When playing with lights
sometimes you never know how many you might need and if you don't have enough,
well you still have the sun to help you. For these photos I had two SB800 but,
to achieve the desired effect I needed an extra help.
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| No "moving" reflector has been used for this shot |
First of all let’s see
how I organized the table. I have a squared piece of glass sitting on top of
four plastic cups to separate it from the base. Under the glass there is one
SB800 with a red gel, above the glass we have the Molix' Finder 110 sprayed with water. Off
camera right slightly above the subject is the other SB800 through a
translucent umbrella, while the window of the room is opened and its position
is again on camera right.
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| Here we are using the "moving" reflector but the SB800 with the red gel has been turned off |
On camera left a friend
is holding a silver reflector with a bit of a hammered surface; is not flat and
smooth and it works better for what I want to achieve. The exposure time is 2
seconds, enough to be able to play with the light coming from the window and
mix it with the speedlights.
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| Shot taken with the setting described in the post |
When
I take the shot my friend is moving the reflector for the 2 seconds of the
exposure and the light coming from the uneven silver surface paints some sort
of “blurred” background with liquid lights and shadows while the product has been
perfectly lit by the SB800. The water sitting on the glass surface also helps
achieving this result but as you can see in the three shots, the difference really
pops out.
It is very exciting for
me to always explore new ways of lighting a product, the studio gives you so many
different opportunities and the subjects never complain J I hope this give you some ideas for your studio
work and if you think of a way to improve it your comments are always welcome.
