Nikon School Lighting Videos

Nikon USA has a couple of videos up on their site wherein Joe McNally walks us through a couple of location shoots, and provides great photography and lighting advice.

Control of Color - Part 1
Control of Color - Part 2
Repeating Flash

I especially like how he makes Drew stand at door at the other end of the bar in the first vid. It really does add that something to the photo.

(via Strobist)

-arland-

Lighting Workshop Assignment: Behind-The-Scenes

And here's my laundry-themed lighting setup: a clothes rack as frame, a table cloth as diffuser (a flash on each side for even lighting), and a black shirt as background.

Lighting Workshop Assignment - Setup

Because the walls of the room were white, I found it difficult to turn the background black. If I turn up the flash to overpower the ambient, some light will still leak to the back so that bits of furniture were still visible. I didn't have anything large enough to block the light, so I just decided to use a background that was black to start with--one of my shirts.

Lighting Workshop Assignment - Background Clutter Visible

I was shocked at the amount of dust, too. :)

I don't know if it's noticeable here, but when I initially positioned the background shirt right behind the table it was still not black enough because of the light from the table cloth. I moved it back about a foot in the final shots to reduce the light hitting it.

Lighting Workshop Assignment - Background Not Black Enough

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Lighting Workshop Assignment - Oops

As our instructor, Jay, pointed out, it would've been better if I lighted the contents. I was able to do that (sort of) with the white background, but not with the black--I didn't have a third light. Next time. :)

Anyway, here are the results.

-arland-

Lighting Workshop Assignment

We were supposed to shoot something shiny; to see for ourselves how light sources' reflections would show up on the object, and to experiment on how to keep those reflections in control. These were the only shiny things I could find in the house that were big enough to not require a macro lens. :)

Swing Superior Black

Swing Superior Silhouette

Swing Superior White

Twisted Vase

-arland-