Looking for studio setups

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tyrrell109

Looking for studio setups

Lead

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Posts: 257

(06/27/09 10:45:49)

Recently I saw Greg S's setup and i cant find it now, so if i could get some pics of some of your Guy's studio's and descriptions of lighting used(and not just the # like RL250 because i have no idea what that means) back round material and color's. I would especially like to see the setups of David, Greg.S, Rico Walder, and Bart. But i welcome all to their studio pics. maybe even if one of u got a step by step building on it would be very much appreciated. Thank you all who post.

Stephen

Last Edited By: tyrrell109 07/10/09 06:56:55. Edited 4 times.

Joe1015

My table top studio

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Posts: 139

(06/27/09 14:13:54)

MVF Post Breeder

Hey Tyrrell,

This is what I use. Sorry for the bad picture but you'll get the idea.

LIGHT BOX: I use a EZ cube light tent. It's the best for softening the light and getting rid of shadows. "TableTopStudio.com"

LIGHTING: I use 2 Alien bees 400w flashunits. "alienbees.com" One umbrella is a shot through and the other one is bounced. I use two lights because one is use for the main light and the other is to fill the shadows. I also use a 100w GE Reveal light on top tilted towards the front as a back light. This is for separating the object from the background. It usually gives depth of field.

If your looking for a good cheap lighting set up try: "bhphoto.com" or if your looking for something a little bit more home made, go to HomeDepot and pick up at a least 4 or more reflectors. "Like the one you see hanging from the ceiling" and a few full secturm light bulbs. You should really look into the EZ cube light tent, it's the best thing out there. They also sell different ones on the b & h website.

BACKDROP: I use a thick black cloth. Any one is fine. Just go to your local fabric store and see what they have; but velvet works the best because it doesn't reflex the light back it adsorbs it.

I hope this helps. If you have any question please feel free to contact me.

Joe,

Joe@EasternArboreals.com
www.EasternArboreals.com

Eugene Westbrook II

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Posts: 1401

(06/27/09 15:32:43)

MVFonator

Someone take pics of my animals with a set up like that please.

www.supremereptiles.it

Love you Super much, Baby!

davidnj

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Posts: 1665

(06/27/09 18:52:59)

Forum Ultra Chondro!

Tyrrell-

I'm flattered to have been called out. There's lots others who take fantastic pics as well, such as Richy C., Brie, Andrew Aaman, and the list goes on. In any case, I have wooden storage racks in my snake room to house lot's of junk. Off to one end of one rack I constructed my light box. I just built a base frame onto which I have a mirror sitting for the "floor." Each side and the top have thin white fabric which the light is shone through. I use 2 clamp lights on each side which house 100 watt cfl (compact fluorescent) natural daylight bulbs that I bought at Menards. I also have a 4 foot long dual bulb fixture angled from the top front. There are 4 foot long natural daylight fluorescent tubes in this fixture. Finally, on the top I have 3 more natural daylight tubes, one of which I believe is 24" and the other two are 18". These are not very high wattage bulbs.

The trick to getting great pics is most definitely a combination of lighting, knowing how to get the most out of the camera you are using (which is why I still haven't made the leap to a true SLR camera), and software that enables you to efficiently and accurately edit your photos.

Good luck.

View of the top:

EDIT
One more factor that goes into getting great photos....... luck, as was the case with this pic taken in the above lightbox:

David

Last Edited By: davidnj 06/27/09 19:04:43. Edited 1 times.

juddb

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Posts: 781

(06/27/09 19:34:26)

David that picture is freaking tough! Im currently in between light boxes, so i think this thread will help me as well!

El Gringo

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Posts: 1

(06/28/09 03:50:58)

att: david, what are you using for that "black mirror" effect underneath?

Regards
Henrik

Sony Raju

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Posts: 3915

(06/28/09 03:52:57)

Forum Ultra Chondro!

david,

great looking setup! id love to have a setup like that! maybe id take better pictures..or maybe thats asking too much! lmfao!

Sony Raju
www.lonestarchondros.com

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, covered in scars, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming, "Yahoo, what a ride!" -Bear Grylls

davidnj

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Posts: 1667

(06/28/09 06:47:17)

Forum Ultra Chondro!

Sony- just do it man. Mine is simple compared to some of them out there. A big trick is getting a good black background that doesn't come across as too purplish or too greenish.

Henrik- If you notice in the first pic of the lightbox, there is a black cloth that covers the background. You can see it draping down onto the bottom (the mirror) in the back left corner. When I took that picture of the hatchling I had my camera in quite close and the the black cloth was reflecting into the mirror. So think of it like this... if the egg wasn't there, all that would be in the mirror (depending on the angle that you were looking at the mirror) would be the black of the cloth. So if you wanted to take a picture of blackness you could either shoot the black background directly, or fill the frame of the camera with the mirror that has the black reflecting into it. Now just add the egg and... there ya have it.

David

El Gringo

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Posts: 2

(06/28/09 15:25:08)

OK, plain mirror...and black bagground....ehh, I have to work on that.
Thanks mate.

Regards
henrik

Sony Raju

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Posts: 3920

(06/28/09 16:18:31)

Forum Ultra Chondro!

yeah, it hink one of these days, im going to have to build one of those things. david, if i may ask, how big is that whole set up? as far as the actual box?

Sony Raju
www.lonestarchondros.com

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, covered in scars, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming, "Yahoo, what a ride!" -Bear Grylls

tyrrell109

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Posts: 262

(06/28/09 20:14:27)

Thank you David and Joe for the pics and info, if u could could u post dimensions of your studio frames(i don't want to build one for my yearling and then have to build it again bigger for when there adults), and anyone else please post your setups I'm sure me and the other MVFers would love the diversity of your looks when they attempt to build there own

Stephen

davidnj

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Posts: 1690

(07/02/09 21:49:56)

Forum Ultra Chondro!

I've been slacking. Didn't want anybody thhinking I was forgetting about getting some specs posted. The real setup you all want to duplicate is either Greg S. or Rico's. I've got no idea what they've got going on but I'd like to copy that.

David

chondroland

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Posts: 747

(07/03/09 06:59:30)

Forum Ultra Chondro!

I don't have a light tent as such. My lighting approach came about because of my use of film cameras (I still mostly use film cameras) and a light tent for film cameras would require lights that put out so much heat that the snakes would suffer too much.

I found out that by using a broad, diffused light source within an umbrella structure (or a diffused main light, such as what many of you are creating with your light tents) I can get pretty much the effect I want in my pics - and I'm not limited to the size of the light tent. Plus...I can set it up most anywhere (easier than moving a light tent around).

I have three basic set-ups and I use one of the three based on:
1. The light quality I'm looking for
2. The size of the snake being photographed (body shot vs close-up, etc.

(The chondro in the sample images is one of Greg Stephen's Biak OC productions which I purchased back in 2005).

Here's my typical fully-diffused lighting that gives me the most accurate color reproduction in my images (as my eyes see things).

I almost always use a reflector fill with this arrangement but I left it out of this pic for clarity, and to show what the image looks like without the reflector fill:

The pic below shows the reflector fill in place, etc:

And the results of using the reflector (compare it to the pic of the snake above. This one has details in the shadow areas:

If I'm doing close-ups I use my trusty Olympus twin flash, or macro ring flash (with or without its cross-polarizing filter), depending on the result I want. The twin flash is shown mounted to one of my Nikon film cameras:

The twin flash arrangement, shown above, produced the image below:

The ring flash (without the polarizer attached) produced the image below:

The ring flash produces a little more color saturation, but sometimes tends to flatten the images (depends on the subject matter).

Adding a polarizing filter to the ring flash brings out color even more, but it didn't work for this particular image so I didn't use it. All a matter of personal taste more than anything. YMMV.

Stu

JohnR

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Posts: 40

(07/03/09 07:14:09)

Stu, is that a shoot-through umbrella or bounced? And where did you get that adaptor to mount that lens backwards onto the other one? (if I'm correct...it looks like the outer lens is the 105mm f/2.8 macro lens, not sure of the inner one)

Is it this one? Nikon BR-3 Bayonet Mount Adapter Ring for 52mm Filters - Allows the use of 52mm Filters on Reverse Mount Lenses

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/37172-REG/Nikon_2629_BR_3_Mount_Adapter_Ring.html

Last Edited By: JohnR 07/03/09 07:17:36. Edited 1 times.

chondroland

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Posts: 748

(07/03/09 07:57:50)

Forum Ultra Chondro!

Hello John:

The umbrella is set up to provide a twice-bounced light. The light from the flash unit is actually pointed at the black material, which has a silver coating on the inside. The light then bounces back and through the white translucent material to provide the most evenly bounced, non-specular lighting I've ever seen from a single light set-up. The umbrella is made by Wescott and it's known as the Wescott Halo. It was designed for wedding photographers wanting natural-light shots of the bride when natural light wasn't available, etc.

The lens is not mounted in reverse; and it's not mounted to another lens. The lens is, as you noted, a Nikon 105mm f2.8 Macro and is mounted normally, but mounted on the front of a pair of Nikon extension tubes. One of the extension tubes has a tripod ring mounted to it to provide a bit better balance when tripod-mounting the whole thing. It also allows an easy swing of the whole camara rig to 90 degree vertical for vertical compositions.

The mounting ring that holds the two macro flash heads is screwed onto the filter mount of the lens. The flash heads weigh next to nothing (all the guts is in the power pack mounted to the camera) so while it looks as though there might be a lot of weight hanging off the front of the lens...there isn't, so there is no chance of damaging the lens or filter mount, etc.

Stu

Last Edited By: chondroland 07/03/09 08:05:08. Edited 2 times.

milmoejoe

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Posts: 232

(07/03/09 18:16:21)

The black backgrounds are relatively easy to produce - no need for studio or lightbox. The black background is simply a function of a small camera aperture (opening) with the assistance of a flash to overpower the ambient light in the room.

DIY- set your camera to manual (M) mode - stop it down to f/11 - f/22 with a shutter speed of 1/200th sec and obviously use the flash. Focus on the eye of the snake and go for it. Adjust your flash as necessary (). You definitely don't even need background material to get the background to go black! I've wasted several hundreds of dollars on nice black velour and velvet- totally useless!

White / seamless backgrounds do require a lightbox and are a little harder to achieve- still not difficult. The white or chromakey (blue/green) background allows you to make a transparent layer of just the snake, which is great for websites, advertisements, displays, etc. You simply set up the light box, position the lights to get the shadows that you prefer, bracket up the exposure (spot metering off the white) and click away. Will take some practice to expose the picture correctly (snake too bright, white appears gray, etc.). A good quality lightbox will make it easier to get a smooth (seamless) background. These days, its easiest to "magic wand" the snake in photoshop and clean up the background as you see fit.

You can spend $10,000 on a studio and get 99% similar images of chondros taken with a point & shoot in a small light box. Different strokes for different folks!

Brian68803

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Posts: 308

(07/03/09 20:15:17)

Forum Chondro Junkie

That sounds simple enough.But what if all you have is a 120 dollar Kodak Easyshare....lol

1.0.2

milmoejoe

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Posts: 233

(07/04/09 02:20:13)

Hold the snake / perch up in a shaded area with a dark tree trunk about 12-20' directly behind (this is your background). Even automatic mode can sometimes do it for you.

Rico Walder

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Posts: 792

(07/04/09 04:03:18)

MVFonator

Wow, nice set ups and photo's! Can't believe I missed this thread for so long. Sorry.

My photo booth is fairly simple. It's roughly four feet wide and three feet deep. Black backdrop and white sheets to difuse the light. There are two four foot flourescents on top with 6500K bulbs. A couple spots on the side for fill. Camera is a Cannon EOS Rebel with stock lens. Here's the picture.

Rico Walder
Signal Herpetoculture
www.signalherp.com
Chondro Coalition
www.chondrocoalition.com

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