Either I'm developing bad habits, or need to get to next level

[vigilante]

I'm at a place where my photography really needs to improve, and I'm running in to issues that I know can be solved likely with gear improvements or whatever, but not sure where to turn.

Let me give an example. I started using dual flashes for product photography about 5 months ago. It has improved my pictures from the previous method which was 3 lamps and a tripod and playing with shutter speed etc.
Now, with the flashes, I can handhold the camera at 200th and there is far less in terms of bad quality light/colors getting in to the image.

I also recently got a simple black/white/grey card where I specifically just wanted the grey card to fix the white balance from within Adobe RAW (CS5). This works pretty well for fixing color.

Here is the issue I'm now having.

By using the flashes, and sometimes a lightbox, I'm able to pretty well blast out my whites/backgrounds. I usually take shots where the product fills maybe 30% of the image and the rest is white, and I've blown out about 40% of that white area. In other words, I don't like 100% blown out background, because my products/objects begin to get washed out etc etc.

I use the grey card because in RAW there is a single tool for fixing WB and clicking on grey. My problem is that I'm finding out that even though I'm blowing out white backgrounds, my object is still underexposed when it's then exposed for the white and black cards as well.

To put it another way, say I've got an original shot, and my color cards are in the shot. If I balance the photo so that the 3 colored cards are perfect, I typically have an underexposed object and too much background visible (not blown out). But as I brighten up the object with exposure/brightness/fill light/highlights/whatever, I will ALWAYS blow out my grey card to white before the product looks ok, and usually start destroying the black card as well. But in fact, when adjusting exposure based on the white and black cards, the object tends to become too contrasty too.

So the question is, what is happening here?
Is it possible to have some of my white background blown out, but ALSO have correct exposure across the w/b/g cards? If I shoot and DON'T blow any white out, but later expose to the cards, my objects are always too dark. I always blow out my grey when trying to make a product look better in post. Should I not be balancing to the white and black cards, because this change is pretty drastic usually!

The thing is, I'm not sure what I'm missing. Is this an issue of needing exposure compensation? Is it a high key thing? Do I need a light meter to find a better setting for the flashes? Am I supposed to setup manual white balance in camera first? Is it possible to blow out backgrounds while still keeping the object decently exposed and not blowing out my grey card?

I'm not sure where to turn to next to improve my pictures.

I can try to set up an example shot but I don't have one right this minute. I'm just hoping to solve this riddle how to use black/white/grey card, plus flashes, plus highkey(?), plus blowing out backgrounds, plus keeping object properly exposed.

(PS I'm not sure this is high key because isn't that more like light colored objects on light backgrounds? I'm typically shooting dark objects on white backgrounds, not sure if that's highkey technically)

Thanks!

 

[tirediron]

The lighting bible is the main piece of gear you're missing. I'm guessing (an example image or two would help the diagnosis a lot) that you're simply not lighting this correctly. The key is lighting the item and the background separately. Ideally for this you would use four lights; two to light the object and two to light the background, but if the object is small enough, one light for each will work. In addition, you need separation between the background and object. This, again, is size dependent; anywhere from 2' to 10' to get it right.

For the sake of illustration, let's say that the widget you need to photograph is the size of a toaster. I would have the object on a table, on seamless white paper, and have the paper stretch our horizontally behind it for 2-3' and then go vertical in a gentle curve. Place one light immediately behind the wideget aimed at the background (ensuring that it is not visible from the shooting position, and have the second pretty much on the lens axis, and as close to the widget as possible without being in the shot. Lastolite style collapsible soft boxes are ideal for this sort of work. Set optimal exposure for widget on the first flash, and then increase the exposure on the background by 1/3-1/2 stop until you get the degree of "blown" you want.

If you get a couple of more lights, then you will use two for the widget and two for the background, but in a cross-lighting arrangement, so that the light on the left of the widget is lighting the right side/background, and vice-versa. As for WB, yes, manual WB at whatever's appropriate, somewhere around 5500K should be pretty good.

 

[Designer]

You can get to the next level with battle points, or you can sell your life points to advance.

 

[vigilante]

I have no life points left. And I'm tired of hunting mobs.

 

[Dave442]

Put some light on the background as mentioned above. The distance from the background will keep from having that light add to the exposure of the subject. Sometimes you might want that wraparound light coming in from behind, but not on most product shots.

I do have a friend that has a green backdrop and just drops in a new background color in post. But again, you have to properly light the background.

 

[Derrel]

It sounds to me like two things are at work. First, it seems like you are under-exposing the objects in-camera, meaning the exposure is simply NOT far enough to the right for the objects.

Second, you mention a need to always "brighten" the background up in post...that makes me think you are under-lighting the white background paper.

These two issues are sort of tied together, at least as far as the way I am interpreting what you wrote.

Second...if you want the backdrop white, one easy way is to use less light on the foreground object, which will key-shift the background upward--provided you properly,generously expose the foreground object. (And I think this is not a given in your case.)

I would say instead of a complex book on lighting you need another way to determine the proper exposure for the flash units. Something like an incident flash meter with reflected light reading capabilities. Again, your descriptions make me think you are consistently 1) under-exposing the foreground object or 2) improperly ratioing the light for the foreground and background or 3) both those things.

 

[vigilante]

Thanks, this leads to a few followups:

1) In many cases I'm shooting strait down at the subject. In other words, there is no background because the object is laying flat on the table and I'm shooting from above. I don't really have an option to shoot it any other way, because, for example, it might be small, or flat, or doesn't "stand up", think like a spring or rod or other piece of metallic manufacturing.
Occasionally I have objects large enough to shoot strait-on with a background behind it, but this is rare. It is more likely I'm shooting at a slightly downward angle rather than face-on. In other words, the "background" is still just the table that the object is sitting on.
All this to say, it's very hard, if not impossible, to separately light the "background" because I'm shooting an object directly on a surface.

2) It was mentioned a couple times that I'm underexposing the object. This only becomes apparent if I use my white and black cards to fix exposure. Once Adobe RAW adjusts white and black points, that's when the object goes way dark. In most cases my objects are actually overexposed and washed out a little. This is due to trying to blow out the white table/surface that the object is sitting on.

So I've got two scenarios. If I use the flashes and expose to blow out the white paper/table/surface the object is on, then the object can become washed out and hard to bring back good rich color and blacks. If I don't blow out the whites, I have to increase exposure/brightness/ in post anyway, which washes out my greys. In other words, my grey card goes from grey to white because I can't seem to blow out the background and raise brightness without destroying grey, even when the object continues to look just fine doing it.

Here are two final photos after all processing.

This is sitting on glossy white paper. After increasing exposure and blowing out highlights to make the background white, it's not a bad shot, but I can say that there is likely no grey point here, I would have blown out my grey card to get this final result. These objects are black, but of course they are washed out just a little, they don't look very rich black.

This shot is similar, taken on white glossy paper. These are light colored objects so it was more difficult to blow out highlights and such without affecting the silver. It's not bad, in my eyes, but I wanted to give you an idea of some of the pieces I shoot. There is no background I can separately expose, and I'm dealing with high contrast, white background with black objects, or even high key like this one.

What would be the technique here to attempt blowing out my background white maintaining good exposure on the object? Is it even possible?

When taking shots like these, I expose just enough so the edges of the shot (near the flashes) are beginning to blow out, but I try to make sure I'm not blowing out the whites on or near the object itself.
I guess I just don't know if, when doing it this way, if the object is actually correctly exposed. Perhaps it's still blown out? Perhaps it's still under?

With the first shot I posted with black objects, I was at 36mm with spot metering and auto white balance with the Nikkor kit lens 18-55mm at f/5.1.
I have to maintain some distance from the object in order to focus, maybe 15 inches or so. All that to say, in the final shot, there is a lot of white surrounding the object!

I just don't know how to improve my technique to not need to blow out greys in post, or be able to blow out whites in the shot while not overexposing the object.

Thanks again!

 

[Dave442]

With that stuff I would use a lightbox. Have light you can also aim in from below. Then put a frosted white piece of plexiglas in above the bottom of the box as the base to set the objects on.

In the shots you posted there are some shadows, so it looks like with that setup you could try and add some reflectors or additional lights to fill in better.

 

[vigilante]

Those shots were in a small lightbox with a flash on either side. I usually try to make one flash brighter so I can have shadows in a single direction.

I've been thinking today about lighting from underneath, that seems to be the logical choice for objects that have to sit flat on a surface. The options for this seem slim, the few translucent tables I've found on Amazon don't have the best reviews, or they scratch easy, acrylic, etc.

I can try raising up my light box, but I'll need a flat surface inside it that doesn't flex, which means it would probably block the under-light anyway!

Do I have to get an acrylic table top?

 

[Dave442]

Years ago we had one big table that was lit from below and was used to copy engineering plans. Another table was a slide sorter. I used these many times for photographing objects before I had heard of a lightbox.

Using flashes and not continuous lighting makes it a bit more difficult to control the shadows. Especially as you have objects to photograph of different sizes and shapes.

I would also look to stop down a bit more as the back part of the first photo is going out of focus.

 

[tirediron]

Two methods come to mind: (1) Use white nylons "stocks" and blue-tac or similar to raise the parts. This will require a small amount of retouching, but it would be very easy retouching; and (2) Place the objects on a piece of plate glass above the white background. This would probably require a polarizer, and potentially cross-polarization to make the glass 'disapear' but it would allow you to separately light the two. Search YouTube for "Dean Collins" to get an idea of how much work can go into a product shot.