CharleyL
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
|
 p.1 #2 · Best lightboxes for smaller items? | |
I occasionally use a 2' cube light tent. For near shadow free lighting inside the tent, I usually use three LED light panels, one on each side and one above the top, spaced about 1 foot away from the light box. To control the shadow (if I want them) I'll vary the distance and brightness of each to achieve the result that I'm looking for. My LED panels are all GVM LED 480 LS with the barn doors, which usually aren't necessary, but sometimes do get used.
You should also spend some time learning to shoot "Still Life". A good Youtube Channel to watch is "Camera Club Live". You will learn a lot about controlling light and shadows very quickly by watching his videos and working at duplicating some of his setups in these videos. Exact duplication of his props isn't necessary, but a similar setup will let you repeat his lighting very closely, and you will learn how to control your lighting for these small setups very quickly. Years ago I was doing this in the middle of my living room and getting great results. I now have a small photo/video studio that has a 19 X 26' shooting room and when the studio isn't being used for anything else, I usually stay busy setting up for and doing "still life" photo shoots in the middle of the shooting room. It sometimes takes a bit of time to round up the props for the planned shoot, but setting up for it is relatively quick, and so is tear down when another need for the studio comes up. I always make a drawing/map of each shoot noting lights used, position, distance from subject, camera and light settings, and all other information needed to repeat this shoot, so I can rapidly set up everything to continue, should I need to switch the use of the studio for other work coming in. With this map I can repeat the setup again the next time that I and my studio are available. Saving these maps also helps remember "how I did it" to make it easier to rapidly set up for a similar shoot again in the future.
When first starting to do this you may spend days trying to get things and the lighting "just right", but you will get better and faster at this with experience. If you already have the lights, camera, and tripod it won't take much of an investment and effort to get really good at lighting and photographing smaller items, even without using a light tent. Learning lighting so you can control it for the result desired is key to taking good photos of any subject, be they small or large. In most cases shooting small "still life" can be done on a 3' X 3' table, but a little larger is OK if the room space will allow it, plus 3-4' of work space surrounding it. You can use speedlites and/or studio strobes, diffusion materials, soft boxes, foam core boards, photo mounting mat board materials, etc. so very little additional expensive investment is needed to get started in "Still Life". I frequent thrift shops, dollar stores, tag sales, etc frequently and I'm always on the lookout for "props" to use in my "Still Life" photo shoots at bargain prices. I also "borrow" things from my home furnishings or get neighbors to let me "borrow" things from their homes sometimes too. I recently wanted some Rustic Weathered Boards for a "Still Life" photo shoot that I was planning, and I noticed that one of my neighbors had just torn down a section of Weathered wooden fence. When I asked if I could borrow some of the boards, he said that I could have all I wanted because "They were going to the dump".
You will likely find that photos like these can be of great interest to restaurants, banks, professional offices, etc. if the subjects in the photos are appropriate for those environments.
Charley
|
