Adam is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:17 AM.



Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright StatueForum.com