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The Westcott Eyelighter Will Give Wonderful Eyes. In Camera

by 13 Comments

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One of the holy grails of beauty retouching is perfect eyes. Actually, getting good lighting on the eyes would probably be one of the first things you would lean in a beauty retouching workshop, maybe after perfecting skin. One of the “secrets” to getting good light on the eyes is getting a slight moon-shaped highlight on the bottom of the eye. Dave Piper covered that a while back on his eye’s retouching tutorial, but what if you wanted to get this in camera?

I just stumbled upon this great lighting modifier over at Neil van Niekerk’s Tangents blog. It is called the The Eyelighter and only does one thing, but it does it well: It provides a light that gives an arched reflection in the eye.

Neil did a comparison of lighting a person with and without the eyelighter and it actually provides more than just nice highlights, it also provides a great glamor fill light.

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It is not a small modifier, nor is it a cheap one. Fully extended it is about 1.5 meter over 0.5 meters and it will set you back about a third of a grand, so it may not be the first modifier to put in your bag. If you are just starting out you may want to consider a foam board for under fill instead.

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What did you say? You want a full 25 minutes primer on this modifier? Got it:

[Westcott The Eyelighter | $300 via Neil van Niekerk’s Tangents (who was also kindly allowed us to use the photos]

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  • Awesome idea… I will bend a coupe of pvc pipes and cover with reflective material and I will save $295 usd

    • Rob

      I was just thinking the same thing.

    • Michael Turcotte

      A couple of heat bent pipes, a 10 pack bag of Ts, 5/16 nut, and 5/16 bolt with knob. If you cut the bent pipes in half, it will fit in on of those canvas chair bags. With a little ingenuity on the joints and the right paint, it wouldn’t even look like PVC.

  • If you do, let us know. I would love to show the project

  • Michael Turcotte

    Wondered about the patent, and found it – Portable photography booth and improved light reflector assembly (US5383099 A). The patent also expired. The booth is actually pretty interesting and looks like with a stack of PVC you could make one.

  • I made my own last weekend, heated and bent pvc and sewed my own reflective material onto black backing. $35 total made in one afternoon.

  • joe_average

    $10 car reflector and some fiberglass rods.

  • Jim Johnson

    I’m not super cheap with my photo equipment, but I want results for my investment.

    I don’t see that here. Maybe it will show up on larger than life prints, but what I have seen in the sample images here and elsewhere, could be achieved with any other reflector… for 5% of the cost.

    To me, that makes the eyelighter just another novelty gadget.

  • Shai Yammanee

    This is a great tutorial.
    Thank you so much for this. I can wait to bend some pvc and make one of these.
    I think I’ll attach a quick release plate, and mount it on a tripod with a ball head. It will be good to have a bit of angle and height versatility.

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