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Dave Montizambert's Creating With Light Part 34 Jack Be Nimble - part 3 of 1 2 3

by Dave Montizambert Published 01/12/2014

Set-up In Detail:

Height of subject: 33" from floor to Jack's eyes.Tabletop surface height: 24" from floor to bar stool top. Ambient light: 178" inches from Jack on the camera-right side of the set was a large window, this window created side lighting on Jack and the props. An incident meter reading taken near Jack with the dome pointed at the window read f2 at 0.5 seconds, this reading equals one-stop darker than the camera's exposure setting (see Image 002 A). Light origin (strobe): a Lightrein 1200 watt mono-bloc studio strobe on a floor stand was positioned 32" above the floor some 28" behind and to camera-left of Jack. It was set to 1⁄3 power and was tilted up at 3.7˚ to spill over the set. This delivered a volume of light that measured f 2.8 and 8⁄10th at the back of Jack (see Image 002 B).

Main-source: a 5" diameter disk of silver foil-board (aluminium foil works too) was placed up above and a little to the camera-right side of the set; it caught the light spilling over the top of the set from the Lightrein studio strobe. This silver reflector sat 43" above the floor and was just 11" from Jack's camera-right eye. It was attached to a magic-arm which was clamped to the camera-right side of the tripod leg. To read this reflector's brightness on the subject, a small scrap from a grey-card was temporarily placed against Jack's face. A 1˚ spot reflective meter was used to take a reading off the grey-card. After adjusting the reflector, moving closer and further from the subject as well as bending the foil disk, I got it to read exactly where I wanted it -1⁄2 a stop under the camera exposure setting (f2.0 and 5⁄10th). The ambient light, the fill reflector, and the candle flame added to this, pushing the exposure of Jack's face to a bit brighter than correct, just where I wanted it (see Image 002 D).

Backlight Gobo: After the volume of light from the main-source reflector was metered, it was apparent that way too much light was striking the back of Jack relative to the amount striking his front from the main-source reflector. The resulting ratio put the light from this source at almost 1 stop brighter than the camera setting. Wanting to make it 1 and 1⁄2 stops darker, a strip of 1" x 5.5" black construction paper was positioned 4" in front of this strobe head to partially block light off the back of Jack. Careful placement of this gobo made it possible to not block any of the light spilling over the top of the set. This allowed me to reduce the backlighting without affecting the frontal main-lighting. With this go-between (gobo) in place, the light striking the back of Jack reads f2.0 and 5⁄10th (see Image 002 C). White fill-card reflector: a 15" by 17" white cardboard FedEx envelope was clamped to the back of a chair to the camera-left side of the camera, 10" from Jack's face. It caught light spilling past Jack from the strobe and reflected it back onto the front of the set. It read f1 and 2⁄10th or 3 stops below the camera setting (see Image 002 E). Background Reflector: a 5" x 10" piece of silver foil-board was clamped to a chair positioned to the camera-right side of the camera. This reflector re-directed light spilling over the top of the set on to the blue scarf background behind Jack. This reflector sat 25" from the scarfbackground (see Image 002 F).

Camera Info:
DSLR with full-frame sensor.
Lens: 28-70mm set to 45mm
Exposure: f2.8 @ 0.5 seconds, 100 ISO.
Camera angle: 25˚ forward-down-tilt .
Camera sensor distance to Jack's eyes 18".
Camera height: 39" from floor to middle of imaging sensor.

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1st Published 01/12/2014
last update 09/12/2022 14:55:20

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Dave Montizambert's Creating With Light Part 34 Jack Be Nimble - part 3 of 1 2 3