Guitar Lighting Setup
by Chris Taylor on Nov.25, 2009, under General, Photography Tips & Tricks, Product Photography
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
What kind of boring title is that? It’s late and I didn’t want to spend 30 minutes coming up with a cool title for this. I would rather spend the time getting the post up so let’s go.
It was time to bring out the lights tonight. I haven’t shot with my strobes in sometime and I have been reading this book by Joe McNally. Needless to say, it has sparked some fire under my arse to get my lights out.
The first step I took was setting up the rim light. Actually, the first step was dusting off the thick layer of dust that had accumulated on my strobes that are setup for product shots in the sunroom. I want to start by saying that I did not use my light meter to setup any of these. It was all done by look and feel. I probably could’ve saved about 30 exposures combined but I wanted to become one with the lights. As you can see from the shot below, this was a step by step process for purposes of this tutorial (the crap in the background will disappear soon). This one was shot at ISO 200; 1/200th @ f10.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
I planned on shooting the whole guitar so I backed up to get the full shot. Was I surprised. I wasn’t expecting the nuclear result I got below.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
And then there was light. To solve this issue, I placed a 2′ x 3′ black foamcore board to block the light from flaring up the lens. This is normally referred to as a GOBO (go between) or a flag. You will see the GOBO in the lower right hand corner of the next shot. Once the GOBO was in place, I was able to move on.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
With the GOBO in place, I also played around with the rim light power and the position of the rim light to keep light from spilling onto the background. The next shot was taken at ISO 200; 1/200th @ f18.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
Now I’m getting somewhere. It’s starting to come to life. Now it’s time to start adding the main light. I’ve read and watched demos about “feathering the light.” I rotated the main light head until the outer edge of the light was raking across the guitar. I didn’t want to hit the guitar straight on with light. I wanted to have a subtle gradient of light feathering off of the body. My main light has a grid on it which allows you to control the light rays a lot better than just bare bulb flash. They can also help with lens flare as you will see towards the end of this writeup. This next shot was taken at ISO 200; 1/200th @ f13 as are the remaining shots.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
The next step was to get rid of the eye sore in the background. I used some standard “A” clamps I bought from Lowe’s to hang the backdrop which is this velveteen material. I need to get a wider piece ’cause this one just ain’t wide enough. Notice the GOBO again in the frame blocking that crazy ass lens flare.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
That looks a lot better. The next step was to diffuse those nasty highlights coming from the rim light hitting the curved surface of the guitar body. Those are naaaaaaaasty but was an easy fix once I got my flip flops on to head out to the garage to grab my diffuser disc. The diffuser basically spreads out the light in a random way that breaks up the “hardness” of the light and makes it softer. You will notice the highlights are now rimming the body nicely.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
The only difference between the shot above and the final image posted at the beginning of this post is the burgundy curtain was turned black in the final image. All of these setup shots were imported into Lightroom and then re-sized in Photoshop. No other manipulation was done. No sir. No actions, no love. Just me and my gear. The next few shots below show the light positions and some helpful hints. Not only will these hopefully be helpful to you, it also allows me to document my setups for future shoots. They will also show you what happens when you put that grid on your light. Pretty crazy how these bad dogs work. They also show me that I need a studio if I want to get more lights involved.
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
Copyright 2009 Taylor Design & Photography
Well I hope you enjoyed this demo. I always appreciate it when people put their demos up to learn from. And a big thanks to Joe McNally for kicking me in the butt.
Until next time…
December 29th, 2009 on 11:07 pm
Very well done. You always slay me away with your skills. You are just one outstanding indiviual and your Father could never be any prouder than I am when I see what you do.
Love ya son,
Dad
January 4th, 2010 on 12:40 am
Thanks, Pops. I appreciate it.