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Rethinking the importance of light

hile we’re waiting (and saving) for our Mola dish (Captain Starsquid and I both want one each), we’ve been practising a lot with our ‘temporary’ dish which Captain Starsquid got off eBay for about a hundred bucks. Shooting with a dish made us rethink how important it is to know your gear properly and the importance of delivering light exactly where it needs to be. Below is a practise shot we did in the living room (don’t mind the curtains). Our lovely stylist opted to model for us (she really just wanted to watch The City and we had to pull her away from the computer every time). A simple (but fabulous) 2-light set up and no make up needed.

Getting into ourselves fashion? Our first ‘fashion’ shoot, how did we fare…

o be honest, we were a bit worried how to handle this outdoor photoshoot since we didn’t have too much experience shooting outdoors. But confidence was on our side and we are quite happy with the end result. The assignment was to show denim clothing in different time periods and concept & styling was done by our lovely new member (*drumroll please) Pink Starsquid!

Previously we were thinking about shooting outside a large mansion but we were unable to find a suitable place. Luckily our stylist thought of shooting it at an old tram museum. So she called the day before and whaddaya know! We arrived around noon and and were kindly welcomed. It was a good thing the place wasn’t swarming with people (but then again, who likes to look at old trams all day). After unloading our stuff (the things you don’t need just to take a couple of photos!), our make-up artist and stylist prepped our model while we went ahead to think how to set up our light. Yes, we didn’t have a plan before.

The Set Up
Too bad we did have somewhat limited means because we only brought our Canon Speedlite, a small umbrella and two reflector discs (one small and one XL).

But, you gotta work with what you have, not everyone can afford a Broncolor Para. Because it was high noon and the sun was actually way too strong, shadows were harsh (a diffuser disc would’ve been handy now). The museum had a partly indoor section and an outdoor section, so we decided to shoot indoor first and wait for the sun to set before shooting outside in the open. We returned back inside and even though the roof acted as a huge diffuser, light shining through was still too strong and produced deep dark shadows (remember, this was during high noon).

We started doing some trial shots outside the tram, but because the place was so huge and we only had one small crappy umbrella and one large and one small reflector disc (we found the reflector disc not particulary handy when you have diffused light), there was no way to light things evenly the way we wanted. We then tried shooting inside the tram, set the camera at low speed to capture more light and after the first initial shots we had our base light. Because the tram didn’t have any doors (like one of those really old ones were you can just hop on) and the windows were large, we set up our umbrella on our camera left and a large reflector disc on our camera right. At this point we wished we’d had a strobe and shaper strong enough to light the whole interior of the tram, but alas. Our model, prepped and all, came and sat in between our light set up and we were off shooting our first photos.

Slaving
I’d say the shoot took about 7-8 hours, basically the whole day. Four outfits, different hair and make-up every time, multiple locations (we also had to drive to the city center for some additional shoots), dragging a shipload of gear around and around. And warm weather. The slavery! Now I wouldn’t mind as long as the catering is ok. I WAS STARVING ALL THE WAY! But seriously, we all had a blast and even though there are many things we need to improve on and keep developing our skill, we can’t wait for our next shoot!

Well, thats all for this issue, enjoy the photos and you know where to comment

What would our famed Rembrandt think of these?

Who needs a California Sunbounce anyways?

“We have a fascination with California Sunbounce lately, we keep telling ourself we can’t take photos unless we have a California Sunbounce. Wish we had a California Sunbounce.
*no that’s a South-Holland Sunbounce in the back”

Upcoming indie musician (could be a surfer too).
Anyways, we shot a couple of test shots while preparing a photoshoot.

Product review of our newest softbox light shaper from Creative Light.

I had a feeling today that I would receive a package, and whaddaya know, the UPS guy showed up at my doorstep with a package from one of my favorite stores, B&H (NY).

The Holy Moment
As you all might know, I just LUUUUUV receiving packages (who doesn’t!)…EXCEPT when it’s for the annoying upstair-neighbor! Although it’s still 2 days till Christmas, the hell with waiting, armed with a stiletto I frantically ripped open the package!
(♪insert angelic music♪) *HOLY MOMENT~!

My first impression was that everything looked very neat and nicely packaged almost like an Apple product and very apple-green (green is my favorite color). And you gotta hand it to the Creative Light people (which is this new Swedish company that creates lightshapers), upon opening the box…aww (感動しました), I love them already!

The Speedring
Because I’m using Visatec strobes, I ordered the corresponding Visatec speedring which came in its own nice little apple-green box (I’m sensitive to nice packaging). The speedring has a good solid built and has colored markings that match the colored endings of the rods. I also like the adjustable screws that allows the revolving mount to be tighter or looser.

Color Coded
Creative Light’s square and rectangular shaped softboxes, for example, use only the holes with blue markings so no more confusion about which hole to use on your speedring, no rocket science here though hehe.
*btw, the softbox fits on any Photoflex speedring too.

Because I only have large softboxes, I wanted to have a small one to light specific areas. Creative Light’s softboxes looked promising so I decided to give it a try and ordered the smallest rectangle softbox they had, which measures 40 x 60 cm. I was quite surprised that the bag it came in was so small and flat (I honestly though it was empty, duh). As you can see, the bag has a clear window which holds information about the softbox, nice.

Creative Light makes two different kinds of softboxes, RF and FF which stand for Recessed Front and Full Front respectively. RF allow accessories like grids whereas FF has a full front outer baffle allowing stacking multiple softboxes. Being used to Photoflex softboxes, I find the Creative Light softbox outer material very lightweight but a bit ‘thin’, the Photoflex ones have a more sturdy feel to it.

Assembling the softbox is pretty straightforward, the metal rods go through a small tab and fit into the corner pockets of the softbox.

Two things that bothered me a bit were, whereas some brands have hollow seams which run along the entire lenght of each ridge to support the rods, the Creative Light one only sports small tabs and I was bit worried that they might tear because of the pressure when assembling. It could be just the small models though. Secondly, the corner pockets are stitched close, whereas Photoflex ones have a release tab which allows you to push the rods in when assembling. A small softbox is still fairly easy to assemble because it uses thin rods, but I can imagine it becoming a problem with bigger ones such as an octodome.

Inner Baffle
There are brands that use hooks or velcro fasteners to install inner baffles, Creative Light opted for elastic snap fasteners.

Outer Baffle
It attaches like any other velcro outer baffle, but I prefer Photoflex’s closed edges over Creative Light’s split edges. With a closed edge you can push it into the black velcro corner with one finger and it attaches both sides easily, just a minor detail.

The back side closes with velcro strips and loops at the edges on the top side are a nice extra feature that allows hanging.

On the left you see the fully assembled softbox and what I love is that it clearly says what softbox it is on the side in big letters.

Conclusion
The Creative Light people clearly paid a lot of attention making everything as clear as possible such as color coding the speedring and putting the dimensions and type on the softbox itself. I gotta say, the sleek green on black with the large logo makes the softbox look SEXY! It’s the Adriana Lima of softboxes! And money-wise it’s also very affordable. That having said, it does have its negative sides. For starters, it doesn’t have a ventilation hole to allow air circulation, using strobes with modeling light on can cause the temperature inside the softbox to rise considerably during long sessions, I had hoped to see a ventilation outlet especially on such a small softbox. The material is not as sturdy as Photoflex and not having release tabs for the rods makes it less easier to insert the rods into the speedring when assembling. But when fully assembled it feels springy and solid built and in all I’m extremely happy with it. It isn’t as sophisticated as a brand like Photoflex but if you’re looking for a great price-quality ratio and no-fuss built, Creative Light is definitely for you. I do have to say, because Creative Light is brand new, it’s still developing at high speed, and judging from what I see already, they seems very promising and I will definitely consider them again in the future.

For more information about Creative Light and its products visit www.creativelight.com. Now lets see how it fares when put into actual use, though you can’t really go wrong there…

*PS: When I woke up the next morning and looked at my new Creative Light softbox, I couldn’t help but smile…is that weird?

*PS again: I tested the softbox with a strobe and I just luv my new product! After first testing round I found the soft light spreads beautifully with a nice contrast and slight amount of snap.

It’s snowing outside so I decided to take pictures of objects inside.

After getting yelled at for also-capable-of-shooting-crap, I had to redeem myself. It’s snowing outside this time of year and it’s freezing, so what better thing to do than sit in front of the heater with a cup of hot chocolate… OR, you can spend your time experimenting and trying to shoot some ‘decent’ product photo’s which was exactly what I decided to do! Duh…

The Orange Set Up
I still had this very orange Gameboy Advance SP (which I bought ages ago) with a light metallic finish and though it’b a nice object for a lickable-glossy product photo. I chose bright orange A4 (didn’t have any other sizes anyways) paper with a slight structure to serve as a background. I knew I wanted to give it a advertising-ish look but didn’t really have a clear idea how to set up the lighting, so I just started to build and judging from where I thought light should come from. I started with the background light first, it seems logical. Your background is your canvas, so get that right first.

After some tweaking with the background light I put in my main light followed with a highlight. My softbox main light was actually way too big for anything that can fit between two sheets of A4 paper so I didn’t had to worry about too many deep shadows since the light would wrap around the small object anyway. After some moving around of the lights, adding some fill cards and flags my overall set up was complete, the rest was just fine tuning. One thing is for sure, shooting objects requires different lighting rules than let’s say creating a set up for a portrait. Objects are often shiny and slight changes in angles and light effects the final image far more than if you were shooting a person.

About Flags
Light modifyers do a great job delivering light where it should fall, sometimes it over-delivers and spills light where you don’t want it to reach. In these situations we want to cover up that ‘excess light’ using something to block it. These things are called flags and are nothing more than small (depending on how much you want to block) black cards and can be made (or bought) from anything like black cardstock or foamcore board to whatever keeps that excess light from spilling. This action of effectively blocking excess light is called flagging. Black is used because it absorbs light, you don’t want to use a white flag bouncing light around and still accidentally spilling excess light on your object.

The White Set Up
I let a friend choose a color theme, though I personally wanted warm yellow, he choose white, and we all know photographing white is one of the hardest things. I don’t know why but I wanted to achieve feathersoft light with almost no shadows, but combine that with all white objects on a white background and you got yourself a real challenge. One of the challenges was keeping the structure of the white (offwhite) paper visible. My main light which I triple diffused threw such soft light it instantly wiped out most shadows and contrast detail. Because I wanted the background paper’s structure to be visible I had to counter it with a hard background light skimming across the the background paper. Compare the background paper with the paper the objects are resting on (in final photo), one is smooth as silk and the other is structured yet they are the same paper.

The Blue Set Up
For the blue set up I chose a glass object holding liquid. Glass and liquid are highly reflective so keeping unwanted reflections as well as showing the clarity of the liquid is not easy. There are a couple of ways to photograph liquid in a bottle and lighting from underneath is one way. I chose the same structured paper as before but in blue and cut 2 holes the same size as the bottles out of the bottom sheet. I’ve put the bottles on top of the holes, brought in a light and had it flash from underneath lighting up the liquid and the edges of the glass bottle. Lighting this way though, will light up even the smallest dust particle, so best to wipe off your object using static wiping cloth. I also made a cookie for the background light to give it some shape, though the cookie was a bit too small and adding diffused background light didn’t give it the contrast and intensity I hoped for.

So how did the photo’s turned out you’re wondering right? If you ask me, I will tell you honestly I’m not exactly satisfied (as I never am). Apart from tons of technical mistakes, it just doesn’t cut it for me (I’m VERY nitpicky). I guess I wanted more of an edge but didn’t quite deliver, even though I put a lot of time and effort in it. Well, I’ll just let you decide, be gentle!

Dutch fishermen on a cold day catching…well…fish.

“Me wonder ‘ow many fishies we’ll catch?”

Like a trophy catch, gleaming with pride!

“The missus is going to be very happy!”

Karel: “Mighty weather ey mate?”
Kees: “It’s the season…”
Karel: “Aight, ‘ow many of them fishies ye caught?”
Kees: “Just ’nuff to keep the missus happy…ye know.”
Karel: “…aight.”