Lighting

[Lil Bob]

Silver S2000 - Dieselstation Car Forums

Can anyone tell me what they used for lighting in the second photo?

Thanks alot,

Lil Bob

 

[Joves]

Looks like strobes with umbrellas to me. Except one looked to be direct.

 

[Lil Bob]

Is there any way to mimick this without buying the actual equipment?

 

[PatrickHMS]

Is there any way to mimick this without buying the actual equipment?

You can rent the actual equipment.

Seems kinda difficult to mimic photos taken with what is somewhat
specialized photographic lighting, without the lighting.

or the camera....

 

[Lil Bob]

Yeah, i understand that i just am a poor college kid so i am kinda on a budget... but thanks anyway.

 

[Joves]

Well you could improvise. Say using some of those halogen work lights and, bouncing the light off of white cards or reflective fabrics. You might also try a search on Strobist there is a wealth of information there.

 

[PatrickHMS]

Yeah, i understand that i just am a poor college kid so i am kinda on a budget... but thanks anyway.

I guess I interpreted you to want to mimic those shots of autos, and do it away from home, without much equipment, strobes, umbrellas, reflectors.

I do know a solution for an "at home" studio, where you don't have to move stuff around much.

I know a guy who bought a pair of those old Kodak movie light bars off of eBay for really cheap.

The person uses them for constant light, each one is mounted on a tripod, and he uses light bulbs ranging anywhere from photofloods to normal house type 100w light bulbs, leaves them on while shooting (or until it gets too hot), and adjusts White Balance in camera appropriately.

It sounds really hokey, but he gets surprisingly good results, and he says he paid less than $75.00 for the whole lighting setup, tripods, 2 light bars, and bulbs.

When I look at his listings on eBay or Craigslist, he has some of the best looking, and definitely best lit photos on there.

The setup is definitely cheap, homemade, but is really effective.

 

[JerryPH]

Single softbox likely in a horizontal orientation low camera left (look at how wide the soft beam is... illuminates both rims brightly. It is low becuase the shadow from the yellow steel post behind the car is reflected higher and bigger. This gives indication to height, direction and distance of light from car) .

Looks like a strip light or a horizontal softbox a touch higher camera right (look at the front bumper... widely lit not a round or short specular reflection and obviously this gives the direction that light came from as well as the approximate height which had to be at a height somewhere between underneath camera height and the ground else we would not see that specular reflection).

Without the proper equipment, as mentioned it is impossible to recreate.