making stillife studio light

[Willie Jan]

Hi,

after working some time with my homemade studio light setup where I bounce about 850 watt at the ceiling I am investigating howto get this improved.
Now the light is above me with 2 flash tripods at the side. Often they are in the way where I stand.

In stead of bouncing I want to create a softbox above the stillife table. This way I do not have the tripods in the way. I do have a piece of milk glass(plastic) that I could use to soften the light. I use 4 lamps which are at 5000K and are spare lamps that use 70W but deliver 350W light. So heating is not an issue. i want to put barn doors aside to keep the light away from my 4x5 camera and background.

Does anybody have some links about people who did the same trick?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

There are some really good books out there on doing tabletop lighting for still-life. Go do a check on Amazon.com for them. Roger Hicks (who used to post here ) wrote one with his wife, Frances Schultz-

http://www.amazon.com/Still-Life-Pr...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199280551&sr=8-4

They have example photos and then illustrations of how the set was constructed, with lighting diagrams.

 

[CBG]

Maybe you could fabricate a boom/stand combo to hang lights and some sort of diffuser over your set. I really lik hanging the boom from the deep sides or the back sometimes so less gets in the way of the camera and me.

Many people have made up softboxes for low heat light sources from foamcore and fabric. Might be a low cost solution.

C

 

[wildbill]

could you rig your globes into a Chinese lantern. Use black ripstop nylon clipped to the camera side to control the spill.

 

[Alden]

I stuck my Lowel Tota-lites into a large heating duct, many different sizes are found in most hardware stores. I drilled two holes in the back and wired the light into place. On the large open end of the duct and at a good 8 inches from the light I gaffer taped some Tough Rolex Diffusion material. The light stand part of the Tota light of course attaches to the lightstand as per normal. You end up, not so much with a large light, but a very directional small soft box. I used this alot for smaller table top and food photography.

A much bigger ( tungsten light softbox can be acheived by stretching that same tough rolex over a 6 foot by 4 foot pvc frame, lights above can be on stands, or boomed with wooden dowels and a counter weight.

If you instead get a strobe set up, softboxes are easier to deal with because theres not much heat.

 

[Alden]

.

If you instead get a strobe set up, softboxes are easier to deal with because theres not much heat.[/QUOTE]

Sorry, I should have read your post more carefully. You were starting with strobes. I was distracted.

 

[Willie Jan]

I was planning to create something where the light box (xxxxx) can be moved back and to the front and angled around the center. This should give me enough possibilities to backlight and frontlight an object.
The fill in lights is a different thing. These are mostly besides the camera or from the side of the object.

In the light box I would make a space where a 1mm filter can be put into, so by default a white translucent, but also possible to put a different thing in.

Am I missing something?

' ......<--_____ -->
'........__|____|____
'...........|xxxxx|..\ .|
'........................\.|
'.........................\|
'..........................|
'Cam.........O..........|
'...............|..........|
'...............|..........|
'...............|..........|
'..............---......------

(I had to use the .... else my image was ruined)

 

[jerry lebens]

Hi Willie Jan - Please don't think I'm being rude, but I'm having a little difficulty understanding you.

If I understand you correctly, you are trying to suspend a sotfbox in the air, above a table...? That you already have the skills to build the box, but you're having trouble designing an adjustable suspension that doesn't take up floor space?

If I have understood correctly, I would suggest that you build a "boom" from one of your side walls. This can then be controlled with ropes and pulleys attached to the ceiling. Manfrotto produce a range of booms, but they're quite expensive. If I was you, I'd study their designs and adapt (ie steal) one of them...

If you can't understand this message, please contact me through a private email (where I can use drawings) and I'll try to help you with the design.

Jerry Lebens
info@photo-media.org

B&W Photography Magazine
Ilford Master

 

[Mike Michaelski]

Many years ago, Peterson Publishing put out a series of paperback books on photography. One of them was on building studio equipment out of lumber. I built a couple of boom arm stands according to their plans and they are huge. Scrunched down the main post is about four feet high, and can be extended to a little over seven feet. The boom arm, made from 2x2 x 8 foot lumber can reach out five or six feet to the side (with the counterbalance). Including the paint (18 percent gray) I have less than $50 in two of them. I can make a copy of just those pages of the book if you want to try it yourself. I'll also try to post a picture of the contraptions I built.

 

[Willie Jan]

Many years ago, Peterson Publishing put out a series of paperback books on photography. One of them was on building studio equipment out of lumber. I built a couple of boom arm stands according to their plans and they are huge. Scrunched down the main post is about four feet high, and can be extended to a little over seven feet. The boom arm, made from 2x2 x 8 foot lumber can reach out five or six feet to the side (with the counterbalance). Including the paint (18 percent gray) I have less than $50 in two of them. I can make a copy of just those pages of the book if you want to try it yourself. I'll also try to post a picture of the contraptions I built.

It would be very nice if you have time to make copies. The more info I have the better it is...

The basic behind all this is, what is the best way to create a shadow free area in a little bedroom, let's say 4x4meter for little fineart things and still having space enough to walk around you object and placing the 4x5.

With extra spots i can add the accent later, but the base must be shadow free. Bouncing on the white ceiling is one way, but there are 100 ways to bounce light on the ceiling, or create a tent above the scene where the lamps are inside and create a softbox. Placing the object inside those little tents is a pain in the ass if you want to do more to accent with extra spots.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Don't really understand the problem. If you have any kind of strobe fitted with a spill kill (small deep reflector, 21 cm diameter with many systems), you can fit a soft box of any desired size - usually accessories like soft boxes are available with fittings ("speed rings") to fit different diameters of reflectors. You can of course also fit an umbrella, the only downside is that it is then harder to control spill, but not impossible using flags (pieces of black card taped to other lighting stands and positioned as appropriate).

It is slightly harder to get the light right over the center of your set - the only way you're going to do this is with a stand off to one side with a long boom arm which you would position possibly at 45 degrees or flatter and to which you can fix a counterweight - obviously if the counterweight is as far from the center as the flash head, it needs to weigh the same, if it can be twice as far away, it only needs to be half as heavy. The stand you put all this on needs to be strong, since it needs to carry the flash head plus the counterweight plus the boom arm. Don't try a setup without a counterweight, it will collapse for sure! An overhead softbox is quite a standard setup for lighting still lives, so it's not too much of a problem to produce!

Regards,

David

PS: A simpler but less easily adjustable rig would of course be two lighting stands, one either side of the set, with a wood batten running between them and the softbox suspended from this. This will require 2 people to adjust but has the advantages that it doesn't stick out so far at the sides!