Over at Strobist.com, David Hobby has posted a couple of "courses" on lighting. I'm in the process of working through Lighting 102 and came across an assignment to photograph something from the kitchen using the principles and techniques he's taught so far. I wanted to work on the use of large, soft specular highlights to create an eye-catching, glowing effect. Here's my shot at photographing an...what are these things called, anyway? You often see them used for dips but I've never really caught the proper name. In any case, thanks to my generous parents, we have one and DD finds it quite useful.
50mm, 1/60th of a second, f/13, ISO 200, key light (Nikon SB-600) camera right through a diffusion panel at 1/16th power, fill light (Nikon SB-800) above camera through top diffusion panel at 1/32nd power.
It seems that the trick to creating the highlighted blade is to shoot your light at a relatively large diffuser or reflective surface which then reflects the apparently large light surface off of your subject and into the camera lens. So what you're actually seeing in the blade is a reflection of your light. The hardest part of this shot was getting the angle just right. I finally ended up with a tightly wrapped ball of elastic bands underneath the blade to tilt it toward the camera.
Here was an earlier attempt where the cardboard corners of the box were reflected into the blade--definitely not the look I was going for in this case:
All settings same as above except that the angle of the blade relative to the camera lens differed slightly. That little difference highlights the impeccable build quality of my home-made light tent quite nicely. I must admit that at least the little metal pieces in the handle look nicer in this shot.
More assignment results to come...
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