Spotlight Images?

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*Sam*

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Samantha
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I've just had a quick glance in the tutorials section and couldn't see anything so thought I'd ask here regarding spotlight photography. Has anyone had any experience shooting in the dark but using a small spotlight on a subject? I tried for the first time with an apple and whilst it did work, the shots aren't very striking and are a bit dull. What kind of settings / flash setup work for these kinds of shots?

Thanks,
Sam
 
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Well by spotlight do you mean a regular constantly on light, like a lamp, model light?

If its flash, to get a spotlight effect you'd need some kind of modifier like a snoot maybe?

Not 100% sure what you mean though.
 
From the title I was expecting a query on actors mugshots..

But for still life, there's very little different in the set-up whether you're using a flashgun or a desklamp.. except the shutter will probably be open for considerably longer for the desklamp as it will have a lower light output.

Any set-up description for still-life with flash can be adapted. Drop the term "spotlight" from your search and you should get more results.

You might want to borrow a copy of Light, Science and Magic (new edition due out in October) from the library. It's the mutts nutts for this sort of thing.
 
Samantha, first of all if you use flash you don't actually have to shoot in the dark. Nobody likes fiddling in the dark with expensive equipment..

Just use a smaller aperture and low ISO to get rid of the ambient light, then pump out a spotlight with the flash.

Bad example I found from my shots:

i-RXLX7br-L.jpg


This is Canon 7D with ISO 100, f/14, 1/320s and shot in the middle of the day, indoors. The room was not dark at all, window shades open etc.

The light source is a (relatively) cheap Elinchrom D-Lite2 studio flash with a grid to focus the light. It's quite close to the "model" and at low power which also helps to reduce the amount of light reaching the floor and wall behind him. There's no post processing in the shot to remove them.

You could do it with a smaller flash and a snoot+grid for example when indoors. These are available on ebay for pretty cheap. Outside with the sun shining you would need loads of power for the flash and ND filters to reduce the amount of light coming in through your lens.

I would not try this with continuous (non-flash) lighting, you need a LOT of watts and will create a LOT of heat.

---8<---- Don't worrry if you don't understand what's below ---8<----

I know I shouldn't use 1/320s with the 7D and studio flash.. but I didn't think the shutter shading the bottom of the pic would hurt at all here (cropped from a landscape pic).
 
A honeycomb gridded beauty dish is usually a good shout. :)
 
Thankyou so much vaizki, that's just what I was after :) Unfortunately I don't have a radio trigger yet to set my flash off without it being attached to the hotshoe on my camera so am getting one next week. Can't wait to try this because I think they look really effective.

Punkuate, I will search for one now and see how much they cost and if I can get my hands on one. Thanks for the help, this forum is the best for offering advice! (y)
 
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