Tag Archive for: continuous lighting

So much fun with cheap materials and lights

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It doesn’t have to be expensive

There is often a discussion about what you need to get a great image. And often it boils down to “I can’t do it because I don’t have any budget”. Well, it might surprise you but 99% of the images I post are shot during workshops, events, and trade shows. So not really situations where I have time or even a budget to really use large sets. Today a blog post about model photography with cheap materials and lights. In our studio, we do use the ClickBackdrops backgrounds of course 😀

Experiment with cheap materials and lights

One of the things I love to experiment with ar cheap lighting solutions.
This can be a string of fairy lights, Christmas lighting, or a magic lantern.
With modern cameras and great noise reduction in Lightroom or Topaz, you can really push the creative limits.

One of the biggest advantages of the strobes (Geekoto) I’m using now is that they can be adjusted to output a very slight amount of light.
Because most of these light sources are very faint it’s great that I’m now able to mix strobes and continuous lighting much easier.

 

Setup

For this setup, we used wings with small lights inside. To make sure the lights show up you have to be able to capture enough light.
This can be done with a higher ISO or a longer shutter speed.
What I normally do is use the EVF of the camera in emulation mode. This way you can see what your setup in your camera looks like.
I would advise to set up with an option to lower the shutter speed. Often when you start adding the strobes you will find that you need a bit more light from the continuous light source. Especially when a model is uncomfortable it’s nice that you can quickly change the setup by just lowering the shutter speed.

Now that you have the perfect setup just use a light meter to set the strobe up to the ISO and Aperture you chose. And you’re ready to shoot *and probably lower the shutter speed.

Background

A nice dark background is ideal with see-through materials and lights.
But it’s vital for these kinds of shots you use a focused light source, in other word,s make sure you only hit the subject with strobes where you need it. This way the continuous lighting will have a nice dark background to show up and show their color and brightness much better.

I’m using the Geekoto GT400 with a Geekoto Quicky softbox with a grid.
The Quicky is a smaller softbox that has a very straight light beam and is great for focussing light on your subject, even from a slight distance.

Model photography with cheap materials and lights, I like it!

Model photography with cheap materials and lights Model photography with cheap materials and lights Model photography with cheap materials and lights

Check out this video about being creative with 2 models dressed up as Barbie

You can rent our studio and get creative too 

A kind of different product photography, shots from guitar pedals

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A kind of different product photography, shots from guitar pedals

Most of the posts we do online are from model photography. But product photography is also one of the services we offer our clients. Most of the time, the model shots are however a lot more interesting to post. But sometimes we also show you some of the products we shoot, when it’s special.

Hobby vs business

I always say I’m a lucky guy, every day I can do what I love most, create images. But sometimes I’m double so lucky when I can combine two of my passions.

I’ve known RJ-amps for a few years now and he can do wonders with tube amps but also builds great guitar pedals. When I brought my amp in I got two brand new pedals to play with which will be released later this year. And of course…. and he knows that…. I couldn’t resist to take some images.

Now we also took some of the more boring white backgrounds but when we do product shoots I also always like to add some “special set” shots. With handbags for example. We build a small set fitting the brand and took some shots in there, with fancy lighting. In most cases, we do this for free (and fun) but clients often end up using those images also.

How I shot this product, the guitar pedals

For this series I decided to shoot it at home with a combination of a Lumecube with a snoot and two Nanlite led tubes on the side.
The challenge was to get the Lumecube in exactly the right place, but luckily we could use the K&F concept tripod I’m using for my iPhone video setup. This is an awesome tripod because it can act as a boom arm, making it ideal for shoots like this or using phones in video setups.

Here is the behind-the-scenes setup for both pedals.

A kind of different product photography, shots from guitar pedals

A little bit of set styling

The reason I shot this at home was mainly because it was the best location 😀
This is the area where I create my music and also host live streams when I do seminars for clubs or Digital Classroom episodes without live shoots.

I love the carpet here (somehow most guitarists seem to love them) so I wanted to use that as my “base”
Because it’s a pedal I chose this vintage-looking amp because it’s pretty neutral-looking and stands close to the floor. So there is no problem fitting it in the frame.

Of course, you also need a guitar. Here I chose a custom-built guitar for the nice wood look which I think works great with the color of the amp and the carpet. Also, the finish has a very high gloss which makes it harder to light. But the effect when done right makes it possible to use just a little bit of light to see some details.

For some “fill,” I used my favorite-looking microphone, a nice Marantz Ribbon mic.

Lighting

As mentioned I’m using the Lumecube with a snoot and two Nanlites tubes on the left and right.
I love using accents with red and blue because both are on the same axis in the colorspace they blend together really nicely and both are also the so-called “emotion” colors so for me personally it’s a combination I use a lot.

Placing the lights is vital if you want details in the guitar without getting too much glare. However, around the edges, I did want just a little bit of reflection making the guitar stand out. After finding the right spot you can fine-tune the spread by just turning the tube very slowly and keep looking through your camera.

Ok… let’s show the results.
I did use just a little bit of BorisFX for special effects.
Get a 15% discount on BorisFX by using our link.

A kind of different product photography, guitar pedals A kind of different product photography, shots from guitar pedals

 

PS: if you like this blog about product photography (from guitar pedals), let me know! Find me on social media.

Being creative with led tubes

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It’s no secret I absolutely love to find creative ways to use my lighting.
One of the things I love to add in a scene is color, but also continuous lighting.

So when Nanlite asked me to take a look at their new Pavo Tube I knew I wanted to combine it with some Christmas lighting we bought recently for the studio (we always look for cool lighting solutions, it’s always fun to use them and it triggers your creativity).

Here are some of the results from the session we did with Nadine.
Using the TT artisan lens on my Sony A7RIV with the FotoDiox adaptor to use the lens as an auto focus lens, love those convertors, it really makes it so much fun using vintage lenses.

In the video I also explain the setups.