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Shadows – What They Are And Where To Find Them

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Did you know that shadows can work for you? In my recent article I described eight ways that you can use to enhance your photo. In that article I described 8 situations where you as a photographer can gain from the presence of shadows.

Now, it’s time to pay the debt I left at the end of the article and talk a bit about where you can find shadows. (A Valentine for my Wife by Ella’s Dad)

The shadow assignment pictures are starting to pour in – you are doing a great job. If you want your image to appear on the search tag it with DIYP and shadow. You can see the great work already coming in on this link.

Before we talk about where to find shadows, it is important that we discuss about the nature of shadows and where they are coming from.

Shadows are not an “is” but an “is not”. They are not light, but lack there of. If a light source is projecting light onto a surface you will get a nice lighted surface. If for some reason this light is obstructed – TADAM! Shadow it is. So far for kinder garden stuff. And now, on with photography and lighting stuff.[Read More…]

Eight Great Ways To Include Shadows In Your Pictures

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Usually on this site I describe ways to deal with shadows in pictures. This is because shadows can distract the viewer from the main subject. Shadows also often create high contrast that gives the sensor some hard time. In past articles I’ve shown how to eliminate the shadows, minimize them, diffuse them and even bounce to get rid of them.

But what if? What if there was a way to turn the shadow into a friend, to make the shadow so distracting, it will become the subject itself?

In this article I’ve decided to face the enemy and make it a friend. Here are eight ways to get a great shadow picture:[Read More…]

Striplight Unstripped – Some More Info

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Photographer Nathan Moody Has posted a nice threatening portrait done with the strip light setup shown here.

After enjoying this great portrait and lighting,
I can see some more added value to this picture and discussion on the “picture flick thread” (click image to go there.

The first cookie is the method used to remove the light fall off – a bounce card under the camera.

A second cookie is fluorescent flicker discussion on the photo page. O’bran was concerned with flickering of the light caused by the way fluorescent works – they flickr many times a second depending on the current fluctuation in your electricity socket.[Read More…]

Studio Lighting – The Ghetto Studio

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Just Fab has come up with a great PVC contraption she calls the Ghetto Studio. It’s a great and portable setup that takes great Glamuor shots.

I asked Just Fab to share her plans and setup and she kindly agreed. Below you will find the instructions to build such setup. Total cost is less then 40$.

We have showed a PVC setup before, but it was very big. This PVC setup can be used both indoor and outdoor. The bottom and top are tiltable, covered with Ripstop nylon. Bottom hasa car windshield screen as a reflector. The strobe goes behind the topscrim and bounces off the bottom to reflect up. Instant one light setupto do butterfly lighting. I did have to glue some of the piecestogether to keep it from falling over in the wind, but it’s modular andtears down. The bottom screen tilts about 1/16 the way down, the top istilts in the middle. I can reverse those is need be. You simply shootin between the two.

Here is an image taken with this setup. Look for shadows under the eyes. Found any? No!

just_fab_ghetto_studio_00.jpg
Sweetness by Just Fab

The next following images show the materials you need to create this Ghetto Studio, as well as assembly needed.

[Read More…]

Photo Studio Compression Pole

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usefulguy from DIYPhotography’s Instructables group has posted a pretty neat Instructable explaining how to make a photo studio compression pole. It kinda reminds me of the hardware store light-backdrop stand, but it is even easier to use.

The good news is the cost: all the parts cost 9.43 at Home Depot. Real cheap for an all purpose studio stand.

To make a good thing better, he even has a video showing how one can use the pole in a studio:

[Read More…]

Altoids To The Rescue – The Minty Strobe

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There is some great stuff going on at DIYPhotography.net instructables group. This fantastic group is a true demonstration of the DIY spirit that is behind this site. I have talked before on the subject of creating your own flash. In that article Avner Richard explained how to utilize xenon tubes to create some real Watts/Second power flashes. It is a great piece for the ones that are electrically capable.

If you are not an electrician and fear the high voltage involved, Martin (AKA PKM) has posted an Instructable just for you.[Read More…]

Studio Lighting – Great Way To Build a Ringlight

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Reader Bankara has followed up on the cheap ringlight article with another very affordable ringlight. Not as cheap as the one you can get from your LCD, but still way cheaper then the ones you get in stores. He has posted an instructable on how to build one of those monsters babies.

One of the cool features about this particular ring light is that it is collapsible. Yap! It folds in half. Simple math brings me to the conclusion that I’ll only have to defend its existence in my home half of the time. (The other spare half will go toward explaining the wife where her living room went).[Read More…]

Studio Lighting – Homemade Gridspot

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Gridspot (or grid) is a studio accessory that you can attach to your flash. When the flash fires through the grid, the spread of the light rays is limited. The effect you get is very similar to the effect achieved by a snoot, but light more controlled and really hits a small surface. You often want to use a snoot or a grid for avoiding light spillage when you are setting up you back light.

The inspiration for this article came from a strobist article that shows how to make a cardboard gridspot. I thought I can improve it by making it out of plastic known as coroplast.[Read More…]

Back to Basics – Contrast

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In the last few weeks I’ve covered the basic exposure controls like aperture and shutter speed. I’ve also discussed the concept of depth of field as an important aspect of the subject in a picture. Continuing with the Back to Basics series, it is time to explore another important aspect of the picture – contrast. Contrast is the difference in tone in your picture. Specifically the difference between the brightest colors in the pictures (called highlights) to the darkest colors in the picture (called shadows). Usually talking about contrast goes hand in hand with talking about hard light and soft light.[Read More…]

Back to Basics – Depth Of Field

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After discussing exposure in great detail, I would like to turn to a different kind of control – Depth Of Field (A.K.A. DOF). OK. Don’t jump – you are right. Depth Of Field is not a real control, but more of a result of how you used the aperture control.

In simple words Depth of field is the term you use to describe what is inside the focused area of your image and what is left outside of the focused area (and will stay home alone, and eat dry bread and drink stale water. Sorry Jewish mom syndrome…)

As I said before the control that has the most impact on depth of field is aperture. Bigger apertures tend to provide shallower depth of field. That means that if you open a wide aperture (say f/1.8) you will have a narrow location in your image which is focused. If you set your aperture to a small value, say f/22, you will have a huge focused area. The other two controls you can employ to control depth of field are Zoom focal length and camera to object distance.[Read More…]

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