Hints, Tips and Recommendations:
Lighting
Editor’s Note: Margaret Campbell is well known within the club for her creative approach to photography. In the photo-essay below Margaret demonstrates that with indoor photography, simple lighting can play an important part in the creative process and it does not need to be ‘high tech’. Details of the photographic shoot are provided below.
Details of the Shoot
Margaret used a 24.1 Megapixel Canon EOS 2000D SLR camera fitted with a Sigma 24 MM F1.4 DG HSM Art lens set at F8 and attached to a tripod. Exposures varied from 30 to 0.3 seconds at 100 ISO. A white LED panel light and a torch were used as light sources The reflector was a sheet of deliberately crumpled kitchen foil wrapped around a piece of cardboard.
The images were taken at night in a room with the blinds closed and the lights off. Image no 1 was illuminated with stray light and exposed for 30 seconds.
The subject was a 9 inch white vase resting on a black card mount board. The backdrop was non-reflective black cotton velvet. Margaret says be careful not to use a shiny synthetic velvet if you want a really dark background. She also points out that the imperfections and ripples on the surface of the vase are only obvious with overhead lighting (no.10), i.e. where the lighting direction is almost perpendicular to the reflective surface.
It is also possible to use a backlight as a high key background (shown in no. 8).
The Final Output
If you want to see how she has used this little vase in finished images check out her vase page on her portfolio site at Garscube Photography.
Vase Study – Intoxication
Notice how the vase has also become a ‘nose’!
Images and Tips by: Margaret Campbell