Home studio lighting

[jim_j]

Hi guys.

I need to do some product shots for our home shopping website, up 'till now we've just been using daylight in the conservatory, but now with winter coming and magazines wanting high quality images it's time I got a bit more serious.

I've not used flash much in the past, so it's time to start learning. Rather than using something like an Interfit starter kit for £200 I was thinking of using my existing Speedlite 430ex with a wireless remote trigger from amazon, light stand and umbrella. I can set this up at 45degrees to the subject and then with a large reflector or another flash/umbrella on the other side at the same angle I should be able to get even lighting.

I just need your thoughts on this arrangement.

Much appreciated

[Brooks]

Get a reputable (ie: not Chinese knock-offs sold on ebay) brand of monolights or a pack and head system, that have 250 watt modeling lights and are able to use controllable light modifiers such as soft boxes, grids etc. Umbrellas are for lighting people, not products. "Even" lighting is not always the best lighting for products or people.

You'll also need a flash meter and preferably be able to shoot tethered to a computer.

[jim_j]

Hi Brooks

Your reply is much appreciated, and sounds like good advice. Back to the drawing board, perhaps I'll build the kit up gradually - buy the best head trying to avoid tungsten) I can afford at the moment (£200 budget) and add the rest on as I go.

Cheers
Jim

[jaygee]

I just treated myself using 50th birthday money to an Elinchrom studio lighting kit. It arrived earlier this week and I love it . I see you have a budget. I was recommended by a photographer not too buy too cheap. Ihad to wait until I had funds to get this kit.

I bought from warehouse express (quoting their site)
The BXRi 500 compact Twin Flash Head Kit from Elinchrom is based around two 500ws BXRi heads and offers a number of features, including a built in EL-Skyport remote system, which gives you the freedom to create with more flexibility. Key features include a proportional modelling lamp control, programmable photo cell and features and multi voltage operation for worldwide use. The Elinchrom BXRi 500 Twin Flash Head KThe BXRi 500 compact Twin Flash Head Kit from Elinchrom is based around two 500ws BXRi heads and offers a number of features, including a built in EL-Skyport remote system, which gives you the freedom to create with more flexibility. Key features include a proportional modelling lamp control, programmable photo cell and features and multi voltage operation for worldwide use. The Elinchrom BXRi 500 Twin Flash Head Kit comes complete with stands, softboxes, carry cases and leadsit comes complete with stands, softboxes, carry cases and leads.

I bought a nice background stand kit too.

Slowly getting my head round what is a totally new topic to me. First grandchild arrives early November so want to have it mastered before then.

[jim_j]

Hi Jaygee

Elinchrom system looks nice, but still outside my budget at the moment. Might go for the cheapest Bowens head and slowly add more kit as I go. Bit like you at the moment - so much to get my head around.

Good luck with the grandchildren.

Cheers

Jim

[RocketRick]

Originally Posted by jim_j

Hi guys.

I need to do some product shots for our home shopping website, up 'till now we've just been using daylight in the conservatory, but now with winter coming and magazines wanting high quality images it's time I got a bit more serious.

I've not used flash much in the past, so it's time to start learning. Rather than using something like an Interfit starter kit for £200 I was thinking of using my existing Speedlite 430ex with a wireless remote trigger from amazon, light stand and umbrella. I can set this up at 45degrees to the subject and then with a large reflector or another flash/umbrella on the other side at the same angle I should be able to get even lighting.

I just need your thoughts on this arrangement.

Much appreciated

The thing that everyone else seems to be forgetting is to ask the most important question: "What sorts of products do you need to shoot?"

The "best" lighting will vary immensely depending upon the size, reflectivity, and other surface characteristics of whatever it is that you are shooting. You won't necessarily use the same setup for a food shot as you would for porcelain dolls, or hard drives versus guitars or bicycles. What is the general nature of the majority of the items that you will be shooting?

In any case, you DEFINITELY CAN use speedlights instead of "studio" monolights. They won't be quite as convenient (no modeling lights to help with setup), but they will work just fine for indoor shots. You're not trying to overpower the sun, so the limited power available will actually be plenty.

If you're on a budget, you can improvise quite a bit of "studio" equipment. White bedsheets make good backdrops and table covers, and draped over a line strung between two pieces of furniture (hatracks, booksheves, or tall dressers, for instance), can be used as very large flash diffusers. Ninety-nine cent translucent white shower curtains will also work great as improvised diffusers.

You can get pop-up nylon "lightboxes" that are perfect for evenly lighting small items on ebay for under $40, shipped. Or, you can make one out of a cardboard box, a bit of white paint for the exposed interior surfaces, and tissue paper to cover the holes you cut in it, for almost nothing.

Whoever it was that said you can't use umbrellas for products was simply incorrect, as well. Softboxes may be more convenient for some types of shots, but umbrellas can certainly be used, as well. Creativity, knowing the type of lighting results you are trying to acheive, and a willingness to experiment -- these are the elements that you need to keep in mind if you want to work "on the cheap", and still get fantastic results.

The only thing that matters, at the end of the day, is the final image. If you used bedsheets, kitchen garbage bags, and pop-up car window shades to modify and reflect your light, and a 1/4-20 machine screw sticking up through a pice of wood C-clamped to a step-stool as a tripod, but you got the shot, then who cares that you did it for less money?

Every trip to Wal-Mart, the 99 cent store, or Home Depot should be a photographic equipment-finding expedition....

Your friend in improvisational lighting,

- Rick

[WayneF]

Originally Posted by jim_j

I've not used flash much in the past, so it's time to start learning. Rather than using something like an Interfit starter kit for £200 I was thinking of using my existing Speedlite 430ex with a wireless remote trigger from amazon, light stand and umbrella. I can set this up at 45degrees to the subject and then with a large reflector or another flash/umbrella on the other side at the same angle I should be able to get even lighting.

That should work, it is a common style. Search Google for One Light Portrait for examples of doing that.

[jim_j]

Hi Guys

Your replies are much appreciated and extremely helpful. Thanks Rick for the good advice, and like you Wayne I too was a bit skeptical about being advised not to use the setup suggested, but being a newbie to studio lighting I'm always grateful for any advise from my peers. The shots are mainly home decor items, kitchenware, living room items, bathroom stuff, etc. The site is JasmineWay French Decorative Home Accessories | French Country Style, we do have product shots for all of the items from our suppliers, but we want to add extra images to the site for ambience and design ideas, we've already shot quite a few, but that was mostly sunny days and good light. So I'm looking to shoot the products in their 'natural environment' indoors, cushions on sofas, plates on tables, romantic candle lit settings etc.

Definitely good tips for budget items, and will be giving them a go, although I have been looking at the budget Elemental Mega Studio 2 plus maybe a Bowens 250W modelling lamp for about £235 all in. For that I get all the accessories I need and will probably upgrade later to a Bowens Gemini 200 or an Elinchrom D Lite.

Doing the sums it seems cheaper to buy the kit than trying to buy everything individually.

The other thing with the kit is that it stores away neatly when not in use, big bonus when the other half gets a bee in her bonnet about a lack of space, etc.

Will keep you posted about what I decide.

Cheers

Jim

[WayneF]

Almost anything we want to do can be called a lighting "style", and can work. Such as One Light Portraits. But frankly two lights will be much easier to use than one light and reflector. Because a second light can be placed anywhere you want it, with any modifier like an umbrella, and you can turn it up or down in intensity as needed or desired. That is called "control". A reflector is passive, and you are relatively limited in where it can be, and what it can do... it simply does what it does, with few options. You have qualified your goal now to mention serious work, and I think you will want two lights with large umbrellas or softboxes.

The first two rows of pictures shown on your link have very even lighting, and appear to mostly be soft bounce light from above. That is a form of one light and reflector (probably the ceiling), but it appears to all be bounce light, no direct light.

Contradictory advice here: My advice to newbies wanting studio lights for portraits is to never consider the continuous lights, like the cool CFL lamps, because we cannot get nearly sufficient light out of them. Flash is so very much easier to get some usable light. Flash is the way it is done.

But product shots (as opposed to portraits of humans who move) can use continuous lights, and the resulting slow shutter speeds like 1/2 second exposure at f/11 is no problem for still shots. This continuous light gives you the ability to see your light setup as you arrange the lights, instead of having to rely on test shots to see what the lights are doing. In practice, we learn right away to expect certain results, but seeing it helps at first.

For either purpose, product or portraits, the major component is surely the large umbrellas or softboxes, to make the light be soft and relatively shadowless .

[Brooks]

The main reason not to use umbrellas for lighting products is because of the oddly shaped specular reflections they create in any objects which have a shiny surface. You don't want to see a round highlight with scalloped edges and a dark hole in the center reflected on the side of a shiny vase, lamp, tea kettle etc.

Another issue with umbrellas is the large spread of light they create. Softboxes are much easier to control. If you buy a softbox with a recessed front screen, they can be easily feathered and directed away from areas that you want to remain dark. Softboxes also create a clean, straight-edged specular highlight on the surface of shiny objects which helps define and illustrate the surface qualities of that object. The specular highlights from umbrellas disfigure and confuse those surface qualities.

You also don't want to use speedlights for several reasons.

Speedlights are underpowered compared to even the smallest studio flash. You need more lighting power for product and still-life photography than you do for portraiture.

Speedlights do not adapt well to softboxes because their spread of light is narrow compared to a bare flash head so they don't light the front screen of the softbox evenly or completely. While you can jury-rig a speedlight to a softbox, they're very difficult to use with grids, fresnel or optical spots. You will want the ability to use some harder light modifiers such as grids and fresnel spots to bring out textures and to highlight areas of the set.

The main reason speedlights are not used in professional product and still-life studios is that you can't see the light they produce. There are no modeling lamps. Why would you want to use a light that you can't see ? Not only does it not make sense, it wastes time and money to limit yourself in this way. That's not the way it's done professionally and you do need professional photography to sell your products.

You can use hot lights ie: quartz floods, spots etc. You can buy softboxes made especially for hot lights though they cost about 50% more than ones made for flash. You can use hot lights with silks and scrims, flags and fresnel spots, just as you would use studio flashes. But professional quartz lighting is not much cheaper than professional flash equipment. Some of it is more expensive. Hot lights are hot, very hot, and use much more electricity. Hot lights are also very inefficient with much less light output than that available from studio flashes and there are color temperature issues mixing them with some ambient light such as window daylight.

You're running a business, an on-line retail business. Your product phototgraphy on your web-site is what sells your products. You can't afford to use poorly lit product shots.

You could be losing many sales simply because you didn't use a mix of soft and hard light to adequately describe the thick luxurious texture of those bath towels. Or maybe the color of those towels changed when a cloud covered the sun while you were trying to shoot with available window light. Maybe the available lighting makes the products look dull and lifeless?

If you're not sure what equipment you need to do the job or how to light the products, hire the best product photographer you can find for one day. Watch how he works and check out the equipment that he uses. Ask him questions during the shoot. Better yet describe what you want and see what tools and techniques he uses to achieve that look.

There's too much competition out on the web for you to be selling yourself short with less than spectacular photography. Get the tools that you need to do the job efficiently and professionally. Your sales will increase and you'll make more than enough money to pay for the right lighting tools.

[WayneF]

Originally Posted by Brooks

The main reason not to use umbrellas for lighting products is because of the oddly shaped specular reflections they create in any objects which have a shiny surface. You don't want to see a round highlight with scalloped edges and a dark hole in the center reflected on the side of a shiny vase, lamp, tea kettle etc.

Just for sake of discussion, but not necessarily so. One white 45" reflected umbrella, up close (about 2 feet above subject:

Near shadowless lighting. Two umbrellas could be entirely shadowless. This is shiny, but no reflection or highlight objectionable to me. This was merely a casual email discussion of air gun nozzles with a friend.. Photo was near immediate, extremely little concern... quickly grabbed camera held in one hand and the umbrella bracket and speedlight held in the other hand.

There are of course very many cases. Glass is always difficult, umbrellas (or softboxes) make many things easy.

[Brooks]

Wayne,

For a fast shot to illustrate a point about air nozzles in an email between friends this is a perfectly fine photo.

As you can see from these areas circled in red, the discontinuous nature of the specular highlights on the air nozzle is caused by using an umbrella rather than a soft box or diffusion frame.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. In a commercial shot made for selling that product, these type of inconsistently rendered specular highlights would be a concern. The reflections of the umbrella look like surface defects in the metal surface of the nozzle. Whether that's a concern or not for the OP in this thread is the question. I have clients who would reject that photo or at least question me about it during or after the shoot.

[WayneF]

Originally Posted by Brooks

.
As you can see from these areas circled in red, the discontinuous nature of the specular highlights on the air nozzle is caused by using an umbrella rather than a soft box or diffusion frame.

I guess I will have to ponder getting out the softbox and studio lights to repeat this shot. My experience is that they will be extremely similar.

Your concern seems to apparently be about it seeing some black reflection (of an umbrella?), but there was nothing black to be reflected. I see no reflection of an umbrella.

This air gun is perhaps 6 inches overall long. Your circled red area on handle is perhaps 1.25 inches wide (I just measured it). The umbrella was 40 inches diameter and only two feet above it (if that), which is relatively infinite in size compared to this subject. The angles of the subject cause this, not the light source. Either light source (umbrella or my softbox) is simply about 40 inches of bright white nylon fabric. At a much greater distance, we might see a reflection of an umbrella or softbox shape.

[Brooks]

I understand that this was a quick shot for a non-commercial purpose. And it's fine for that.

Looks to me as if the dark reflection is of the area behind the back scalloped edge of the umbrella. Or if the umbrella was used in a reflected position it might be a reflection of the flash head? Maybe it's just the placement of the umbrella being too far forward or off to the left a bit.

If the subject was a bit larger with a similarly shiny surface, something like a saucer or plate with a cup on it, we might be able to tell exactly what is causing the dark reflection. We also might be able to see reflections of the ribs of the umbrella if the surface is large enough. One more reaon not to use an umbrella for this kind of work.

In any event, there must be something dark being reflected in the surface because it's plainly visible.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that the dark reflection is perhaps 1.25" long on a subject that is 6" long? Are bad specular highlights OK if they are only on a small percentage of the subject?

My point is only that a softbox or large silk creates clean highlights on shiny objects and a studio flash with a good modeling light allows you to see the light and those highlights so these types of things are less likely to happen.

You mention the size of the umbrella and it's proximity to the subject. In the samples below it took a 6.5 foot square diffusion frame to make a clean specular highlight in the convex shape of a lens. And the silk was positioned inches away from the front element of the lens.

This kind of product work is all about the details. The uneven specular highlights I outlined in your sample photo are less likely to happen with more attention to detail and the right tools for the job, such as softboxes instead of umbrellas, and modeling lights that let you see what you are doing. It's important stuff if you're trying to do professional work that sells products.

[WayneF]

Originally Posted by Brooks

My point is only that a softbox or large silk creates clean highlights on shiny objects and a studio flash with a good modeling light allows you to see the light and those highlights so these types of things are less likely to happen.

That seems clearly false. There is no difference in the "quality" of the light from same size modifers. Side effects are that the umbrella spill is a little wider, the softbox is double diffused, but both the same size and distance work alike.

So for the exercise, I tried it again, this time I actually used a light stand and tripod, instead of handholding umbrella and camera. I felt the need to position them the same, so I cannot reproduce the first one exactly, because the the softbox limits it being in the same location directly above (without getting out the boom). So to be in the same place, these are lighted more from 45 degrees high instead of directly overhead.


One 45" Umbrella and SB-800 speedlight


One 40" Large softbox with Alienbees B400


The setup

So the original little issue disappeared (it was NOT the umbrella), but this seems close enough to claim there is no difference worthy of any preaching.

[WayneF]

Sorry for the dupe... cannot find a delete.

[Brooks]

Here's a close crop where you can clearly see the differences in the cleanliness of the specular highlight in the fitting lit with the soft box compared to the one lit with the umbrella. If this item was larger in size that difference would be much more apparent.

Much of this difference is due to the shape of the soft box which has a flat front sceen and the umbrella which has a curved surface. The flat screen will produce a smoother, cleaner highlight than a surface which either curves away from or towards the subject. A double diffused softbox also has a more evenly lit front screen than an umbrella with a brighter center and dimmer edge. There's more fall-off of light along the umbrellas surface because of the curve.

Can you see the difference in the specular highlights on this fitting? There might even be what looks like the reflection of a rib from the umbrella in the center of the middle highlight.

[WayneF]

Originally Posted by Brooks

Can you see the difference in the specular highlights on this fitting? There might even be what looks like the reflection of a rib from the umbrella in the center of the middle highlight.

Sorry, no, I cannot. Here are 100% crops of that area, in the two images.



45" reflected Umbrella with SB-800 speedlight


40x32" Large Softbox with Alienbees B400

Both f/16 1/250 second, D300 and 60mm macro lens. Focused on air gun in foreground.

You will have to take my word that these are in fact an umbrella and softbox image in the situation described - planned to be as close to the same light size, distance and angle as casually possible (they are in fact as they were described).

I will have to take your word that you can imagine some difference.

The umbrella shadow on background is slightly darker, possibly an exposure difference, but situation was not perfectly equal. Mighty close however.

But size and distance is what determines light quality.

[Brooks]

I believe you when you describe your setup for the shots above. I don't think they're diferent in exposure, the bottom of the fitting looks to be the very close to the same density in each shot.

I think the specular highlights are different.

Look at the areas where the arrows are pointed in the umbrella image and compare to the softbox image. The highlights are different. There's more falloff to the sides from the umbrella and there appears to be a vertical line in the middle of the umbrella highlight.

it's not a big deal on objects this small but these differences are there. If the subject was larger the differences would be very obvious.

[WayneF]

If you say so, but I must need to have more faith. I cannot imagine how you can judge the softbox "better" than the umbrella. Everything on that shiny thing is a reflection of something, from all directions... the black thing at 3 o'clock, the brass thing at 7 o'clock, the skinny things at 9 o'clock, and of course the light at 5 o'clock... these things are at all levels of height on it.

But I see nothing that I can recognize as an umbrella there.