Composition Question!

[Ivan Boden]

Problem:
The products we’ve photographed for this course are shot on a small surface to eliminate reflections, and the smaller surface allows us to move the diffusion material, soft boxes and strobes as close as possible to the subject for a better result.

However, for real world assignments, (and speaking as a former graphic designer) clients will need quite a bit more space surrounding the subjects for advertisement-copy/typesetting.

Question:
How do we get the same, quality lighting results if we shoot on a wider area surrounding the subjects? I can shoot to silohuette and “create” the table, reflection and background (with or without gradient spot light on background) from scratch in photoshop and create the extra space needed, but that takes a lot of time. Cloning in more background takes even more time. And the results may not look as realistic or the quality good enough.

Are there any methods to pull back all the lights, mods and diffusers, shoot on a larger surface and get similar results that will be acceptable for commercial work, without having to create or clone in more background space? It’s particular difficult with a gradient in the background!

Anyone?

Topic

[Philip Sydow]

Hi Ivan,

You raise a valid point. Theoretically, you can get the same light quality if you move your lights and diffusers further away from the subject, provided your *apparent* light size, quality, and power output remains the same. In practice, this is potentially going to be difficult because you may not be able to replicate the apparent light further away (size, quality, output) and trying to control spill will likely be more difficult.

For example, following the Inverse Square Law, you could figure out how to adjust your power output to deliver the same light energy to your subject whether your light is 1 foot away or 4 feet away, but from your subject’s standpoint, all else being the same, moving your light further away makes it a “smaller” light source, and thus changes its quality of light (the Sun is a perfect example. It’s enormous, but is effectively a point light source because of how far away it is and thus is a very hard light on a clear day, casting crisp shadows).

Now, if you only need an extra few inches, then the slight differences should be fairly negligible, but only through experimentation will you know whether a given change to your setup will produce acceptable results. Photography is always about trade-offs…

[Ivan Boden]

I see what you mean. Other than the dark vertical band issue I had with the L’Oreal cosmetic bottle, I think I can move the lights and diffusion further away a few inches for some other subjects. I think it would be good to see a new lesson on how to solve this since it’s an important aspect. Would help save time experimenting and guessing, I think.