trentchau wrote:
Sheniferous, great crafting ability and pictures, definately awesome.
How are you mounting your softboxes on your camera? just make shift joint or an actual speed ring type device?
Thanks! The softboxes aren't being mounted on my camera at all. I made all three softboxes for under $100 not counting the bulbs. The bulbs cost about $80 for four daytime balanced high wattage flourescent bulbs... 2 55w (250w equivalent) and 2 40w (150w equivalent) bulbs.
The softboxes themselvs are made from a bunch of black/white foamcore I bought at a local 98 cent store and taped together with regular masking tape. The lights are held in place with a clamp light fixture, with the metal part of the clamp light reflector cut about 1" above the thread and screwed back into the base to hold the base to the foamcore. I lined the inside of the softboxes with 98 cent silver sunshades from the same store, cut to fit of course. I used extra foamcore to make a frame to hold a piece of diffusion made of white rip-stop nylon and another frame to hold an egg-crate grid made of meticulously cut 2" strips of black posterboard (also from the 98 cent store). You can see the light difference in the next three pics, the first is the softbox alone, the 2nd has the diffusion added in, the 3rd has both the diffusion and the eggcrate grid:
wow, i can't believe how long this thread is. i'm interested to read through the entire thing but would like to print it out (not the images, just the text). does anyone know how i might do that? it appears that the site only displays a few posts per page, which makes it unwieldy.
Edited by mediahound on Jun 16, 2006 at 06:01 AM GMT
Time to wake this thread back up with a studio setup shot and the resulting image (hope this is okay.)
This is from a shoot with San Diego model Bianca Malise for our Vargas Tribute project.
Model: Bianca Malise (San Diego)
Producer, Makeup & Hair: Kortney (my daughter & partner)
Camera: Canon EOS 1Dsmk2, EF70-200f.28/L/IS, ISO100, f8, 1/200
Shooting RAW, tethered to an iMac G5 running Capture1 Pro.
Main: Alien Bee(AB) 1600 w/5' PhotoFlex Octodome
Hair: AB400 w/8"x20" PhotoFelx half-dome
Back: 2 AB800's with white umbrellas
Extra: 1 AB1600 w/18"x36" PhotoFlex Halfdome to help lighten the Plexiglas in front of model.
Black curtains to help control scatter.
White 9' seamless backdrop and floor covering with a 6' x 8' x 1/4" white plexiglas.
We hand-built the fence. :-)
I've been getting ready to buy a hair light. Right now I have 3x AB 800s and was debating getting a 400 for the hair light. Do you ever find the 400 not enough for a hair light in your portrait situations? Granted you're probably doing a lot more than I'll do but I was just curious
The other route I was thinking was to get a 1600 for a main and use one of my 800s for a hair light
Masterful! One question, though. It looks like your main is a good 10 feet or better away from your model in the "setup" shot. Was this always it's location, or was it moved back for this shot? I keep hearing that the "optimum" distance is about the diagmeter/length of the modifier used.
Nice shots and setup. Quick question though. Did you clone out the nipples? Seems like you can see through the sheer that she is wearing in the setup shot, but in the actual shot it is more solid or less see through. Just curious if the lighting did this, or if you actually cloned it out.
txbonds wrote:
JohnE,
Nice shots and setup. Quick question though. Did you clone out the nipples? Seems like you can see through the sheer that she is wearing in the setup shot, but in the actual shot it is more solid or less see through. Just curious if the lighting did this, or if you actually cloned it out.
Greg
Thank you Greg. Yes, I did clone out her nipples. I actually produced two images (one, uncloned and the second one cloned out.) This allowed me an opportinity to show the image in sensitive environments.
Joppie wrote:
Masterful! One question, though. It looks like your main is a good 10 feet or better away from your model in the "setup" shot. Was this always it's location, or was it moved back for this shot? I keep hearing that the "optimum" distance is about the diagmeter/length of the modifier used.
Just curious. Great results, as usual, though!
Thanks Joppie.
You are absolutley correct about the proper/optimal placement of the softbox. Following that rule will provide the most pleasing results.
In this case, I wanted straight-on lighting. So I just laid on the ground underneath the Octodome and shot from that low position.
Hey, I say that the "Proper" placement of anything is the one that provides you with the results you seek. Everything else is just a matter of preference.
This thread should have been labeled "WARNING - HEAVY SPENDING ZONE"
I just lept feet first into studio setups by ordering 2 JTL Monolights, Stands, unbrellas, sync cord, Background stand, Seamless white paper, and sekonic L-358 light meter. It should all be arriving next week.
All said and done, it could be a lot worse. but since I'm trying to get in "budget style", I won't feel so bad if a year or 2 down the line I need to replace or upgrade to more powerful strobes.
/060906_Bianca_4177_BTS.jpg "2026 © JohnE"){kind=small}
/060906_Bianca_4194x2_900.jpg "2026 © JohnE"){kind=small}