Studio, lighting & shot suggestions

[marvinzzz]

Hey guys,
wondering if someone may have some suggestions as to how I can best replicate a shot in terms of studio lighting setup & camera settings. I'm basically trying to replicate the same shot as seen in the link below. The pictures are taken from a website where you can change the colour of the tshirt online. With that said, I'm unsure what colour they originally shot - white? black? a colour? Is there anything we can say about the shots which may indicate the original colour of the tshirt that they shot to achieve the desired level of fabric detail?

ImageShack® - Gallery

As you may see, the light source is quite harsh which shows great detail of the fabric texture - this I guess was the main goal of their setup and is what I'm also trying to achieve. Would anyone have any experience of shooting something like this or have any general advice how this detail is best achieved?
Any thoughts welcomed!
Thank you,
Marvin.

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

I wouldn't call the lighting harsh...it looks fairly soft actually. Main light is camera left, at quite a steep angle...maybe even 90 degrees. On the shot with the green shirt, there is fill light on the other side...might be a 2nd light or a reflector, or it might just be reflecting off of a wall etc.

The key to showing detail & texture in fabric (or anything) is to use directional lighting (light that is coming from a different angle than what the camera is seeing)

 

[marvinzzz]

Hey Mike, thanks a lot for the quick reply! The green & black shot I'm fairly sure are actually the same - just with some post-processing done in photoshop. With that said, would you be able to tell in any way which colour that the original was shot in. Take a look at this further example of all colours.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8871/examplec.jpg

Is there any way to tell which tshirt was the original shot?
Marv.

 

[Big Mike]

I can't tell which might have been the original color. I would think that white or gray would probably be the easiest to add color to, so it would make sense to use that.

 

[marvinzzz]

I see. I suspect its the grey. Perhaps the white is too bright to keep the texture details as a lot more light will be reflected back than the grey? The black however appears to show the most detail, so I thought maybe it could be that one. Not sure!

Regardless, would you have any further thoughts about the shot setup? You think its 1 light to the left at 90 degrees or so + 1 overhead and thats it? Is there anything else you can think of to set that shot up in a studio that I should be aware of?
Thanks for your help man.
Marv.

 

[Big Mike]

You think its 1 light to the left at 90 degrees or so + 1 overhead and thats it?

It looks like one light on camera left, and low. One above and one to the right. The shadows appears to be in front and below, so reverse that to find the light position. They do looks like soft light sources...so maybe softboxes or umbrellas were used. Heck, it could be window light and reflectors...it's hard to tell.