Photo tips week 4
Sorry for the hiatus on posting, but for the last two weeks, I was with the family on the west coast in an area that didn’t have web service, or cell phone service. That’s the way I prefer my vacations… primitive. Now that I’m back in the real world, I’ll pick it back up.
Whether for juried shows, or other marketing purposes, your images exist for one purpose; so someone can see your wood art. We want them to view your art work, not distractions in the image. Poor quality lighting causes some of these distraction that pull the viewers eye away from your artwork. So, I’ll define a new term here: Traps. Traps are distracting visual elements in the images that trap the viewers eye, and detour it from getting to the main subject. The human brain has a short attention span for analyzing new visual data, and determining if it is important. So let’s create images that take the brain immediately to the important stuff. Before I get into lighting, let me mention a couple of other subjects that will make your life better.
Use a tripod. Some of what we discuss dealing with lighting in the future will cause a decrease in the intensity of your lights, and result in a slower shutter speed. This can cause camera shake that makes the images look out of focus. If you don’t have a tripod, you should think strongly about getting one. In the mean time, take the lamp shade off a table lamp, and screw your camera into the screw on the lamp harp. (If you have a heavy camera, don’t do this.) This is a poor tripod substitute, but it has saved my butt in a couple of cases where I didn’t have a tripod. After doing this a couple of times, you’ll buy a tripod. The rule of thumb for buying a tripod is it should weight at least 4 times as much as your camera with the heaviest lens you anticipate using. The cheap cost of a tripod is immediately forgotten while you are making a heroic but futile dive to save the camera as it hurtles to the concrete floor. I refer to these moments as gravitationally enhanced, maximum impact, high speed, terra firma interfaces. When using a tripod, you should also use a cable release, or wireless release. This is the cable/cord/remote that allows you to trigger the camera without touching it. These will also greatly reduce camera shake. These items can be a little pricey for some cameras, so I have found that using the camera’s self timer can be a free substitute. Your art work is not going anywhere, so just set the timer for a few seconds and push the shutter release. While you are waiting for the shutter to fire, the tripod vibrations are settling down. By the time the shutter goes off, every thing is rock steady.
Use the lowest ISO setting available for your camera. Higher ISO settings can cause a lot of unwanted noise and trash in your images. The higher the ISO setting, the worse this gets. If you have an image that is underexposed when you take it, and you use the cameras software to make an exposure change in the computer after it has been downloaded, this problem is much worse. I have attached some samples of this noise, and exposure correction but at a maximum image size of 100k, it may not show well. More on this when I cover file types. Point and shoot style cameras, and some of the interchangeable lens style cameras have an auto ISO setting that will automatically change the ISO for you in lower light situations. Whoever came up with this idea needs a butt kicking. If you can turn this feature off in the menu, do it. If not, I’m sorry. People often ask me why the image quality from their camera is excellent one time and lousy the next. This “feature” is one of the main reasons. So, if you can defeat this auto setting, do it. Now, on with lighting.
1. Standardize on a set up. When you find a setup that works, stick to it. Use the same light(s), the same background etc. It may be necessary due to the shape style or size of the subject to move the light(s), but make sure you use the same light(s) each time. Why re-invent the wheel each time.
2. Use the fewest possible number of light sources. Each light you add increases the complexity of the situation, and causes potential problems. Every light creates a new bright reflection in the surface of your subject. It also creates a new shadow. Last week I wrote that shadows are good for creating dimension, and that is true. However, we do not want to create multiple or crossed shadows. These are traps for the eye. Whenever possible, use only one light.
3. If you need additional light on one side of the image because the shadow is too dark, use a bounce card instead of another light (See diagram below). The bounce card can be made in multiple sizes and styles for less than $1.00. Simply spray paint one side of a sheet of cardboard with white paint, and the other with silver paint (not the chrome stuff). Or you can use a piece of white foam core board (craft store about $4.00-$10.00), and glue aluminum foil flat side out to one side of the board. I like to wrinkle the foil heavily first, then mostly flatten it before gluing it to the board.
4. Electronic flash is a good quality of light (color wise), but the flash is gone so quickly, that you can’t see the light effect until after the picture is taken. If you use a tungsten or halogen source, you can preview the final effect as you are setting up. If a shadow is in the wrong place, just move the light. If you need more light in a shadow, just move your bounce card; closer to the subject for less shadow, and farther from the subject for more shadow. You can see the final effect “live”. You can’t do this easily with most flashes. This is why I highly recommend tungsten lights if you can tolerate the heat. Just remember to set your white balance to tungsten.
5. There are multiple manufacturers that sell light tents for photographing small objects. I am not personally a fan of these tents, but they do produce a good result. I don’t like them because they are not very versatile. Also, in an effort to make small cheap and cool light sources, the manufacturers of these units sell some light sources that may not be the best choice, like fluorescent. I have never tried LED’s for lighting, so I don’t really know how well they function. If you like the effect produced by a light tent, you can easily make one yourself using several plans available from various web sites, or design one yourself using common sense. I will write about a few ideas and some things to think about for making these tents in a future post.
6. If you are looking for a tent like setup that works well, check out the phrugal photo studio by Jamie Donaldson. http://www.jamiedonaldsonwoodturner....es/phrugal.pdf I think this is excellent. This is really not a tent, because the sides are not transparent, but it uses bounce lighting for softened shadows, and light from many directions that does not cause the multiple shadow problem. You could easily scale the size of this project to fit the size of your artwork. If I could add one comment about Jamie’s design; find a way to raise the light slightly so it is not touching any surface. It should have an air space all around it. These lights get hot very quickly, and can easily start a fire. Also don’t leave it unattended with the light on for even a minute or two.
Next time, we’ll continue to tame those shadows, and keep those bright spots under control.
Brian
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