Advanced Tips for Still Life Photography

Advanced Tips for Still Life Photography focuses on calculation of the exposure and white balance; apart from the tips for the needed guide for illuminating. The beginning of this Still Life Photography starts from our previous article, some what basic article on Still Life Photography – Lighting Techniques in Still Life Photography. All the terminologies which appears unknown can be searched on this website using the search box. We do not want to link towards distracting topics but they might be required for the beginners.

Advanced Tips for Still Life Photography : Again Lighting

The scattered light can be achieved in two ways; either by illuminating the box with the light that is reflected by an opaque surface, maybe white, by filtering with a translucent surface. There are sheets and panels specifically produced for this purpose. Very useful are the frosted glasses, which depending on their strength cast their effect and make it to spread more or less marked.

Professional photographers usually uses umbrellas or softbox to produce this type of light, which is very popular because it produces soft shadows, it well describes the subject, gives uniform illumination, saturated colors, minimizes the texture, creates pleasing reflections. In fact, precisely because this light is suitable for most situations in still life photography.

The photograph around still life advertising photography must clearly describe the photographed object, so it is important to have lighting that does not leave some parts of the subject is too dark or too light. Decided on the main light source, the shadows produced by the other lights should be eliminated or subtle it, like the ones you see on a sunny day outdoors. The task of the fill light is just to lower the contrast, the details are visible even in the shadows. For this purpose you can use both diffuse light, like reflective panels. Obviously, each type of surface will produce a reflection with different characteristics in terms of intensity, diffusion and color of the light.

Advanced Tips for Still Life Photography : The calculation of the exposure and white balance

The proper measurement of the amount of light is essential for obtaining adequate exposure and to balance properly the light power of the points of light. Using continuous lights can certainly use the light meter built into the camera, maybe in spot mode, focusing on the subject that interests you and then properly expose the highlights and shadows to evaluate the contrast. Depending on the subject of your intentions and seek a different light contrast, but making sure to keep details in highlights and shadows.

To make it easier to calculate the exposure and white balance, both when shooting and in post-production, it is a good idea to use a target or standard. There are many, most are usually more cards with color samples, among them there are popular softwares.

However, despite the accuracy of light meters built into cameras, you should use an external exposure to incident light, which in addition to being very accurate in the evaluation of light is essential for the use of flash lights. This part has been discussed before in external light meter.

The light tent is created by surrounding the subject on all sides, except on the lens side; with translucent fabric, like cloth, paper and then placing the lights outside of ‘the cage’. To obtain a homogeneous and diffuse light that describes the subject well enough, usually two or three lights are placed on either side and above. To give greater three-dimensionality to the subject, one can adjust in a different way the power of the lights, reducing the power of the fill light. This technique is simple and effective lighting for the photos that looks professional.