jfrancho
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Registered: 01-2006
Location: Rochester, NY USA
Posts: 373
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Making a Picture: Part 1 Setup, Pose, Light, and Shoot
I've been thinking a lot about my work flow. Not so much the post processing part, but the actual task of creating a picture. There are piles and piles of image editing tutorials out there, but in PART I I am going to share the actual picture making process. In PART II I'll go through the image processing from raw to web ready image. You'll have to wait until then to see the final image. I hope you enjoy it!
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I wanted to do a simple product shoot of a fishing lure. I've done a bunch of these before, and you can see my earlier results here. This time I wanted a little more interest in the scene, but stick with a simple white background. I selected a reel and rod - a round metal frame bait caster seemed to say "bass fishing" to me, so I attached it to a shorter, cork handled rod. I picked this rod because I wanted natural cork in the image, and it's 5'6" total length would be easy to maneuver in tight quarters on my table top studio area. I then picked the bait I wanted as my subject - a Rapala Countdown in yellow perch pattern would have the rich color I was looking for.
Now I needed to pose my subject. I got the pose for the lure pretty easily, and haphazardly inserted the rod and reel into the scene. I chose an EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro because of it's sharpness and the working distance would be perfect for displaying the subject by using selective focus and a shallow depth of field (DOF).
Here is the first shot I took, in available light, just to get an idea about the pose:
Fig. 1
I pretty much got the lure exactly how I wanted it, but the rod and reel seemed distracting. There was an imbalance created by overall shape of the lure being echoed in the forward cork grip that I didn't like. Plus, there wasn't enough of the reel in the image to really tell what it was. So I made some adjustments:
Fig. 2
That's more like it! Now I have to address the DOF issue. This lens has some seriously smooth bokeh, evidenced in the picture above. Too much loss of detail, in my opinion. I want the rod and reel out of focus, but at f/2.8 (wide open) there was too much loss of detail. So, using the DOF Preview, I slowly stopped down until I saw the result I liked in the viewfinder. I ended up at f/8. I'm still just using available light, so the exposure was more than a second. This reminded me to go and dig out the remote shutter. Always a good idea to use one in these working conditions.
Fig. 3
Wow, what a difference! The reel is still OOF, but it's much clearer now. I could actually be satisfied with the image at this point, once I set a brighter exposure, but I think the scene is too contrasty. I want flatten the contrast and capture more of the detail in lower (left) half of the histogram, so I'll be adding some auxiliary lighting. Another goal will be to soften the shadows, and control their direction. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to reduce the specular highlights and reflections as well.
I started with just a 580EX mounted directly to the shoe on the camera. I don't want to change the overall look of the earlier pictures, so I set the head to bounce off the ceiling. Now I have to determine exposure and flash output without a meter. I set the camera to 1/250 sec. (the fastest sync speed) and ISO 100. I've already determined that f/8 will give me the DOF effect I want, so I am bound to that setting. I set the flash 1/4 output in M mode with the zoom set to 80mm, and squeeze off a shot. Too dark - way too dark! It turns out full power gives me a perfect exposure.
Fig. 4
Not too bad. But it could be better. There isn't enough detail in the darker portions of the lure, and the shadows seem a little harsh under both the lure and the reel. I think I need some fill here. I set up a 430EX slave on a stand and attach a white, shoot through umbrella. A smallish softbox would really be the ticket here, but the umbrella is all I have. Making what you have work for you is half the fun anyway! After some playing around, 1/4 power with the zoom set to 24mm is giving me exactly what I want. My general method to get the fill right is make gross adjustments, and slowly home in on the right amount of fill. It took three or four shots to get the output right.
Fig. 5
Now I have the balance in contrast with shadow detail I was after, but there are some reflections that I just can't live with. That streak of pure white across the dorsal surface of the lure has to go! I think it's my ceiling and the ceiling fan above me that I see in there. Ugly!
I anticipated this issue, and already had dug out my circular polarizer. CP filters are amazing little toys, and I know of no way, short of cloning out the offensive reflections, to duplicate this effect in an image editor. I made some slight adjustments by twisting the CP until the reflections were controlled the way I wanted. This won't get rid of all the reflections, and I suspect the only way to do this would be using cross polarization. But I don't want to eradicate all the reflections. That wouldn't accurately represent the glossy finish of the bait. Here is what I came up with:
Fig. 6
Well not quite. A CP filter actually reduces the exposure by around 2/3 stops. Remember that my main light source was set to full output? Well the picture was now underexposed. I had to set up a third light. I rigged a 430EX slave on a stand, positioned exactly like the 580EX on the camera hot shoe, but just to the left, set to bounce at the same angle. Even at full output, this wasn't enough to overcome the darkening effect of the CP filter. So what to do? Changing the shutter speed had zero effect on the exposure, since there wasn't any ambient light. I can't change the aperture, since I'm bound creatively to that setting. It probably wouldn't have helped to open it up anyway for the same reason as shutter speed wouldn't help. What's left? ISO. The image was about 2/3 stop underexposed from where I was before the CP. If you look at the images above, you can see that I actually had more headroom, so I set the ISO to 200, and BLAMMO! I had it!
Fig. 6 is actually the result of that adjustment.
So, to review:
I gathered my subject and props;
posed the subject;
added the props;
adjusted the composition;
determined DOF
set up my main light;
set up my fill;
added the CP;
adjusted lighting output.
This whole process took 20 shots and all of 19 minutes to produce the "hero" image. This "work flow" resulted in the following setup:
Fig. 7
You are welcome to ask questions and offer suggestions. This is just to spark some talk and interest in the picture taking process. PART II will start with the raw file and continue through the final web ready image. Stay tuned!
Thanks,
~JF
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