Next Steps...led Or Speedlight? Looking For Advice And Wisdom.

[tmenyc]

Friends,

I've been trying, over the past few months, to significantly upgrade my pen photography. My wife and I have a good camera, Canon's EOS SL1, and a Tokina macro lens; I've always had tungsten lighting from shooting pictures of paintings many years ago.

 

First step was shifting to shooting only in RAW and processing in Lightroom. Processing in Lightroom was a revelation...takes all of the pressure off getting the perfect shot from the camera -- you have to get the light right and the shot in focus at the right settings, but all of the positioning is easily done in software and Lightroom is relatively intuitive if you are comfortable with databases. My use of LR is intended to create the best possible shot of the pen as the pen is, not to enhance the pen through photography.

 

Second step was improving lighting -- I copied Christof's lightbox (thanks, Christof...) and, contrary to his setup, stood my tungsten lamp over its open roof and a diffusion cloth partway down the box. The box is 1/2" foamcore, with the sides attached by velcro for easy disassembly. It has worked really well, except for the usual drawbacks with tungsten, heat and pink. Those bulbs are hot hot, and I've now burned through two fixtures and 5-6 bulbs, which at least are cheap and easily obtained (both Adorama and B&H are between home and office...my living in NYC has never been an accident...). All tungsten produces a pink hue, which get progressively more pronounced with the age (in single digit use hours...) of the bulb, but that's easily corrected in Lightroom.

 

Over this past weekend, I came into the office and had a lengthy session with our digital media lab's large LED lamps and a 30"x30"x24" softbox, shooting a dozen Auroras loaned to me by a collector friend for the purpose. The pictures, not yet processed, are fantastic, and will need zero color correction. Clearly, the results are far superior to tungsten, and I've now shot my last tungsten pictures.

 

The growing dilemma is the future -- the two options left to me are LED and speedlight. Both would require a financial investment of $500-$750, I'm guessing, for excellent but not necessarily top-line equipment, and for the right solution I am willing to do that. So, if the financial aspect is neutralized, it seems to me I'm trading off a steep learning curve for the speedlight with the inconvenience of using and storing LED units. In my Manhattan apartment, storage is not trivial...But, I'm not sure that's the only tradeoff, and I have a lot to learn. I've never used a flash, but figure that unless I'm using TTL, which I probably will not be able to afford, I set the flash for what I believe the camera's settings will be for the final shot, to get the flash to put out the right amount of light to achieve that picture. That's sort of the extent of my flash knowledge.

 

Thus, the purpose of this post: am I on the right track? What do you use and why? What was your biggest hurdle? What am I not asking?

 

By the way, some of my recent photography, corrected in LR but shot in tungsten, is in the listings in my new website, timsvintagepens.com , which I developed over the summer for the low volume selling I do to offload and pay for my restorations, and to exhibit my inexorably growing collection, which friends and family keep asking me to see. I am always open to comments and constructive criticism about the photography.

 

best,

Tim

 

 

 

 

[OCArt]

I have taught photography for over thirty years, I say this just to establish my credentials. With the advent of digital the color temperature of the light source became a no issue-- just do a custom white balance and do not mix light sources. It looks like you have that down. My next thought is that since your subject is not moving you could use a smaller wattage light bulb and a longer exposure.

 

Another option would be to go to your local hardware store and pick up a quartz-halogen work lamp-- very bright and the fixture will not burn out. Finally, and I'm just throwing this out because it's unique, a person could use their iPad screen as a light box.

 

To my mind there is no need for strobes with a stationary object. However, if you want to go that route my students have had good luck with the very inexpensive Cowboy Studio lights. Alien Bees would be a step up in quality.

 

P.S. When I looked at your website I wondered if you ran a sharpening filter?

http://smile.amazon.com/CowboyStudio-Studio-Monolight-Umbrella-Lighting/dp/B001RBGHH6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1445310030&sr=8-3&keywords=cowboy+studio+flash+kit

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ozX3LXQlL.jpg

[tmenyc]

Great advice, the halogen never occurred to me. No, I've not used the sharpening tool at all, except (I think) in the pics of the Parker 61 in my collection, to bring out the rainbow. And, I'm not happy with the picture and plan to undo it.

The complete setup in the link is a LOT less expensive, and has a lot I wouldn't need. However, it is certainly good to know that there is a range for me to investigate.

 

I'm liking the halogen idea...

Many thanks.

 

Tim

[ac12]

Google "strobist"

The emphasis (a few years back) was to use relatively inexpensive shoe flashes, rather than the EXPENSIVE camera specific flashes.

I use Nikon SB24 and Vivitar 285HV shoe flashes with both RF and optical triggers depending on the set up.

The good thing about digital, is that you can experiment with exposure until you get it right, and it basically costs you nothing. So not being able to meter the light is not a problem. Keep notes and the experimenting will get less and less, as you develop a canned setup for certain shoots.

Edited October 21, 2015 by ac12

[cattar]

Like OCArt said, the pens aren't moving so you don't need a strobe.

At a hardware store, you could get a few clamp-anywhere light fixtures in aluminum or plastic, and a few daylight-balanced led floods. Probably spend $100 if you throw in a couple of extension cords too. You can leave the led lights on, adjust them for the effect your want and meter the light on the pen before shooting.

[tmenyc]

thanks, AC2 and Cattar -- much appreciated. AC2, I've started reading Strobist....definitely interesting.

 

Tim

[ac12]

While I like being able to see the effect of light real time, I don't like the heat, both for me, and the effect it may have on stuff that could melt from too much heat for too long. With digital, I can shoot then immediately see how it looks, so not being able to see the lighting and shadows real time is minimized.

 

I've also used the portable shoe strobes for family and office pictures. Nice being able to fit all that stuff into an athletic bag, rather than a couple carts of heavy gear.

Edited October 22, 2015 by ac12

[tmenyc]

AC, yes -- the more I read, the more this makes sense for me. I read carefully through Strobist's lesson, of starting with zero ambient light. Also, the subject and setup will always be the same, so it should be easy to establish a range of settings that will work.

Thanks.

 

Tim

Edited October 23, 2015 by tmenyc

[tmenyc]

Here are three shots of one Aurora (actually two, one is a cropped version of the nib-on-cap) from a focused session on a dozen pens, with two LED lamps, one on either side. Next attempt will add a third lamp overhead. Interesting stuff, but the more I learn about it the more I think I'm going to go to a flash or a flash with two side lights.

 

Tim

 

[OCArt]

Tim,

You need to experiment with reflector cards. Fo small products I usually just use small pieces of white cardboard but the guy in this video uses a large reflector. Same principle, see 3:24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kekNbGad2Lk

[tmenyc]

shall do, thanks!

[tmenyc]

OC, AC:

I'm back at it. Did a lot of reading and came to the conclusion that continuous lighting is just too much of a space hog for my workshop, both for when I'm using it and when it's disassembled. I've now used LED lights twice and love them, but it's a lot of equipment and space is always a major criterion in NYC. Also, the cost is quite high to get what would really work for me. Incandescent and tungsten are far too hot to handle in my space, although they are inexpensive, for sure.

 

After reading a lot of Strobist and viewing lynda.com videos, I decided that I can make a speedlight work for me and just need to get to it. This is especially so since I already have a homemade white foamcore light box set up (I shamelessly copied Christof's). On Monday, I got a used Canon 430EXII, so now I'm going to get a softbox to fit over the roof of my lightbox and light straight down into the box. I'm off work as of December 19 for a couple of weeks, and will have the entire first week to work on getting this right. so want to get all the pieces in place now.

 

My lightbox is 24x24x36 high, so today I spec'ed a 24x24 softbox and bracket, here , and a lightstand and a boom, both sort of I think acceptable but not fancy. I bought an off-camera flash cable. (Nothing like having both Adorama and B&H between work and home...). In theory, the softbox and flash could sit on the lightbox, but my foamcore box is held together by velcro, and I think the weight would be a problem. Getting the lightstand and boom both seem pretty necessary and give me flexibility for working off the box. At some point I'll build a more permanent but disassemble-able lightbox, maybe of melamine, but not now.

 

I"d appreciate your thoughts?

thanks!

 

Tim

Edited December 2, 2015 by tmenyc

[OCArt]

Tim,

The equipment you ordered will be swell. The key is to think of a pen as a cylindrical mirror-- you want to control the reflections that are visible in that mirror as seen from the camera. This is usually done by surrounding the subject with white cards or what is called "tent lighting." I don't know what "Christof's lightbox" is but I'm sure that it produces the desired surround lighting.

 

We all look forward to the results!

[tmenyc]

OC, yes, for sure -- I noted your previous comment and am looking forward to trying the additional reflection. One would have thought that the white walls of the lightbox would reflect enough, but clearly not.

Christof, by the way, is here -- has a wonderful running topic of his pen photography and his collection of vintage pens. I wrote to him awhile ago to ask what his setup is. I suspect he's a professional photographer of some kind, because he notes that his home equipment is a micro version of his office.

 

Many thanks for the encouragement.

 

Tim