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Frank Miller style lighting?

Sep 13, 2009

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    1. Haha, I hang my backdrops from my hubby's bowflex weight machine, lol!!!

      Great tips MMM ~ I added a flexfill silk reflector to my growing collection of photography
      tools just cos of this thread! :)
       
      #61 Christy, Nov 16, 2009
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    2. #62 moniee, Nov 20, 2009
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    3. Thank you so much for sharing how your "studio" is set up. I struggle (understatement) with every shoot I've done so far. Out of 15 or so shots, I get about three that I'm happy with and I think its mostly a lighting issue for me. So thank you very much for sharing a behind the scenes photo.
      I'd love to see more like that from everyone.
       
      #63 Jen<3, Nov 20, 2009
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    4. CPR on a necro thread.

      I have just tried a quick and dirty way to get dramatic, noir-style lighting. And it takes only one light source.

      So, what I did was position a desk lamp high up and behind my figure. This gave that rim lighting effect we were talking about earlier. I then placed a small square of silver card in his lap and tilted it until I got enough light on the face to bring out the details. This acted as the dim fill light we were discussing.

      Now, I have only tried it on a 12" action figure so I would like to know if it translates OK to bigger BJDs. I am wondering particularly if the reflected fill light will be bright enough to illuminate the face. Anyone want to try?

      So here is the effect with my OT action figure. I would love to see it tried with a BJD.

      [​IMG]
       
      #64 MadamMauMau, Mar 24, 2010
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    5. Oh that's awesome MMM! perhaps if you make a bigger card with foil that may work for the bigger dolls? or maybe foil may be too reflective? I will keep my eye on this thread to see what you come up with! other than the hair, that figure looks rather real...lol
       
      #65 SDink, Mar 24, 2010
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    6. I did some quick and dirty playing around ... not terribly brilliant by any means I'm afraid, but here's what I came up with.
      Unfortunately, I don't have a male doll with really angular features as the theme normally would require. Instead, I present my very un-Milleresque Unoss Mira as a lighting subject:

      [​IMG]

      What we have here is a remote off-camera flash set to max zoom (200mm) pointing almost straight down at Mira from about 30 cm above her head, in order to produce the harshest possible light (not having a strip light diffuser, I chose to go for harsh ... don't ask me why, really).

      As a reflector, I played around with a 80x35mm sample stip of Rosco Mirror Silver that I had Mira hold in her hand.
      It turned out that it reflects the light far too well.
      So, I started playing around with various filters on the strip in order to try to modify the reflected light into something more useful... The pictures here have .3 neutral density and 1/4 CTO, plus a strip of 1/4 tough spun diffuser material. In retrospect though, I probably could have dispensed with the fibre diffuser and possibly even gone for .15 ND ... oh, well.

      The main thing I think I did learn doing the experimenting however was that especially given a point light source like the one I used, the size, shape and position of the reflector will make a huge difference. As a case in point, you can see the shape of the strip far too clearly in the lit portion of Mira's face.

      [​IMG]

      At some point, I'd like to redo my experiment with a strip light, and a more liberal selection of Rosco films.

      All in all, I think that if anything, my little experiment does show that given a just a tad more effort and care than I was able to put into it at the time, it ought to be possible to scale MMM's 1/6 experiment up to SD scale.
       
      #66 The Dragon, Mar 27, 2010
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    7. Hey! That's great! And very interesting that the mirrored reflector was too effective. I was predicting that it just wouldn't produce enough light for a larger subject. But perhaps your strobe is more powerful than my continuous light. Why not just try a piece of white card? Another issue that I was finding with the mirrored reflector was that it produced specular highlights (so, harsh highlights caused by the way the reflector reflects the light very accurately). With white card the reflected light would be diffused. This would also minimse the problem you encountered whereby you can see teh shape of the reflector. Although, having said that, we were going to have a go at the "letterbox" lighting effect a la Dracula. A strip of mirrored card would be perfect for that.

      Thanks so much for contributing this. I will definitly have a go with a big BJD.
       
      #67 MadamMauMau, Mar 27, 2010
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    8. I confess I actually did some experimenting with just using a white piece of paper, too... :sweat
      I rejected the results, though, as I felt the reflection was far too diffused ... the light just seemed to go everywhere, instead of where I wanted it to go! I think a mirrored reflector will probably be easier to use in the end, in terms of actually shaping the light.

      Here are a couple of other experiments I did, with other dolls and other reflecting materials:


      My DD Sirius Mitsuki, with a Lastolite white card as reflector:

      [​IMG]

      Similar problems as with a paper reflector. Too diffused, not enough control.



      My IH Jessica Kuromi, with the Lastolite again, only held a bit further off:

      [​IMG]

      The light still feels a bit too soft and even. And I really didn't want it on the hands, too...



      Kuromi again, this time with crumpled aluminium foil as reflector, held in her hands:

      [​IMG]

      Very difficult to get enough reflection, this time. The results are very dark ... I might have upped the exposure compensation a stop or so, but this was all done in a bit of a rush, I'm afraid (as I am sure you can tell from Mitsuki's hair).


      One can also see that pale girls with black clothes and black or near-black hair, against a black background, makes for an ... interesting subject.

      On the whole, I'm inclined to think that a mirrored reflector is probably the best way to go, after all. The light becomes much easier to shape and direct, and if you have access to a reflector of sufficient size, masking it off into a shape useful at the time ought not to be difficult. Filters and gels can be used to manipulate the quality of the reflected light (one just needs to remember that this way, the light will pass through each filter twice, so a 1/4 CTO gel for instance becomes a 1/2 CTO!).

      I'll see if I can get some more Rosco stuff cheap somewhere...
       
      #68 The Dragon, Mar 27, 2010
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    9. Really atmospheric shots, Dragon. Thanks for those.

      OK. Second bout of CPR on this necro thread for the latest installment of Mau's Eternal Quest for the Perfect Noir Lighting.

      Using action figs again (they are easier to try ideas out with, being that much snmaller) I returned to the idea I used in the Sin City shoot. I again used two, strong lights, either side and to the rear of the subject, and again flagged them into narrow slits with bits of card. The difference this time was in the amount of diffusing I used on the lights. In the orginal set up, they were diffused by placing the shower curtain over the front of the slits, so causing the light to spread as it came out of the slits. In this one, I set the cardboard up in front of my softboxes (yes, I treated myself to some, and they are great to work with), so the light diffused by the softbox was then effectively re-focused with the bits of card. That kept it even but made it a lot tighter.

      I then used a REALLY weak fill light, much weaker than the one I used on either of those two sets (a torch/flashlight) from about two meters away and pointed that in front of the figure, above eye level. I tried various distances and the ones that worked best were when the light was just dimmly illuminating the front of the figure. Having a pretty focused beam might also have helped keep the light relatively isolated.

      So, keeping the side lights focused and keepng the fill light dim and perhaps focused seems to be the solution, as many of you suggested. Thanks again for all the input. And I think it is my favourite set up yet. What do you think? I will try it with some resin as soon as get my camera repaired :( The challenge will be finding a suitable fill light as I don't think the torch will be up to illuminating things on that scale.

      [​IMG]

      [​IMG]

      [​IMG]

      And has anyone else had any more goes at this? I would love to see the results.
       
      #69 MadamMauMau, May 17, 2012
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