If you ever do product shots, I highly recommend using 2-3 poster boards. They can be purchased in any crafts store, office supply store or even Walmart, for about 5-10. They are also extremely handy when shooting portraits as a fill light to bounce off your key light. This is the set up I used on the “How a pixel gets its color” shoot. Just 2 poster boards….
This is what the end result looks like:
Ive been working like crazy on so many things…albums, the new school layout, the forum upgrades, the Photoshop DVD…its all a blur….
All your hard will is going to pay off. I know I appreciate all that you have made available to us.
To comment on the image.
What camera settings did you use?
If it were me setting this shot up and I placed the lights the way you have them set up in the first image. I would think that I set it up wrong. It looks so bright! I would most likely move the light back in fear of having too much light.
That’s where my inexperience comes in.
Good observation Rob! There is a rule to the SIZE of your light source and the distance of that source from your subject. Large light sources produce softer shadows. Small light sources such as a flash light (and light sources which are far away -like the sun), produce hard shadows. If you look at the glasses, there are very faint shadows, this is the result of a large, close light source. To prevent overexposure as you mentioned, shoot in manual and just stop the aperture down, until you are happy with it. 🙂 -M
Love those tips and tricks! Hey, you use some kinda fancy ball head on that tripod? I’ve been reading about them, but I’m not sure of the advantages (and I’m also not sure they’d work for cameras as heavy as ours). Any thoughts or recommendations? Thanks!
How do you deal with the seam? We use glossy white poster paper for a lot of our small product shots which gives us a nice, seamless curve, plus a little bit of a reflection, which can look nice.
If you look how the cards are stacked the back board goes under the front just a little, there is a slight seam (very hard to see) but if its a picture, and you bump up your curves just a touch it will disappear. Better to use larger papers with a bend in the seam location for video.
Great info Michael! Love the white background and how simple the set up is.