Fluorescent or Halogen? Help Needed.

[Garry Edwards]

Having read through this entire thread and seen the effort and advice that has been given I must say I am surprised at the final result.

I fully appreciate that the cost of hiring in a pro photographer can seem a lot. However the op is looking for images to show off to clients their beautiful work.

The way I read it, and commendable as it is, the op wishes to try to get the shots done as cheaply as possible themselves.

The time spent researching and practicing and buying stuff off of eBay could have all been saved by getting a pro in.

To me its like a customer wanting silk flowers coming to the op and asking for all your ideas then wandering off home via Wilkinsons to buy the cheapest flowers and making a hash of the job themselves. The op knows their flowers would blown the clients attempt out the water...

Bite the bullet hire a pro for a day for some set shots of your most popular and creative arrangements to be used in your marketing and on your website. It will be money and time well spent.

Would you send out an arrangement to a client not looking quite right? No (should be the answer) so why would you advertise mediocre images as clients will not even stop to enquire you are probably pushing away business.

I am sorry for the slight rant but this is why there are specialist photographers. Someone comes to you for your knowledge advice and creativity, you should do the same for your images.

I agree. Sort of...
As a pro photographer, obviously I believe that people who need pro photography should always hire a pro to do it. In fact, I feel that they should hire a pro with a degree in photography, an A level in physics and at least 40 years experience

But that isn't realistic for the OP, who needs to learn to photograph just one subject really well. And he needs to be able to photograph them at a high rate of knots, in a pressured environment, just before they go out to his customers. For a pro to do that would involve shooting the products at the OP's premises, carting all the gear there, sitting around drinking coffee and then working at breakneck speed. Personally, I wouldn't be prepared to do that - and if I did do it, it would be extremely expensive.

I have very little time (does it show ) for people who want to do their own product photography but who aren't prepared to invest in equipment or learning, but the OP is happy to spend time and money because he appreciates the need for good shots, and he knows that the quality of the shots is important to his business.

Now, the big question...
Even if it is practicable to get a pro in to do those shots, and even if it is affordable on an ongoing basis, will a pro be able to get better results than the OP?

Initially, yes - without a doubt. I'm pretty good at what I do and I can certainly get much better results than a beginner with a bit of equipment. But, long term, no. With help and practice he will be able to get better results than a specialist still life photographer simply because
a. He is photographing nothing else
b. He knows his subject and is passionate about it.

In the same way and for the same reason, I know that an amateur photographer who is passionate about steam trains can get much better photos of steam trains than I can.

But we're not even talking about me or someone like me. Unfortunately there are some photographers who seem to adopt the Jeremy Clarkeson approach of "How hard can it be?" and take on jobs that they don't have the experience of even the equipment to do. And when that happens, that's another potential client (and all his business contacts) who are lost to the world of pro photography for ever, because from that point on, all pro photographers are seen as incompetent rip off merchants.

 

[Ste Manns]

From what the op has said its not practical for them to hire a pro, although I still think it would be a very good idea for them to get someone in to show them how its done, with maybe expenses paid, so they can learn properly, rather than to just buy a load of kit and still have no idea. Surely there's someone on here local who wouldn't mind helping out and maybe come away with their own portfolio shots in the bargain?

 

[silkblooms]

From what the op has said its not practical for them to hire a pro, although I still think it would be a very good idea for them to get someone in to show them how its done, with maybe expenses paid, so they can learn properly, rather than to just buy a load of kit and still have no idea. Surely there's someone on here local who wouldn't mind helping out and maybe come away with their own portfolio shots in the bargain?

I get what you're saying too but I think this forum's been extremely helpful and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to produce professional looking images with the new equipment. I do understand white balance, shutter speed and aperture size settings. I am completely familiar with these.

My main problem was the equipment. Let's wait and see the next set of sample shots I post here when I've sorted the new studio setup. You may be pleasantly surprised

 

[silkblooms]

I agree. Sort of...
As a pro photographer, obviously I believe that people who need pro photography should always hire a pro to do it. In fact, I feel that they should hire a pro with a degree in photography, an A level in physics and at least 40 years experience

But that isn't realistic for the OP, who needs to learn to photograph just one subject really well. And he needs to be able to photograph them at a high rate of knots, in a pressured environment, just before they go out to his customers. For a pro to do that would involve shooting the products at the OP's premises, carting all the gear there, sitting around drinking coffee and then working at breakneck speed. Personally, I wouldn't be prepared to do that - and if I did do it, it would be extremely expensive.

I have very little time (does it show ) for people who want to do their own product photography but who aren't prepared to invest in equipment or learning, but the OP is happy to spend time and money because he appreciates the need for good shots, and he knows that the quality of the shots is important to his business.

Now, the big question...
Even if it is practicable to get a pro in to do those shots, and even if it is affordable on an ongoing basis, will a pro be able to get better results than the OP?

Initially, yes - without a doubt. I'm pretty good at what I do and I can certainly get much better results than a beginner with a bit of equipment. But, long term, no. With help and practice he will be able to get better results than a specialist still life photographer simply because
a. He is photographing nothing else
b. He knows his subject and is passionate about it.

In the same way and for the same reason, I know that an amateur photographer who is passionate about steam trains can get much better photos of steam trains than I can.

But we're not even talking about me or someone like me. Unfortunately there are some photographers who seem to adopt the Jeremy Clarkeson approach of "How hard can it be?" and take on jobs that they don't have the experience of even the equipment to do. And when that happens, that's another potential client (and all his business contacts) who are lost to the world of pro photography for ever, because from that point on, all pro photographers are seen as incompetent rip off merchants.

I couldn't have put it better myself. I am sure that given a little practice and some initial advice on equipment and a little tweaking I can produce better images than a pro. I know what angles to use to best complement the product and as you say, I am passionate about it.

If I can learn how to produce magazine quality shots then this would be the difference between a successful business and a business that's heading for awards in excellence.

Sales are relatively quiet at this time of year in the wedding flower industry so I'll use what spare time I have between now and January to perfect this art, with your help. Priceless help may I add!

 

[silkblooms]

Well, so far everything has arrived apart from the beauty dish! Ordered it nearly a week ago but it's on back order and won't be here until next week some time. I couldn't resist a few test shots though without it. My colleague is holding the honeycomb in front of the furthest flash unit:

The same bouquet from my previous posts using the Nikon D300 on ISO 100. There's no daylight, no speedlight, just flash units and a silver reflector. The camera is on manual, F7.1 at 1/200th (to suit sync speed of IR trigger):

Close up shots come out better, is this because of the focal length?:

I appreciate that the beauty dish would make a difference but just wanted to show progress using the .9 ND gel etc.

 

[arad85]

The same bouquet from my previous posts using the Nikon D300 on ISO 100. There's no daylight, no speedlight, just flash units and a silver reflector. The camera is on manual, F7.1 at 1/200th (to suit sync speed of IR trigger):

Not sure what the sync speed of the D300 is, but you can probably slow the aperture down as it's the flash that freezes the movement. In fact, I'd suggest going to a higher F number to get more DoF as the blooms in the first are out of focus whilst the ribbon is in focus (and/or move further away and use a longer focal length). Colourwise the first looks a bit washed out and they both look a smidge underexposed. Difficult to tell without seeing the flowers themselves tho.

Definitely the best yet

 

[Richard King]

Just a practicable observation...

Why are you making your life hard and shooting down onto the product, on a white surface?

Why not hang the flowers on a thin nylon cord, in-front of a distant white surface. In that way, you can light the background properly, light the product properly and be a lot more comfy with the shooting position

That will also allow you to add a backlight into the mix

 

[silkblooms]

As always, great advice! I've turned the shutter speed down to 1/100th and upped the F-stop to F9. I've also moved back from the subject and adjusted focal length. The results are amazing:

I've been using this bouquet as it's always been a difficult one to photograph. the colours are hard to work with and even in natural daylight it can look add. The results we're getting just now (without the beauty dish) are the best studio shots we've had to date. Definitely still room for improvement I'd say. The beauty dish should help (when it arrives) but do you think I should also purchase a proper white acrylic still life table?

Changed the bouquets over to a nicer one on the same settings but this time I adjusted the cameras exposure compensation to --5.0:

What you think?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Don't give up your day job just yet, but you're getting there

You can safely use an aperture as small as f/11 with your camera, to increase the depth of field. It may be worth trying at f/16 too, but there may or may not be noticeable diffraction limitation (overall loss of sharpness caused by light bouncing off of the aperture edge).

The beauty dish will definitely be an asset, when you get it.

but do you think I should also purchase a proper white acrylic still life table?

It's almost essential for some products but I don't think you need it for this, although it would probably make life a little bit easier for the smaller products.

Why are you making your life hard and shooting down onto the product, on a white surface?

Why not hang the flowers on a thin nylon cord, in-front of a distant white surface. In that way, you can light the background properly, light the product properly and be a lot more comfy with the shooting position

It would take quite a few thin nylon cords, and it would take a while for the whole thing to stop moving - and anyway, the shadows on the background add to the effect, not detract from it. But if you want to kill the shadows on the background and light the background separately the way to do it is to shoot with the products on a perfectly clean sheet of plate glass (for safety) a good distance above the background, allowing you to light the background.

I was just wondering whether you would like to comment on your original statement that

- We're not able to use flash photography as it gives poor results for flowers. Flowers are best photographed without flash.

 

[silkblooms]

I'm not giving up my day job, don't worry, although this is becoming a part of it so I do wanna get it as best I can

I actually like a little shadow on the background so I won't be experimenting with suspending the products, or plate glass.

I do want to retract my statement from the OP though. Flash photography is most definitely the BEST way to photograph flowers indoors and the information I'd been fed from other forums was nothing but a misleading waste of my time. I'm glad I've found this forum and I can't thank you enough!

I'm really looking forward to the beauty dish arriving so I can play around with different positions but I'm quite happy with the results so far. This would be a nice product image I'd say:

I'm going to try F16 now.

 

[silkblooms]

on F16 at 1/125th I had to turn up the power on the flash units to both units on half power. This is the result..... maybe a bit under exposed?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Definitely underexposed - but the lighting is a bit on the flat side (which you can correct easily once you have the beauty dish) and because of this 'correct' exposure would result in loss of definition, with lighter areas merging together.

Remember that exposure is linear; if you halve the amount of light passing through the lens, say be changing the aperture from f/11 to f/16, you need to double the amount of power to compensate.

Other forums? Many don't even have a dedicated lighting forum and most that do seem to have one or two 'resident experts' that remind me of lost sheep masquerading as sheepdogs, with the result that the other lost sheep get driven over the cliff edge.

I was only winding you up about your original post - I told you at the time, none too politely, that you were wrong

 

[arad85]

I like the lighter version of the white blooms, but the rose/deep red ones is missing something - and still out of focus for certain bits. It may be that the colours are weird. How about a white reflector putting some light in underneath the bloom.

BTW, I am one of Garry's lost sheep

 

[Steve T]

I have been on an identical path, but with ceramic tiles. One thing I would definitely try is to use coloured background fabrics such as a peach or burgundy silk etc.. I had a lot of problems with pastels against white and things like hessian, wicker or straw looked much nicer and added some atmosphere. I would think some dress fabric and say a glimpse of pinstripe suit material etc, would do a similar job for you.

Very good thread

 

[silkblooms]

Well, I wasn't just a little bit wrong, I was completely and utterly wrong. I'm one lost sheep that's happy to be found!

I did go from f9 to f16 so I'll be pushing the flash power to full on Monday! The lens I use has settings at f9, f10, f11, f13 and f16 so if full power results in the light hitting off the edge of the shutter I could always go to f13.

I can see that the depth is better at f16 than f9. Could really use this beauty dish, didn't think it'd take so long to arrive

 

[silkblooms]

Does anyone know of an online supplier who holds these Elinchrom 70cm silver beauty dishes in stock? I've just been told by fotoSense that it won't be with them until December 6th.

 

[JonathanRyan]

Like this? http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-elinchrom-softlite-reflector-70-cm-64-26167-silver/p1004495

White seems to be out of stock everywhere but silver is in stock at WEX. You could have it tomorrow....

 

[HoppyUK]

Does anyone know of an online supplier who holds these Elinchrom 70cm silver beauty dishes in stock? I've just been told by fotoSense that it won't be with them until December 6th.

Did you get that central diffuser/deflector I mentioned in post #28? Take the front off the softbox and try it like that. It will be similar to a beauty dish.

Don't expect miracles from the beauty dish. The thing that makes most difference to the quality of the light is the physical size. Relatively speaking, other effects are more subtle.

 

[silkblooms]

Did you get that central diffuser/deflector I mentioned in post #28? Take the front off the softbox and try it like that. It will be similar to a beauty dish.

Don't expect miracles from the beauty dish. The thing that makes most difference to the quality of the light is the physical size. Relatively speaking, other effects are more subtle.

Thanks for the link. I've just purchased the one from WEX and it'll be here tomorrow.

I get what you're saying and I did buy a set of deflectors but I only have one softbox and it's being used above the subject on the boom. Besides, I need something to attach my new honeycomb to

Thanks for the link, that's saved me two weeks waiting!

 

[JonathanRyan]

Nah. Gridded beauty dishes are rubbish........

http://500px.com/photo/3314041

 

[silkblooms]

Nah. Gridded beauty dishes are rubbish........

http://500px.com/photo/3314041

That photo's pretty amazing! What lighting setup are you using?

 

[Mahoneyd187]

That photo's pretty amazing! What lighting setup are you using?

It's written on the page, a gridded beauty dish, I'd imagine that's it...

Beauty dishes don't come alive until they're gridded in my opinion. Check out this Stephen Eastwood link for lots of examples of what a gridded beauty dish can do

http://stepheneastwood.com/tutorials/Tutorials_beautydish.htm

 

[JonathanRyan]

Thanks

More or less this....

Lencarta EP600 with a battered 70cm beauty dish and even more battered grid Those angles are from memory - I'm using the edge of the beauty dish and then shooting into the dark space behind it. There's no background - it's just a long room full of junk.

 

[JonathanRyan]

Beauty dishes don't come alive until they're gridded in my opinion.

Mine too

There were actual gasps yesterday when I demonstrated the BD but it's so much cooler with a grid. When I drive to a shoot, it sits behind my seat in the car and rattles all the way. I hate the noise all the way there and all the way back. But I wouldn't travel without it.

 

[Mahoneyd187]

Mine too

There were actual gasps yesterday when I demonstrated the BD but it's so much cooler with a grid. When I drive to a shoot, it sits behind my seat in the car and rattles all the way. I hate the noise all the way there and all the way back. But I wouldn't travel without it.

Store it properly and it wouldnt be battered or noisy lol

Not having a grid for the Eli BD made me sad. Shock horror I'm debating going over to the s fit dark side

 

[JonathanRyan]

Store it properly and it wouldnt be battered or noisy lol

Unless it, you know, fell over when I was using it outdoors....

Not having a grid for the Eli BD made me sad. Shock horror I'm debating going over to the s fit dark side

But doesn't the Lencarta grid fit the Ely one? I think that's what the OP plans to do. You could do the same. If you hadn't just sold it. :nuts:

 

[Garry Edwards]

But doesn't the Lencarta grid fit the Ely one? I think that's what the OP plans to do. You could do the same. If you hadn't just sold it. :nuts:

 

[Mahoneyd187]

The 44cm Eli bd?

 

[Garry Edwards]

No, 70cm only

 

[Mahoneyd187]

Thought so. Could only find a grid for the 44cm on eBay and it looked like it would make it approx 38cm because of the crappy way it fitted, masked out the rim of the dish too far for my liking

 

[Garry Edwards]

Thought so. Could only find a grid for the 44cm on eBay and it looked like it would make it approx 38cm because of the crappy way it fitted, masked out the rim of the dish too far for my liking

TBH I find that the 70cm is the ideal size, for most applications, most of the time. Lencarta make a 40cm one and a lot of people love it, but I nearly always find myself using the 70cm versions (white and silver). It's just so much more versatile, and although it's big and heavy it's manageable too.

A lot of years ago I used a 1.5m beauty dish (in an advertising studio in Germany) I don't know where he got it from but my guess is that it was made to order. It was very much 'studio only' because it took 2 people to lift it, but it was an amazing bit of kit. We used it for fashion and product shots, a lot!

It's a pity that Silkblooms is stuck with his Prolinca heads because of the cost of the beauty dish to fit them, but I'm confident that he'll get the shots he needs once he's learned how to use it. In fact, he'll probably send me a virtual drink for telling him to buy it.

 

[Mahoneyd187]

TBH I find that the 70cm is the ideal size, for most applications, most of the time. Lencarta make a 40cm one and a lot of people love it, but I nearly always find myself using the 70cm versions (white and silver). It's just so much more versatile, and although it's big and heavy it's manageable too.

A lot of years ago I used a 1.5m beauty dish (in an advertising studio in Germany) I don't know where he got it from but my guess is that it was made to order. It was very much 'studio only' because it took 2 people to lift it, but it was an amazing bit of kit. We used it for fashion and product shots, a lot!

It's a pity that Silkblooms is stuck with his Prolinca heads because of the cost of the beauty dish to fit them, but I'm confident that he'll get the shots he needs once he's learned how to use it. In fact, he'll probably send me a virtual drink for telling him to buy it.

I used the 70cm White Elinchrom for a while, though again, without a grid. Minus grids I preferred the 44cm, with a grid the 70cm gets my vote, big enough to feather the light nicely for beauty shots without it being too tight.

Kacey enterprises make a monstrously big beauty dish, check it out

 

[JonathanRyan]

Hmm. 44cm dish and 70 cm grid. Sounds like a job for gaffer tape....

 

[silkblooms]

OK, so I finally got the 70cm beauty dish and the Lencarta honeycomb didn't fit it. The little wing cips just don't fit over the rim. Not to worry though, I've managed to attach it using some strong corsage magnets and it's sitting perfectly inside the rim. Genuis!

Now to the test shots. I've set up like this:

The beauty dish is silver lined and it's fitted with the black honeycomb. The silver deflector is fitted inside the flash unit.

The overhead flash unit is turned to 1/4 power and it's lined with the .9ND gel. The beautty dish unit is set to full power.

The flash units are being triggered by an IR trigger.

The camera settings are f13.0 at 1/160 and ISO 100. The exposure compensation is set to +5 and the focal length is 70mm (at long as this lens permits).

Here are the results (getting there but I'm hoping one of the gurus here can help me tweak this even more to achieve perfection):

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciuated. I'd be keen to create darker, more defined shadows. Would you agree?

 

[Garry Edwards]

If you get rid of the trestle table and bring your shooting table (equivalent) away from the wall you will be able to control the light reflected from the wall/background, which will make it easy to control the local contrast.

And if you can move the beauty dish further away you'll get a progressively harder light too, and the lighting will be more even from one side to the other. And if the angle of incidence is more acute that will again increase the effect.

I think that Elinchrom may have changed their beauty dish,the Lencarta honeycomb always used to clip on nicely.

 

[arad85]

Still looks under exposed to me making the colours a bit drab. Perhaps a bit more light from above - I downloaded your JPEG and just increased exposure by half a stop here (hope you don't mind - if you do, let me know and I'll remove it):

seems to give everything a bit more pop and colour. Perhaps turn up the overhead light half a stop (1/4->3/8ths power - I think that's right...). Also, in the increased exposure, you can see a streak of light diagonally top running uphill from left to right above the flowers which I assume is from the beauty dish. Not sure how you need to position the beauty dish to remove this (I think it comes from the beauty dish light being more powerful than the overhead when it hits that bit of paper) but at a guess, lower down than your photo shows so it is more glancing on the paper and further away. Upping the power of the light above will also help as the ratio of beauty dishverhead will change brightening the background around the streak making it less obvious.

You may want to try altering the angle of the overhead light. Whilst it isn't producing well defined shadows, if you have it coming slightly from behind angled forwards and down, you might be able to get slightly more relief in the flowers.

I will put my general caveat in here that I'm no product photographer, just an individual going through the same process myself - albeit with different subjects - and this thread is really making me think about what's causing different things to happen. What I have found out is that relatively small changes can make big differences in the perceived results. Experimentation and understanding what you have changed and how it has affected the result can sometimes be very illuminating (!).

Some other things you might want to ask yourself.

• Do you have a calibrated monitor to show the exposure/colours correctly? If not, it is worth the £100 to get something to get it right. It's surprising how many screens I've calibrated (and recalibrated) with mine over the last year I've had it, so it doesn't now seem like £100 on a single use item.
• The image above says it was edited with MS Photo Viewer. If you don't have one, it might be worth investing in a better software tool to make your workflow simpler - I use Lightroom here and it makes import/global changes really easy on multiple images as well as being able to manipulate the overall picture. I think it would probably suit your workflow down to the ground.
• How do the colours you are getting from camera look compared to the object when it is in your hand? I've very recently invested in an X-Rite ColorChecker Passport which has just given the final kick to pull the colours back to how they look in real life. Take a look here: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=366035 for what I mean (this integrates really neatly with Lightrooms workflow).

Whilst these points won't help with getting the lighting setup correctly, they do need to be thought about to enable you to produce the best images you can as quickly as possible.

 

[arad85]

Aha! Another thing with the colours as my saved image has gone drab again (although the exposure looks better to me at least). The image you have shot says the colour space is "Uncalibrated". When I render it in Photoshop with Adobe RGB (1998), it has a nice colour pop. When I save it, it converts to sRGB which is "internet colour space" which subdues the colours. What colour space have you got your camera set to? If you can, switch it to sRGB....

 

[silkblooms]

If you get rid of the trestle table and bring your shooting table (equivalent) away from the wall you will be able to control the light reflected from the wall/background, which will make it easy to control the local contrast.

And if you can move the beauty dish further away you'll get a progressively harder light too, and the lighting will be more even from one side to the other. And if the angle of incidence is more acute that will again increase the effect.

I think that Elinchrom may have changed their beauty dish,the Lencarta honeycomb always used to clip on nicely.

When you say to move the shooting table away from the wall, by how far do you think I'd need to move it? The curved white background I'm using is attached to teh wall, so might cause a problem unless I either purchase a real shooting table or build a makeshift box with curved background.

I get what you're saying about the angles, so I'll raise the height of the beauty dish and then point it more downwards towards the subject and try moving it further back. How much further back do you reckon?

At the moment, I'm not using any reflectors. What position do you think might give the best results (if any)?

Not to worry about the clips, I've attached it firmly with corsage magnets. Just thought I'd let you know they don't fit one another.

 

[arad85]

I get what you're saying about the angles, so I'll raise the height of the beauty dish and then point it more downwards towards the subject and try moving it further back.

I think Garry is saying the opposite - lower the beauty dish and have the light glancing across the flowers. That way, you will get more shadow from the petals.

At the moment, I'm not using any reflectors. What position do you think might give the best results (if any)?

It's quite easy to experiment (if you have a reflector!). The key thing to remember is the physics of light - light essentially bounces off the reflector at the same angle it hits it. You need to draw a line in your brain between where the light is coming from and where you want it to go and position & angle the reflector accordingly. Also remember the inverse square law in terms of how far the light has to travel (i.e. a reflector close will bounce more light in compared to one further away where the light has to travel further).

 

[arad85]

When you say to move the shooting table away from the wall, by how far do you think I'd need to move it? The curved white background I'm using is attached to teh wall, so might cause a problem unless I either purchase a real shooting table or build a makeshift box with curved background.

The first thing to say is that as the side walls aren't even in your pictures, all they are doing (the white card on both the side and back wall) is giving you fill light much like 2 sides of a light tent would. As it stands, you have no way of controlling that fill light other than moving the subject away from the walls.

If you moved the table a couple of feet into the room, and took the same photo (softbox above and beauty dish to one side), the lighting you'd get would be harsher as you don't have the fill light from the walls. You could then add back in some fill light by moving a reflector (which may be just a piece of card) of some sort back closer to the subject. However, you can control the distance and angle it is placed and hence it's affect on the image. With the table backed up into the corner, you get what you get with no control. It may produce the lighting effect you want, but it'll be more luck than judgement.