bodyscape questions....

[invncblsonic143]

I hace been trying to play with the bodyscape concept and cant seem to get it even close with a single light source what am i doing wrong? Where should the light be? And of i do what the camera tells me to do as far as metering it lights up the whole frame instead of the outline of the female body ....any tricks?

 

[oldmacman]

Low key doesn't have to be just one light, although many interesting shots have been obtained this way. You want to position the light and use modifiers so that the light is directional with quick fall off. There are a couple things to think about. The further away the light source is, the more gentle the fall off, so move the light closer. You can also use a grid on your softbox if you are using one. You also want to prevent light from bouncing around the room and filling in shadows, so this is the time to break out your black backdrop, flags and subtractive lighting gear.

Use your spot meter and get a reading from where the light is hitting the subject. Finally, tweak the exposure to eliminate stray light that did manage to illuminate unnecessary areas.
Here's a two light low key that uses a kicker to provide a rim of light on the back side. It got a little hot on me:

 

[Garbz]

On of the key things to use is the inverse square law for light fall-off. It makes achieving a dark background hard if you don't have a lot of space to position your model away from a wall. I get around this by photographing outside at night.

 

[invncblsonic143]

I should have been more spacific! I have no equipment! Lol all i jave are some broght led flashlights i was trying to work with! Is it a lost cause till i purchase some lights and things like that?

 

[frisii]

I should have been more spacific! I have no equipment! Lol all i jave are some broght led flashlights i was trying to work with! Is it a lost cause till i purchase some lights and things like that?

How many megapixels is your camera? You can use crops to get the compostions if you have plenty of resolution to work with.

 

[invncblsonic143]

Its the canon rebel xti i think its 10 megapixel

 

[frisii]

Its the canon rebel xti i think its 10 megapixel

Can you remind me how many 000x000 that is? For digital display/web it doesn't matter so much but for print, significant reduction by cropping will limit you to 7"x5", 5"x4" etc, at 300dpi.

 

[invncblsonic143]

Im not sure to tell ou the truth : / i feel like the more questions i ask on the forum the more i realize how little i know about the topic lol i am a beginner with no equpment and am dying to get these amazing results and its just not happening lol

 

[Big Mike]

I hace been trying to play with the bodyscape concept and cant seem to get it even close with a single light source what am i doing wrong? Where should the light be? And of i do what the camera tells me to do as far as metering it lights up the whole frame instead of the outline of the female body ....any tricks?

You are at the point where you need to learn about metering.
I'll try to type out a basic rundown, but it's a vast topic that you should invest in.

Firstly, there is incident light and reflected light. Incident light is the light that is coming from the light source to the subject...and reflected light is what we see reflecting off of them. We really only see reflected light. Different things reflect different amounts of light, and that is why we can see that things have colors & tones.

If we could measure the incident light, we could easily set the proper exposure settings on our cameras. That is where a hand held incident light meter is great. But our cameras also have light meters built into them....but the catch is that they are reflected light meters...not incident light meters. So your camera can only meter the light that is reflecting off of the scene, not the light falling onto it. And because different things reflect different amounts of light, a reflected light meter is going to make errors. Luckily, these errors are predictable, so we can work around them.

Reflected light meters are calibrated to middle grey (half way between white and black). In other words, if your camera meters (sees) a scene that is middle grey, the reflected light reading will be equal to the incident light...so you would get an accurate exposure. But if your scene (or the area that you are metering on) is darker or brighter than middle grey, the reflected light meter reading will be inaccurate. So if you are shooting a black wall, the camera doesn't know that it's a black wall. It things it's shooting a middle grey wall in low light...so it gives you too much exposure. If you are shooting a white wall, the camera thinks that it's a middle grey wall that has a lot of light on it...so it gives you less exposure.

So in other words, if your scene is dark, the camera will probably give you settings that cause overexposure (that's what is happening to you). And if your scene is too bright, then the camera will give you settings that cause underexposure.

In either case, this is easily predictable and all you need to do, is add or subtract exposure from the camera's meter reading.
In any of the auto modes, you can just change the EC (exposure compensation). On your cameras screen, this will move the 'needle' away from the zero (..0..) on the scale.
Or you can just use manual mode.

If you get really good at metering, you may be able to easily estimate how much over or under you need to be, to get accurate exposure...but there are several ways to meter accurately. One basic method is to use a grey card. A grey card is middle grey, so you would put that where your subject is and take a meter reading. Using manual mode, you would lock those settings in. Then you can shoot your subject and get an accurate exposure. HERE is an example.

Of course, if you had a hand held incident meter, that would be ideal...but they usually aren't cheap.

And while it's not the best solution, you could just use trial and error until you get the exposure you want. But now that you know what your camera's meter in trying to do (expose as if everything is middle grey) you know that if your scene is mostly dark, that you will have to take away exposure from the camera's suggested settings.

 

[Big Mike]

Im not sure to tell ou the truth : / i feel like the more questions i ask on the forum the more i realize how little i know about the topic lol i am a beginner with no equpment and am dying to get these amazing results and its just not happening lol

You have to walk before you run.

But yes, you are in a bit of a pickle, as you are trying to imitate shots that were probably made using 'proper' equipment. You can, of course, do a lot, with very little equipment and a whole bunch of creativity...but sometimes you just need to use the right tool for the job.