12 replies to this topic

[Eagles1181]

Thoughts, opinions, areas I can improve?

 

 

Eagle 

 

[nbanjogal]

Sweet little shot… I like how you've arranged the shoes. You might want to try a smaller aperture so you have more depth of field--the back shoe is perfectly sharp, but the front shoe is very soft, and since it's so close to the viewer, it's a bit disconcerting. The back shoe is brighter, so it draws the eye, but the front shoe is…well, in front, so we sort of expect it to be the "thing" to look at, you know?

 

Did you have a fill light at all? It looks like you had a light slightly left of camera, so it might be nice to have a white card or reflector or even another soft light to the right to fill those shadows. You may want to up your exposure a bit to blow out some of the detail in your white backdrop (wrinkles and such). You can also bring it up in Photoshop (I recently found this tutorial very helpful in doing just that: http://digital-photo...-photoshop.html ).

 

Still life images seem like they should be so easy…I find them them not very easy at all.

 

I need to do something like this with my little girl's shoes and other things she's growing out of. Great idea.

[Eagles1181]

I had two lights. Left and right 45 degrees. Left side had a shoot through umbrella, right side was nakes. I probably need to adjust the aim on that right side light a bit.

[Eagles1181]

 

 

Took your suggestions and did a reshoot (Still had everything set up so it was easy).  Thoughts now?

 

Eagle

[morticiaskeeper]

A nice balance between the lights, just a hint of shadow.

I took a similar shot, main flash to the left, no diffusion, overhead diffused, right hand side reflector. Taken from about 10 feet away with a 70-300 zoom.



What lights were you using?

[Merco_61]

 

Took your suggestions and did a reshoot (Still had everything set up so it was easy).  Thoughts now?

 

Eagle

Much better with the hints of shadows. With the higher exposure overall, you lost some saturation. Which version is truer to the shoes themselves? Nice work!

[Eagles1181]

What lights were you using?

I have a pair of yongnuo 560 IIIs.

Love the photo BTW.

Much better with the hints of shadows. With the higher exposure overall, you lost some saturation. Which version is truer to the shoes themselves? Nice work!

True color of the shoes is a little darker than the second photo, but not nearly as dark as the first.

Eagle

[K-9]

I feel continuous lights are easier for still life and product shots, as you have better control over shadows. Using a tripod, cable release and a small aperture, lighting and sharpness can easily be perfected. You can get the same result as your shoot with strobes/flashes.

[etphoto]

Lol, the first shoe shot, shadow too deep and the 2nd attempt appeared flat to me. Something in the middle maybe.

[nbanjogal]

I feel continuous lights are easier for still life and product shots, as you have better control over shadows. Using a tripod, cable release and a small aperture, lighting and sharpness can easily be perfected. You can get the same result as your shoot with strobes/flashes.

 

What do you use for your continuous lights? (I'm looking into getting some.)

[K-9]

Multi socket CFL lamps work great with soft boxes:

 

http://www.bhphotovi...nt_fixture.html

 

You can also get single bulb kits like this, that come with the stands and soft boxes already.  I do like the multi bulb versions better, though, as you have more control over brightness.

 

http://www.bhphotovi...ral_single.html

[Ron]

You can add a four lamp adaptor to the single lamp heads. I have a Westcott Ulight single light head with softbox and a Westcott 4 lamp adaptor. It works well but I need higher wattage lamps before it can replace my flash, In my case it will take any combination of CFL's up to 500w total. I'm not sure about the Impact kits although I imagine the total wattage is similar. 

 

I like it because focusing is so much easier and I often work on locations where ambient light can be too low for critical focusing. 

 

--Ron

[deano]

I also think the 2nd shot is much more in total focus but needs more saturation.