critique my lighting setup

sam conifer · Aug 6, 2016

I am trying to get the lighting I like to take reference pictures for 3D modeling. The pictures will be of toys generally about 4x4x4 inches. I had purchased a lighting kit from Amazon, and I've been experimenting with how I could best use it. I have set up three point lighting as best I could manage in the space I have to work with. I have one umbrella as close as it can possibly be to act as a key light, a more distant fill light, and for the back lighting effect, the green screen in the background does well in defining the shape of the experiment figure. A picture I took to illustrate this:

The tripod is in the bottom right corner which is aimed at the pedestal draped with the green cloth. A book is hidden for the most part by the cloth, though the hard cover of the book is intentionally visible. Enveloping this cover is a paper sleeve on which is drawn eight compass directions. This is done as an aid to get exact 45 degree rotations on the toy subject. I have been shooting at 300 mm with a 70 to 300 mm zoom lens to limit perspective distortion, which might be a bit unfortunate since I also have a 100mm macro lens I really don't understand how to use yet. The following pictures are the best I have been able to achieve with the equipment I have. (I must have had some lint on the lens I didn't notice which produced the black line to the right of the figure.)

I now realize it was a mistake to use this green cloth since it is bouncing green light onto the figure when I instead want accurate colors. I have already ordered this white muslin to replace it. I probably should have moved my fill light closer as well since it looks to me as if the shadows are much too dark. I suppose I could also just bring my exposure compensation up another additional stop.

Also, the bulbs I am using are florescent bulbs. The video I have watched here of an experiment between florescent bulbs, tungsten bulbs, and LED's shows that tungsten gives the most accurate color results. I would like to just swap out the florescent bulbs for tungsten, but I am afraid of melting my umbrellas. Is this a legitimate concern? The umbrellas are made of nylon, the melting temperature of which is 428 F / 220 C. Having no experience with photography lighting materials, I don't really know exactly how dangerous these things are.

Another thing I don't think I like too much is that my key light is as close and bright as it can be. I think I still want to experiment with it being much more harsh. Certainly replacing the bulb with a higher wattage / luminescence would be ideal, and again my fire hazard concerns come into play, but could this also be a limitation of an umbrella setup? Might I find greater benefit from a softbox or reflector?

Any other suggestions are most welcome. I plan to take pictures of hundred of similar toys, and I don't want to really get into it until I am satisfied with my setup. In advance, thank you, you wonderful information sharing people.

kli · Aug 6, 2016

Um. Why are you using f/40? that seems a bit extreme, and the dangers of diffraction from the small aperture, and motion blur (from the 13" shutter speed) could both be issues. Suggest you begin using the 100 macro, and use something more like f/8 (a typical sweet spot for lenses) or f/16. You should still get sufficient depth of field that way. Your lights will also then register more in your images, and you can get a bit more control. At f/40, you're getting almost no light.

KCook · Aug 6, 2016

kli said:
Um. Why are you using f/40? that seems a bit extreme, and the dangers of diffraction from the small aperture, and motion blur (from the 13" shutter speed) could both be issues. Suggest you begin using the 100 macro, and use something more like f/8 (a typical sweet spot for lenses) or f/16. You should still get sufficient depth of field that way. Your lights will also then register more in your images, and you can get a bit more control. At f/40, you're getting almost no light.

+ 1

Good advice above.

kli said:
one umbrella as close as it can possibly be to act as a key light

The closer the light, the softer the look. Maybe too soft in this case? Moving the light back (quite a bit I hope) does reduce the intensity of the light. So change out the bulb in the fill light to a different bulb with a lower output to restore the light ratio.

kli said:
I would like to just swap out the florescent bulbs for tungsten, but I am afraid of melting my umbrellas.

Besides the umbrella, I would also be concerned about those cheap "light heads". I have used modest household quartz bulbs with these, but not the high output photo rated tungsten. Generally I don't want to deal with that heat, so I use LED bulbs instead.

kli said:
Might I find greater benefit from a softbox or reflector?

Softboxes are sexy, but don't always make a lot of difference. Instead of a softbox I would try a big (8 inch?) bowl reflector plus a diffuser over the front.

Links for ideas -

Tungsten Light For Product Photography

Shadows

PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTING GUIDE

Kelly Cook

Leonard Migliore · Aug 6, 2016

sam conifer said:
I am trying to get the lighting I like to take reference pictures for 3D modeling. The pictures will be of toys generally about 4x4x4 inches. I had purchased a lighting kit from Amazon, and I've been experimenting with how I could best use it. I have set up three point lighting as best I could manage in the space I have to work with. I have one umbrella as close as it can possibly be to act as a key light, a more distant fill light, and for the back lighting effect, the green screen in the background does well in defining the shape of the experiment figure. A picture I took to illustrate this:

The tripod is in the bottom right corner which is aimed at the pedestal draped with the green cloth. A book is hidden for the most part by the cloth, though the hard cover of the book is intentionally visible. Enveloping this cover is a paper sleeve on which is drawn eight compass directions. This is done as an aid to get exact 45 degree rotations on the toy subject. I have been shooting at 300 mm with a 70 to 300 mm zoom lens to limit perspective distortion, which might be a bit unfortunate since I also have a 100mm macro lens I really don't understand how to use yet. The following pictures are the best I have been able to achieve with the equipment I have. (I must have had some lint on the lens I didn't notice which produced the black line to the right of the figure.)

That "lint" is on the sensor. Shooting at f/40 tends to show things like that. It will probably not be apparent at f/11.

What don't you know how to do with the 100mm macro lens? It's just a lens.

sam conifer said:
I now realize it was a mistake to use this green cloth since it is bouncing green light onto the figure when I instead want accurate colors. I have already ordered this white muslin to replace it. I probably should have moved my fill light closer as well since it looks to me as if the shadows are much too dark. I suppose I could also just bring my exposure compensation up another additional stop.

Either more uniform lighting or bringing up the shadows in post will handle that problem. Exposure compensation will just blow the highlights.

sam conifer said:
Also, the bulbs I am using are florescent bulbs. The video I have watched here of an experiment between florescent bulbs, tungsten bulbs, and LED's shows that tungsten gives the most accurate color results. I would like to just swap out the florescent bulbs for tungsten, but I am afraid of melting my umbrellas. Is this a legitimate concern? The umbrellas are made of nylon, the melting temperature of which is 428 F / 220 C. Having no experience with photography lighting materials, I don't really know exactly how dangerous these things are.

Fluorescents are awful for color accuracy, as are LED's. Use tungsten bulbs, just not great big ones. I used to use tungsten bulbs with my umbrellas until I got flashes.

sam conifer said:
Another thing I don't think I like too much is that my key light is as close and bright as it can be. I think I still want to experiment with it being much more harsh. Certainly replacing the bulb with a higher wattage / luminescence would be ideal, and again my fire hazard concerns come into play, but could this also be a limitation of an umbrella setup? Might I find greater benefit from a softbox or reflector?

You don't need brighter light since the camera's on a tripod and you can expose as long as you want.

sam conifer said:
Any other suggestions are most welcome. I plan to take pictures of hundred of similar toys, and I don't want to really get into it until I am satisfied with my setup. In advance, thank you, you wonderful information sharing people.

Umbrellas are OK. Set your fill light back so it's down 1 stop. I use a flash meter for this but you can just set your fill light distance as 1.5X the key light distance.

--
Leonard Migliore

K D N · Aug 7, 2016

to get the green of the guy:

light your background separate from the subject and move the subject further from the background.

also, f40? why?

sam conifer · Aug 8, 2016

I want to reply to all of these comments, but my testing and research is taking up time. I'll reply to part of it now while I have just finished relevant tests with my macro lens.

kli said:
Why are you using f/40? that seems a bit extreme, and the dangers of diffraction from the small aperture,

With a wide aperture I had noticed the front and back of the figure were out of focus, so I went to the farthest opposite extreme. I didn't know about diffraction though, so thank you for that.

motion blur (from the 13" shutter speed) could both be issues. I feel like the guy that asks if he needs to replace his blinker fluid said:
Suggest you begin using the 100 macro,

&

Leonard Migliore, post: 58156269, member: 322022"]
What don't you know how to do with the 100mm macro lens?

If my 70 to 300 mm zoom lens captures the subject so that it extends from the top to the bottom of the image, is this still inferior to what a 100 mm macro lens might produce? Of course there is the prime lens benefit.

I couldn't get the lens to focus. It turns out I didn't understand how to change the lens to manual focus, but I have now figured it out. I have tested apertures on this macro lens using the same figure, but I really feel the sharpest image is f/36, though I don't see a great difference in the aperture range from f/14 to f/40. I do think though anything above f/14 is inferior. In the following sample pictures the advantage of the figure is that the hand is extended to the back of the figure, so in the back of the focal field while the head is extended forward to the front of the field. Here are 10 of the 15 aperture test shots.

[/QUOTE]

lehill · Aug 8, 2016

Your umbrellas are backwards. Your umbrellas are called shoot-thru umbrellas because the light comes from the bulb through the umbrella then illuminates your subject. The great advantage of the shoot-thru is you can place the light source (the tip of the umbrella) very close to the subject to provide bright, soft lighting. You can use shoot-thrus like you have but it looks like you've discovered all the disadvantages of using them backwards.

There's a great deal of wasted light with shoot-thrus. In your set-up the light going thru the umbrella goes to lighting up the room which, in turn, also lights up your subject and just makes controlling the lighting on the subject a PITA.

You may be thinking of bounce umbrellas which have a white lining (softer light) or silver lining (little harsher light) with a black backing. Since most of the light bounces off the umbrella toward your subject there's less wasted light and you get a more control.

For harsher lighting (more strongly defined shadows) move the umbrellas further away or get smaller umbrellas. From the subject's point of view, the light source is smaller which causes harsher lighting. I've heard you can partially collapse the umbrella by taping the slider thing at some intermediate position. This also makes the light source appear smaller to the subject.

prl105 · Aug 8, 2016

Hi Sam

Personally for your intended subject matter, I think you would be better off with a light box, where you can illuminate the sides of the box as you wish to get the images that you want. With your big lights, with shoot-through umbrellas, you have so much light bouncing around the room, controlling it is very near impossible in your current setup.

barrym1966 · Aug 8, 2016

sam conifer said:
I am trying to get the lighting I like to take reference pictures for 3D modeling. The pictures will be of toys generally about 4x4x4 inches. I had purchased a lighting kit from Amazon, and I've been experimenting with how I could best use it. I have set up three point lighting as best I could manage in the space I have to work with. I have one umbrella as close as it can possibly be to act as a key light, a more distant fill light, and for the back lighting effect, the green screen in the background does well in defining the shape of the experiment figure. A picture I took to illustrate this:

The tripod is in the bottom right corner which is aimed at the pedestal draped with the green cloth. A book is hidden for the most part by the cloth, though the hard cover of the book is intentionally visible. Enveloping this cover is a paper sleeve on which is drawn eight compass directions. This is done as an aid to get exact 45 degree rotations on the toy subject. I have been shooting at 300 mm with a 70 to 300 mm zoom lens to limit perspective distortion, which might be a bit unfortunate since I also have a 100mm macro lens I really don't understand how to use yet. The following pictures are the best I have been able to achieve with the equipment I have. (I must have had some lint on the lens I didn't notice which produced the black line to the right of the figure.)

I now realize it was a mistake to use this green cloth since it is bouncing green light onto the figure when I instead want accurate colors. I have already ordered this white muslin to replace it. I probably should have moved my fill light closer as well since it looks to me as if the shadows are much too dark. I suppose I could also just bring my exposure compensation up another additional stop.

Also, the bulbs I am using are florescent bulbs. The video I have watched here of an experiment between florescent bulbs, tungsten bulbs, and LED's shows that tungsten gives the most accurate color results. I would like to just swap out the florescent bulbs for tungsten, but I am afraid of melting my umbrellas. Is this a legitimate concern? The umbrellas are made of nylon, the melting temperature of which is 428 F / 220 C. Having no experience with photography lighting materials, I don't really know exactly how dangerous these things are.

Another thing I don't think I like too much is that my key light is as close and bright as it can be. I think I still want to experiment with it being much more harsh. Certainly replacing the bulb with a higher wattage / luminescence would be ideal, and again my fire hazard concerns come into play, but could this also be a limitation of an umbrella setup? Might I find greater benefit from a softbox or reflector?

Any other suggestions are most welcome. I plan to take pictures of hundred of similar toys, and I don't want to really get into it until I am satisfied with my setup. In advance, thank you, you wonderful information sharing people.

looks like your using shoot through brolleys instead of bounce brolleys

barrym1966 · Aug 8, 2016

lehill said:
Your umbrellas are backwards. Your umbrellas are called shoot-thru umbrellas because the light comes from the bulb through the umbrella then illuminates your subject. The great advantage of the shoot-thru is you can place the light source (the tip of the umbrella) very close to the subject to provide bright, soft lighting. You can use shoot-thrus like you have but it looks like you've discovered all the disadvantages of using them backwards.

There's a great deal of wasted light with shoot-thrus. In your set-up the light going thru the umbrella goes to lighting up the room which, in turn, also lights up your subject and just makes controlling the lighting on the subject a PITA.

You may be thinking of bounce umbrellas which have a white lining (softer light) or silver lining (little harsher light) with a black backing. Since most of the light bounces off the umbrella toward your subject there's less wasted light and you get a more control.

For harsher lighting (more strongly defined shadows) move the umbrellas further away or get smaller umbrellas. From the subject's point of view, the light source is smaller which causes harsher lighting. I've heard you can partially collapse the umbrella by taping the slider thing at some intermediate position. This also makes the light source appear smaller to the subject.

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critique my lighting setup

sam conifer

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sam conifer

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