Saree catalogue shoot help

Keerthi Prashanth S

Keerthi Prashanth S

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Killer Guitarist & Photographer
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Hello Team,

I am going to do a saree catalogue shoot where i need the complete details of the model and the saree. When i did the first trial shoot i found that the model's hair didn't came properly and the lighting on the face was dull. With that the lighting on the saree was also dull.

So please suggest what needs to be used in order to get the proper and clear details of models hair, face and the dress. With that i would need to know what lens can i use and what is the best setting that i can use. Because last test shoot i has configuration of f/8 and shutter speed of 1/60 with ISO as 400. And the metering that i was using was matrix metering. With that the pointer through viewfinder was completely on negative side.

Please suggest the equipments that needs to be used with the complete details such as camera settings and lightings that needs to be used in order to get a proper details of everything...

Below are the details that i have:-

a) Elinchrome Master RX light :- One is square and another one is rectangular.
b) Camera :- Nikon D7000, 18-55mm, 55-200mm,50mm f/1.8G
 
The lens and camera are almost irrelevant, what matters here is the lighting and, with respect, it's clear that lighting isn't your subject.

To create the definition you need, you need hard lighting skimming across the saree at an acute angle, then you need to introduce the right amount of controlled fill, and if possible to also light the face to best effect, and you will probably need to light the background too.
So, my starting point would be a flash head, fitted with a strip softbox and a honeycomb grid each side of the subject, facing each other and with the subject as the filling in the sandwich. The light from these will create definition both on the saree and the hair
The fill light, placed on axis with the camera, can be just about anything, an umbrella is ideal. Use the minimum amount of fill that works
And a beauty dish, high and directly in front of her face, to create the right shadows in the right places.
And, if the background needs to be lit, use two more lights for this, if you have the space, reflective umbrellas will be fine, otherwise use background reflectors.

That's about all there is to it really, other than a good model, and a careful photographer who understands that photography - and especially this kind of photography - is all about lighting control.

I've linked to Lencarta products for convenience, but you can get similar products from other places if you want to.
 
redsnappa said:
The equipment you have is more than capable of creating the shots you require.
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Well, the equipment the OP has is more than capable of producing the unsatisfactory lighting that he has now but wants to improve upon.
If you think otherwise it might be helpful to explain how to do it properly...
 
@Garry Edwards :- Thanks for the information. Let me try with the one that you have explained. The one that you have mentioned softbox for the recta is the same one that i am using.
I will check and let you know in case any more information is required.
 
redsnappa said:
The equipment you have is more than capable of creating the shots you require.
Click to expand...
The camera gear is plenty, but I'm not sure that 2 softboxes is sufficient lighting control.
 
Keerthi Prashanth S said:
the metering that i was using was matrix metering. With that the pointer through viewfinder was completely on negative side.
Click to expand...

Totally ignore the reading cameras built in metering because that will only read the ambient lighting it will not read the correct exposure you need for your studio flash.
Set your camera to manual exposure so you can adjust the shutter speed and aperture independently.
 
redsnappa said:
Totally ignore the reading cameras built in metering because that will only read the ambient lighting it will not read the correct exposure you need for your studio flash.
Set your camera to manual exposure so you can adjust the shutter speed and aperture independently.
Click to expand...
This^

But like Garry says, this isn't about camera settings, it's about controlling your light sources.
 
Keerthi Prashanth S said:
@Phil V :- I am still not sure what's a joke here? What are trying to point out here
Click to expand...
Because all the advice you've received is about the important answer, the lighting. Any of your lenses are usable, that's about what framing you want. I'm confused that it's not obvious to you.
 
It might be possible to pull off a 1/2 decent white BG shot w/ two softboxes (I'm assuming "white cutout catalogue" type images).
You need the model pretty close to the BG and the softboxes pretty far back in the "sandwich" configuration Garry described. You want the softboxes heavily feathered towards the BG so that the model is being edge lit by the front edge of the boxes (by "feathered" I do not mean "angled/pointed").

The idea here is that the softboxes will produce "harder" edge lighting and light the BG with little falloff. The frontal exposure will be "ambient" and the whole thing will be very dependent on the ambient levels (you'll need them brighter, or a less underexposed starting exposure). You *might* be able to add a bit to the frontal lighting with a reflector very close to the subject.

BTW, you may not *need* to rim light from both sides... in which case one softbox could be rotated a bit more towards the front (i.e feathered towards the BG by angle rather than position).
 
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@Phil V :- Phil it basically goes to completely underexposed mode even though i use center weighted metering or spot metering. I tried to bump the ISO but as i raise my ISO to higher level we can find noise which we basically don't require.. :(
 
@sk66 :- Thansk for your input. I think then i need to use the light power more in order to get a better look. But one quick info is that why the hair looks like its been sticked. What can be done to get every details of the hair.. Because this time i used the 150mm macro lens.. And when i tried with 24-120 mm lens we can find the dots in the models face not as clear as the other catalogues we found.. I mean there are no sharpness on the face and the hair details are not so good with both the lens.. So what would you and Garry suggest..
 
Keerthi Prashanth S said:
@sk66 :- Thansk for your input. I think then i need to use the light power more in order to get a better look. But one quick info is that why the hair looks like its been sticked. What can be done to get every details of the hair.. Because this time i used the 150mm macro lens.. And when i tried with 24-120 mm lens we can find the dots in the models face not as clear as the other catalogues we found.. I mean there are no sharpness on the face and the hair details are not so good with both the lens.. So what would you and Garry suggest..
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You have the answers above, your issues are with the lighting not the lens (Garry's opening point) and everyone else's too. Any of your lenses is capable of resolving the detail easily at the apertures used with studio flash.

The skill is in the lighting. Where and how you light creates your shadows. Your shadows create shape and texture. If you use soft even light (as you have with 2 softboxes) you don't get a lot of shadow, therefore you don't get texture. Seee Garry's initial response about using gridded softboxes to light across fabric to show the fabric texture, and using a beauty dish high at the front to create the right shadows for the face.

It's both simple and really complicated. Simple, in the light follows some simple rules, complicated in that you have some competing priorities. To do this properly as Garry suggests requires 3 lights on the model, and if you want a clean white background too, that's another 2 lights (and quite a bit of space).
 
I think we may be going round in circles here, so let's try to clarify things...
1. Every single aspect of a photography shoot is important - things like getting correct exposure, correct focus, correct colour rendition. These are a given and there isn't any real room for opinion, it's either right or wrong.
2. Pose, lighting, background - these things are just as important but they are subjective. There are no absolute right or wrong answers, which is probably why people disagree with each other on forums.
3. Right now, you haven't even nailed the exposure, because you're using the camera meter to get it right, and it can't because it doesn't know that you're using studio flash and it can't measure studio flash - so put the camera on manual, put the ISO on either 100 or 200 and forget about the ambient (room lighting and/or daylight) that's already there, it's the flash that is doing the work, not the ambient light.
4. You're trying to sell clothes. Beautiful, colourful clothes worn by beautiful women, it's easy to make them look good, harder to make them look outstanding.
5. They need to look outstanding because it's a competitive market, they aren't cheap and you need to give your customers a good reason to buy from you and not from your competitors. That's why the most successful of your competitors pay people like me £1000 per day to do their photography (I'm not looking for your business, in fact I'm not taking on any new clients). If you want to sell your products, you need to up your game and produce professional standard photos.You can do it, but you need to understand the basics and then hone your skills.
6. Right now, it seems to me that you don't understand the basics. I've written a very simply guide to flash photography, for people just starting out. It's on every one of our website pages that has a flash head or lighting kit, under the "downloads" tab. This page will do.
7. The reason why I told you (in my first page) about the specific lighting that you need, is that I've done a lot of these shoots and I know that no other basic lighting arrangement will do the job. There are areas in which you can save money but this isn't one of them, and there's no need to save money because investment in lighting will result in dramatically increased sales.

Coming back to lighting the background, the advice I gave re 2 lights just on the background if you need a lit background is correct, but mostly sarees aren't shot against white backgrounds, they have environmental backgrounds, often added in PP

Hope this helps. It might also help if you show us what you're getting right now.
 
Keerthi Prashanth S said:
@sk66 Because this time i used the 150mm macro lens.. And when i tried with 24-120 mm lens we can find the dots in the models face not as clear as the other catalogues we found.. I mean there are no sharpness on the face and the hair details are not so good with both the lens.. So what would you and Garry suggest..
Click to expand...

Probably a tripod... or use manual exposure settings with max x-sync speed (1/60 tells me you're probably in Av mode). Ideally, you should do both if the situation allows.
In a highly light controlled situation I would be more inclined to suspect a lack of light for autofocus, but I think that is highly doubtful here. So I can only guess that it's really just a basic issue with handholding a slower SS.

I agree w/ Garry in that you seem lost and it's going to be very hard for us to walk you thru this in forum posts. I also don't "disagree" w/ anything else Garry has said; I just think it's well beyond your level and equipment. It doesn't help a whole lot for us to say "use a strip box with a grid from the side" because that's only about 1/4 of the equation of using that strip box. But it's about the best we can do in a forum post because we are not there to see/sort the other factors.

I do *technically* disagree w/ where Garry said "forget about the ambient" because the ambient/ambient exposure is what sets the shadow levels/darkness... What Garry means is to set it so that it's "black," and then add in the lighting you want "on top" of that. Again, this is a much more advanced/demanding approach... it's "the best approach," but I think it is beyond your capabilities (equipment/experience/knowledge) as it stands.

TBH, I think you are in too deep and you have a lot to learn before you will be able to accomplish what you are expecting/wanting... and a "catalogue shoot" is not the time/place to be learning.
 
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sk66 said:
Probably a tripod... or use manual exposure settings with max x-sync speed (1/60 tells me you're probably in Av mode). Ideally, you should do both if the situation allows.
In a highly light controlled situation I would be more inclined to suspect a lack of light for autofocus, but I think that is highly doubtful here. So I can only guess that it's really just a basic issue with handholding a slower SS.

I agree w/ Garry in that you seem lost and it's going to be very hard for us to walk you thru this in forum posts. I also don't "disagree" w/ anything else Garry has said; I just think it's well beyond your level and equipment. It doesn't help a whole lot for us to say "use a strip box with a grid from the side" because that's only about 1/4 of the equation of using that strip box. But it's about the best we can do in a forum post because we are not there to see/sort the other factors.

I do *technically* disagree w/ where Garry said "forget about the ambient" because the ambient/ambient exposure is what sets the shadow levels/darkness... What Garry means is to set it so that it's "black," and then add in the lighting you want "on top" of that. Again, this is a much more advanced/demanding approach... it's "the best approach," but I think it is beyond your capabilities (equipment/experience/knowledge) as it stands.

TBH, I think you are in too deep and you have a lot to learn before you will be able to accomplish what you are expecting/wanting... and a "catalogue shoot" is not the time/place to be learning.
Click to expand...
Hmm...
I don't totally disagree with what you say, it's pretty obvious that the OP is way out of his depth on this and will have to climb up a pretty steep learning curve BUT it's actually quite a simple subject. Whilst it may take many years to become a good all-rounder, it doesn't have to be difficult to learn enough to get really good results in a very limited subject area, many people have done this in the past. Look at this thread, the poor guy had no idea what he was doing when he started, and had also been given a shedload of totally wrong info but he listened to the advice he was given on this forum and ended up doing extremely well - and his silk flowers were MUCH more difficult to photograph well than sarees:)

The point I'm trying to make is that studio lighting isn't the black art that many people pretend it to be. It just requires a combination of willingness to learn, a basic understanding of how light behaves, care and the right tools for the job.
 
Garry Edwards said:
The point I'm trying to make is that studio lighting isn't the black art that many people pretend it to be. It just requires a combination of willingness to learn, a basic understanding of how light behaves, care and the right tools for the job.
Click to expand...
I like Phil's statement; "it is both simple and really complicated."

The basics of lighting are "simple." and often, just applying the basics is enough to advance the level of photography above the average.
The complexity/finesse of the finer points is a finicky PITA... at least it is for me.

TBH, I'm not sure what "the details" in a full length dress image are that cross/side lighting is needed to pull them out... it's not like it's a detail shot of a white lace wedding dress or something (I don't think anyway).
In retrospect, I'm guessing the "lack of details" issue is really more related to the focus/SS issue. And I'm thinking that we've overcomplicated it.
Having just looked at saris online (I hadn't actually paid any attention before) it seems to me that the main issue is lighting the higher sheen parts without loosing them or the lower sheen areas. A basic two light (three level) soft light type of arrangement should be suitable for the primary lighting. Maybe something like a 60* side, 30-45* front/up type of setup. The primary issue(I believe) will be in getting the side light modifier large/close enough (and I would suggest using a scrim to the side and lighting the front half/edge of it w/ a softbox as a possible solution)

BTW, there are a lot of *bad* sari images online... it would be nice to know what the goal actually is. From what I've seen, one can easily do as well/better w/ two lights and a reflector... including lighting the BG.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Hmm...
I don't totally disagree with what you say, it's pretty obvious that the OP is way out of his depth on this and will have to climb up a pretty steep learning curve BUT it's actually quite a simple subject. Whilst it may take many years to become a good all-rounder, it doesn't have to be difficult to learn enough to get really good results in a very limited subject area, many people have done this in the past. Look at this thread, the poor guy had no idea what he was doing when he started, and had also been given a shedload of totally wrong info but he listened to the advice he was given on this forum and ended up doing extremely well - and his silk flowers were MUCH more difficult to photograph well than sarees:)

The point I'm trying to make is that studio lighting isn't the black art that many people pretend it to be. It just requires a combination of willingness to learn, a basic understanding of how light behaves, care and the right tools for the job.
Click to expand...

Just read that link about the flowers...I love this site!
 
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