Beginner Help with studio light please.

Dengieboy · 16 May 2015

Hi all. Im new to studio lighting and after some advice from you good people, as I have turned my garage into a studio

I've read up on different lighting setups for portraits, and wondered if you can use these setups for products, items etc? Don't see myself doing portraits (maybe odd family shot) but more creative stuff. I have been playing around with lighting my bike and have taken shots with lights placed in different places, different power settings and taken shots with just one light on to see where the light falls then adding one more light at a time. I used a black backdrop so that I could see the difference the light made against the black of the bike.
I will be purchasing a large white backdrop and would like to photograph my bike against a white background and floor. Will the backdrop and floor need to be lit with separate lights to turn out white? or will the current light set up I'm using be enough? (see below)

Below is a shot of my bike, straight out of the camera, lit with four lights. Your advice and criticism on how to improve it would be appreciated.

Lighting setup: One front strobe at 45* on the left, one front strobe at 45* on the right, one strobe 45* behind on the right (fitted with honeycomb to stop the light falling on the backdrop), one strobe in the middle behind the backdrop facing down.
Lights; 2 x Interfit Stellar150, 2 x Interfit EX150
Camera setting; F5.6, 1/200, iso100

Many thanks, Simon.

Garry Edwards · 16 May 2015

That's a pretty decent first effort.
Bikes can be difficult to light well, simply because they have lots of shiny bits and complex shapes. Because of this you need very large soft light sources, such as a softbox measuring about 6' long, overhead on a boom arm, another large softbox front right (or left) with a large reflector on the opposite side, and then some extra, honeycombed lights to illuminate specific important areas such as gears, usually placed at an acute angle.
If you really want to shoot it against a white background then yes, you will need to light the background and floor separately - which will need 4 extra lights, minimum. But, doing so will reduce your control of the light and what most pros do is to forget about the background and simply pay someone like clipping paths asia to cut the image out later.

In your case, you have no choice, because you won't have enough space for all that extra lighting in your garage.

Dengieboy · 17 May 2015

Many thanks Garry for taking the time to reply.
That first effort took about five hours of playing, moving about with the lights and the model didn't even move once! I went through the process of using just one light at a time to see what effect it had and then combined them together and was quite pleased with the result.
So to improve, I need to use softer light and will need to look into softboxes and reflectors, as I've only got a 2' square softbox at the moment.
As for the background, your right, not enough space for extra lighting so will probably end up learning how to adjust the background in photoshop.
Just spotted and bookmarked your tutorials, so Im off for a read, thanks.

Dengieboy · 20 May 2015

I've now managed to soften the lighting by borrowing a friends lightbox and using an umbrella overhead (had to cover the back half of the umbrella to stop light falling onto the backdrop). Would you say this is an improvement on the first shot? and how can I improve the lighting? It looks better to me as there's no harsh shadows, but I think I still need another light at the rear on the right at high level to light the front of the seatpost and headset.

Lighting set up as below.

Garry Edwards · 20 May 2015

It's getting better.

A shoot through umbrella isn't ideal, and it's both too far away and too small as well, and the power is set too high, but better than nothing..
The two softboxes are again too small, and much too far away ro produce soft light.
Yes, you do need another light for the front of the saddle post and whatever must be on the handlebars, but due to the lack of space you can't light both areas with the same light, because the fall off of light will be far too great, and there is the saddle bag to light too. Hotshoe flashguns are OK for this.

Does the camera need to be as high as it is?

Diving Pete · 20 May 2015

Following on from this it looks flat to me. - as in no depth to the picture.
Now if you want that then fine but think I'd prefer it slightly positioned differently. As in taking from the 3/4, front wheel ahead & that way you could almost get away with light falloff as the main focus of the picture would be in front... Just as an idea...

Dengieboy · 21 May 2015

Thanks for your replies Garry and Pete, all advice and critiscim is helpfull. The camera and bike position is just for learning / experimenting on how to achieve the best lighting. Once I've achieved the best I can manage I will experiment on bike / camera and different light position.
I used the umbrella due to not having enough softboxes but will try moving it closer and turning down the output, ideally your suggestion of a 6' long softbox from above would be ideal Garry, but they are too expensive for just a hobby.
Will move the softboxes closer to the bike but I think Im also going to look into purchasing a large sheet for a reflector and try that close to the bike on one side whilst leaving the softbox on the other side. This will free up the other softbox to try out at high level at the rear, and will have a play around at the weekend.
I do have a couple camera flashes but how would I soften the light from them? Surely I would need to purchase lightboxes for them, as I don't want to bounce the light and light up the floor and background.

Garry Edwards · 21 May 2015

Sadly, a large reflector won't work for this, because you don't have enough space. All forms of radiated energy (including light) are subject to the Inverse Square Law, which means that (approximately) when the light travels twice as far, only 1/4 of it reaches the subject.
If your bike is say 5' long and the softbox at one end is travelling 1' to reach the nearest point to it, and if your reflector is 1' away from the other end, the maths works like this.

Exposure at the point nearest to the softbox = f/16
Light travels another 6' to the softbox and then another 1' travelling back to the nearest part of the bike to the reflector, total distance is now 7'

Exposure at 1' = f/16
Exposure at 2' = f/8
Exposure at 4' = f/4
Exposure at 8' = f/2, so there will be 6 stops more light at one end than at the other. OK, that isn't quite right as we're looking at possibly 7' light travel not 8', but you get the idea, and anyway not all of the light will be reflected back. 6 stops is a massive amount, and is the difference between black and white.

On the other hand, if you had a large studio and your large light source was 14' from the nearest part of the bike, another 7' in travel distance would only result in a light loss of 1 stop, not 6 stops.

So, you need a light at each end.
Hotshoe flashguns work OK in SMALL softboxes, but as I explained above, you'd be bettter using them to light small, specific areas, not as a broad light source.

I didn't really expect you to buy a 6' softbox - what I tend to do when I answer this kind of question is to give the best advice, even if I know that it may not be practicable for everyone to actually follow it.

The time to experiment with camera position, and especially camera height, is NOW, because if you lower the camera is will affect how much you see of the specular reflections, which will affect the positioning of the lights,