On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 7:17 PM, Malcolm Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > > I spend a lot of time thinking about light Bruce. I really do my best to > avoid artificial light, and I am so pleased that you can bump up ISO a bit > now with the latest cameras, tripods give you longer shutter times and > reflectors are so useful. > > However, that has got to change. I read that really difficult subjects to > correctly light for are black objects on black backgrounds; how you light > them gives them their shape and separates them from the background. I'm > going to invest in some lighting equipment nearer the end of the year and > overcome this reluctance to this subject, and give problem lighting > situations a go. Seeing I wait ages for the right light sometimes, the > opportunity to create my own actually sounds a great idea!
Good to hear, Malcolm. And the great thing is you can start out pretty cheaply too. One of my favourite tricks is to create what appears to be ambient window light where there is none so the shot looks "natural". I do that with one or more cheap manual flashes and some white reflector card, or even just white walls. Like this shot: http://off-axis.brucemwalker.com/image/85678223657 At a quick glance everyone says, "okay: a big window camera-left, right?" Nope. A big v-flat made of white foamcore with three $50 Neewer flashes firing into it. One is radio triggered ($20 Cowboy Studios) and the other two are slaved to the "master". This arrangement can be used to light up a group of people standing, at f:5.6 ISO 100. Your black subject on black background is a good example of a tricky _metering_ situation, but you could easily light that with just window light. :) I think you'll enjoy getting into these more interesting photo challenges. It sure keeps me busy. :) -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
