A complete guide to still life lighting techniques

Introduction: I often hear people say that the original meaning of "Photography" is "light painting", which means "painting with light". In terms of "painting", it means that the painter can decide to "paint" any position on the canvas. It should be black here and white there, and it all depends on the artist's hands. So when we usually take pictures, if we just "press the shutter in a place with light", then how does it feel like "painting"? A complete guide to practical still life lighting techniques

There are many Examples can illustrate the difference between "light as illumination" and "conscious control of light" in image presentation. The first time I felt this difference was when I was photographing "glass" work in school. Glass itself is transparent, the surface will reflect, and it will refract light, so there are many lighting problems when shooting. However, because of the existence of these problems, it is easy for photographers to have some ideas about "light painting". Inspiration, so shooting glass can probably be regarded as the only way for photographers to practice!?

Let’s take a look at how we can change the visual appearance of glass through light control!

Equipment information

Camera Olympus E-PL1 + Nikon 50mm F1.4 1/125 F11

Studio lamp Elinchrom D-lite 4 it

Prop glass

First, bring the glass in front of the white wall, and the shooting platform is a glass tabletop. Take the shot after taking the camera at a good angle. We didn't do any light control at all here.

It’s so dark~ Hmm (think about it), it should be an issue with “exposure compensation”. Because it’s a white wall, everyone knows that “white increases and black decreases”! Okay, then shoot with +EV Take a look at one picture!

It looks brighter, but why does it still look bad?

Well, this is how to be a photographer If you don’t feel the control of the light, it is possible that the bag will come out. Of course, you may also be lucky and accidentally place the glass in a place that suits it, making you "fooled". However, as a photographer, taking pictures How can you rely on blindness?!

The first thing to do is to eliminate the "stray light" that should not exist, that is, "turn off all ambient light sources" and change Use a shed lamp + diffuser to brighten the background to form a simple backlight.

Let’s see what the effect is like?

Wow! It really looks much better than before! At least those ugly reflections on the glass have disappeared, but what about the glass? The edges don't seem so clear? So the next thing to do is to "paint" the edges on both sides of the glass.

The actual method is to add two light-blocking black plates to the left and right rear of the glass.

This is the "painted" edge of the left and right sides of the glass, but it seems that the black edges on both sides of the cup are still not symmetrical. The black edge on the left seems to be too thin!? This problem comes from the glass itself , or the relative positional relationship between the camera, glass and black board. In other words, as long as you adjust the position of the glass and the board, you can adjust the thickness of these black edges!

After adjustment, the left and right black edges do look more symmetrical? But it seems that something is missing? Generally We hope that the glass will look a little layered, but in fact, the layers in the middle of the glass are actually "images of the background" (you can imagine that this shape of the glass is more or less like a lens). So to change the level of the glass, instead of lighting the glass directly, you should light the background. How to change the visual appearance of glass by controlling the background light?

Through a small light source, the background light can have more distinct levels of light and dark than simply using a diffuser.

You should be able to see the difference in the results of this shooting, right!? The middle of the glass is slightly brighter, which is generally OK. However, in fact, the rim of the glass can also be "blackened" .

The method is to use a black board to block the light from above. You should be able to see that the mouth of the cup becomes darker.

But due to the refraction angle problem, the black board will not be easy to avoid in the picture, so let us be lazy and use the version above without deepening the black edges ( Because basically you can actually see the edges) I need to process it in post-production.

Slightly adjust the overall contrast to make the layers more obvious, then modify the details, and the photo of the glass is completed. (Although this all seems very easy, but when I think back to the first time I took pictures of glass, I was completely miserable.

The joys and sorrows of this will probably only be known when everyone takes a picture and sees it for themselves!)

Compare it with the picture at the beginning.

Everyone should be able to find that in fact, the "sense of presence" of glass is controlled by the entire lighting environment. Once the lighting environment is changed, the "visual appearance" of the glass will also change accordingly. This is why This example makes it easy for people to understand why photography = painting with light.

Of course, no matter what material it is, it will have different "effects" under different lights. This problem always exists. Photographers should "consciously control or control the light" when shooting any material. "Adopt", otherwise how can it be counted as photography?