Finally Got My Lighting Set Up

[AAAndrew]

I received some lights and a light tent for Christmas but haven't had a chance to play with them until today. I still didn't open the tent, but just tried with the two lights. I'm quite pleased. This is straight out of the camera except for cropping. I used by Sony Alpha A55 and a Sony 1.8/50mm prime lens. I was playing around with depth of focus and still have a fair bit of playing to do, but this was pretty good for a first try. I'm happy with it for now.

 

[FOUR X FOUR]

I think it's impressive how some of you guys can take the simplest of pictures and have them look so crisp

[penrivers]

You can use sharpen in filters in photoshop: sharpen , sharpen edges. sharpen more, smart sharpen, unsharp mask.

Or use nik suite: sharpener pro 3 in raw. Or sharpener pro 3 output sharpener, but be careful, they are quite dangerous functions that can destroy your photo if you don't use with restraint, common sense is required, not to much sharpen.

[AAAndrew]

using a tripod and either a timed shutter release or a cable or nowadays they have the wireless releases. I have a cable release I use sometimes. This was just manual because with the lights I was able to use a faster shutter speed. But the tripod definitely still helps.

 

And then there are the post-processing sharpening tools like penrivers mentions, but that becomes an art as it's very easy to over-use these tools and leave too many artifacts in your picture. Been there, have the crappy pictures to prove it. Of course, sometimes you can over-sharpen for a specific visual effect, but that's highly dependent on the original photo. Here's an example of that from my Flickr set. All of the leaves on the trees and the ground seemed so spiky I wanted to emphasize that to an almost surreal extent. Whether I was really successful with the picture is a matter of debate, but at least it gives you an idea of what too much sharpening looks like. It's better to get as much as you can up front with the right setup and leave the post-processing for subtle tweaks.

 

Autumn Blur by Andrew, on Flickr

[LizB]

Excellent photo. I use my Sony A550 with an off-camera flash and little umbrella that I just balance precariously on the table. Does a similar job, but your lighting looks more even than mine. That second light must be doing its job.

[AAAndrew]

Thanks. I still need to work on how to place the lights. I took a few where the amount of light seemed drastically less than the other photos. I'm not sure how I had changed the lights, or if I was getting my exposure from another part of the image. That's why I need to play some more.

[Pterodactylus]

Hi Andrew, which lamps do you have?

Can you please post a picture of your environment, e.g. How you placed it for the picture above.

[AAAndrew]

I just got the rather inexpensive but quite adequate Neewer table-top (18") photography light stands with 45W daylight studio bulbs. They were $31 at Amazon.

 

I don't have a picture of the setup, but it was basically just the two lights on my dining room table with an overhead light, which was probably unnecessary, and the sheets of paper on the table. A very simple setup. The lights were on either side of the paper, and just a little back, so if the camera was at 6 o'clock, the light stands were at 10 o'clock and 2:30. I did move the camera around a little as I experimented and moved the lights out to more 3:00 and 9:00, but I kind of liked the 10:00 and 2:30 best.

 

I now want to try some more straight down photography, as well as some different lighting positions including more frontal lights. For the reflective nibs, I definitely want to get out my light tent and see if that helps.

[Pterodactylus]

Thanks for the explanation.

I also have to get lamps, my pictures in the evening with my desk lamp look most of the time very ugly.

[penrivers]

About landscapes and portraits I found this, amazing and amusing the lights come from the inner spirit of faces, it is not photoshop or the settings in his nikon d800, is I dont know, the talent, I would give my soul to know how he does it.

https://www.instagram.com/chivexp/

[AAAndrew]

While an amazing eye and composition, I suspect that there is some playing with lighting to highlight the faces using a layered burn or similar technique. Unless he's got a small light with him just for the face, he's raising and lowering the thresholds for different parts of the picture. Even pre-digital days there were ways of doing this in the darkroom.

[penrivers]

While an amazing eye and composition, I suspect that there is some playing with lighting to highlight the faces using a layered burn or similar technique. Unless he's got a small light with him just for the face, he's raising and lowering the thresholds for different parts of the picture. Even pre-digital days there were ways of doing this in the darkroom.

Could be Why not ? there must be an explanation.

[AAAndrew]

I did something similar to this image.

 

Prodigal Son by Andrew, on Flickr

 

 

The original was more evenly lit and I wanted to highlight just the center of the face.

[Tasmith]

Your lighting gives a very nice "depth" to the image. An easy way to add more light to the front of the subjects is to just use a reflector. A piece of white paper or white foam core works well. You can also wrap foam core in foil or use a small mirror to add a brighter fill.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Tasmith

[slippery when wet]

You can use sharpen in filters in photoshop: sharpen , sharpen edges. sharpen more, smart sharpen, unsharp mask.

Or use nik suite: sharpener pro 3 in raw. Or sharpener pro 3 output sharpener, but be careful, they are quite dangerous functions that can destroy your photo if you don't use with restraint, common sense is required, not to much sharpen.

If you Duplicate your image, one never has to worry about "destroying" the image as you can simply return to the original and start over again

[penrivers]

If you Duplicate your image, one never has to worry about "destroying" the image as you can simply return to the original and start over again

I duplicate every time and rezise. Sometimes in my duplicate I destroy the image with 164 or so in unsharp mask but I noticed a few days later but yours is a good advice for everybody, always duplicate.

[AAAndrew]

Tried out some nib photography. No light tent, just two lights and one camera. The Principalities were hard because the body of the pen is such a dark bronze, while it has that bright steel section ground near the tip, and shallow imprints.

 

I have a large magnetic plate I scavenged from the trash at a former workplace and carried it around for years. Now it's perfect for nib photography as I just taped a piece of paper to it and it holds the nibs even if vertical.