Hi! Hope you could help me out. For a client, I'm shooting a rather large group of products against a gray background. I'm struggling a bit with the best way to light this set. I've enclosed the result of a similar shot I've done last year, but I'm not satisfied with the result. In this case I've used two speedlights with umbrellas (and another for the background). You can see the reflection of the umbrellas in the glass. So basically, I want to know how to position the lights and what modifiers to use (and how large). Thanks!
Hi Jeroen, thanks for sharing your work with us. I say your main problem is your modifiers, as you said you can see the umbrellas in the glass, and those tend to create too many disconnected highlights. I would say your best bet would be to get a couple of softboxes to replace the umbrellas, and better yet, get some diffusion in front of those.That way you'll have these long continuous vertical highlights, and these soft gradient horizontal highlights reflection instead of hard edge you have now.
I would also reduce power on one of the lights you have, the difference between them doesn't seem enough to get volume, so everything is a little bit flat. Shadows helps getting 3Dness to objects.
Turn all objects slightly to your main light (the more powerful light) so you don't get the labels as much in shadow, that you'll get when you change the ratios between lights.
Last thing I would tell you is to separate glossy objects from one another, they tend to amplify reflections of near objects and you get a lot more visual noise in your image. you'll have composition to think of first, but keep this in mind when distributing the objects in the frame.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, that's very helpful! And sorry for my late reply, I've been away for a few weeks. How would you position the lights?
well, ususally I use one on top and front of the subject, kind of low close to the table to get good contrast an rapid falloff, but far enough to get everything lit, and then one or two stripboxes (different power ratios, one main, one fill) on each side (if only one, then I'll have a reflector on the opposite) behind the diffusers. I kind of like hard light, but if you have a large set (like this one) then an octabox up top will give you enough coverage. this way you could almost get away with using just white card on the sides, if the set is large, then you would probably need to add an active light on the side (said striplights/softboxes).
But just by changing the umbrellas with sotboxes, your set would work much better, then just change the ratios, one main (higher power) and a fill (lower power). Fill can go back a little more, this will change power reaching the scene, the relative size of reflections, and lower contrast in the shadow fill. Or you could try replacing the fill with a white card (foamcore) and get the second light to the rear of the table, a little higher and pointed to your product's back, in order to create a rim light to your products. There's a lot of options, I would recommend testing before doing it for the client. Best of luck. Share your results with us, if possible, would very much like to see your work.