Lessons

Lesson Info

Making a Kaleidalight

One of the things that was experimenting with a while ago was just how to project images onto the wall with a speed light so, you know, thinking about mentioned yesterday went to this the store and got this little prism son prison thing and tried that didn't really work with the speed light or flashlight, but it's it's got any ideas it just keep thinking of what you can project so a couple of a couple of different things we can play with and one of things that I came up with, um was taking a lens that I had and this is a this is a lens baby scout and it's basically just a body with a little lens popped into it I think a thirty five millimetre lens in there and then I put an extension tube and then put a slide behind the extension to so this is just a slide, you know, hard it is to find a slide these days at the dig through my stuff like I don't even know what's on that thing, but I just I need something to predict. And so what I wanted to do is to find there needs to be a certain dista...

nce for this slide to be in focus on the wall there's a certain distance behind the lens if you're using your lens to project a basic it magnifies or blows it up, shoots it out so I played around with this with a flashlight just to kind of see the focus I don't know if we can start to bring our main big lights down over there so one way you can experiment and this is not we're not ready quite ready to shoot this year I'm gonna put a speed light on this but by putting a flashlight I could tell when the lights go down is anybody on their lights okay and you can't just use any lens and the interesting thing here is this this extension tube um and the scout this is a manual and so it locks the aperture open and that's kind of the main thing is you have to look the aperture open for you need to be able to project through it otherwise you know your lenses they stop when you put on the camera it opens up the aperture to whatever the maximum is two point eight or whatever but then when you're shooting it actually stops it down to the actual sixteen eleven whatever it is you're doing so there's a little pin on the back of the lens it has to be pushed for that aperture to open up otherwise if you just look at it shut off the camera it's just a little tiny hole it's your minimum aperture okay so by putting this behind here and then shipping the distance we can start to see there is an image there at about that distance, if he comes into focus, think it's actually a model there. See that? So your glasses. So this is a like a shop window of a shooting shop. Windows back in the eighties and I pulled the slide out and found it. So this distance behind here could be adjusted with the focus of the lens. It's looking pretty much getting focused. So you think if you just had a pattern but maybe you wanted tio as you're out and about looking for things in the wilderness, the pro patterns skies, funky things that you can project all right? And what I would do is to take speed light and basically tape it to the back of this. And I found out that it actually works pretty well for my speed light. Here, get your fancy pants of duct tape like that, throw some tape around there for the whole thing together, and you've got a little, many projection system to project slides. But then I think, well, that's, you know, that's kind of boring there's projection systems it's not thiss players and they also then I thought, well, this is the silliest thing in the world, but it actually works is to get a kaleidoscope, so I got this little kids kaleidoscope. And kaleidoscopes air fun because you know you change it up and patterns they're so beautiful and they're always different so I thought, well, what if I don't project the kaleidoscope image and actually works pretty well? It does project an image and the kind of fun thing is is that you you twist in shaking it's different every time so something you can kind of say well let's just keep changing it up every time we do a shot will change up the emergency looks like so let's see if it I didn't get an image this time, so I'll just wrap this thing right on the front obama has centered on the head there reminiscent of the toilet paper too but a lot fancy or now toilet people and then I'm going to seal off the edges tuesday don't have spill lights I have only the light coming through nothing spilling around the flash is talking to me yeah seal that up single again so they're thinking it's going to be like a kind of funky ish sixties things when they will play it up ham it up do little sixties theme here so let's see where we're at deal so I'm just gonna go ahead and throw this in the background and I don't know what it's uh what it set out yet we might need to rotator kaleidoscope I think it's dark enough in here we'll see one set the zoom on this to all the way up to two hundred I want to concentrate that light as much as possible through there I'm also going to set my power all the way up to full power because they're probably gonna I'm shooting it through so much stuff there I'm probably going to need the full power blast out of that I'm going to set my camera to two at two fifty and my eyes so we'll start it out at one hundred and just see what we get you may need to adjust after that all right, so let's you could get any mention here flashed right? But I had two flashes that might not work thiss one was going off to a great turnout I think the other light in there before noon weii go we're starting to get a pattern no, no it's just a little bit is that pattern up coming up just a little bit? Okay, some f two to fifty ad but my eyes up to three twenty I'm gonna go to four hundred just to get a little more out of that hopefully will get in the ambient room light in here I seem like it didn't fire pull power but it is firing right there's a cool one so they're pretty cool pattern maybe like that one we want to change it up a little bit um let's see I'm gonna crank this up a little bit more on channel b that's why holy smokes kevin get a lot more out of that light now that I'm on the right channel teo okay all right so I don't need as much ice so probably as I had there yeah so that's a half power groovy man it looks like a stained glass window yeah yeah question in the studio you know how that is a background image you would need to light the models separately then yeah that's it we're going to do right now okay throw it will throw them yelling there because that's this flashes right now it's at half power um I may want to go to full power I want to recycle quicker because we are pushing the limits here I'm gonna plug in this booster battery pack we talked about yesterday and this is the one that just helps it recycle faster if I need to recycle faster just insure getting all the juice out of this because this does take quite a bit of the power but consider it's not too bad we're shooting it through this kaleidoscope with one single speed light that is right now on ly at half power still getting a pretty good pretty good image on that thing so I could probably pull this further back to spread on the wall a little more so I'm gonna try that a little further back and then I'll pry need to go to full power now that I'm back but we'll take it out so let's do one more test before we have daniel come in here actually no, because daniel this stuff off the couch and I want to just sit on the floor here kind of we'll light her separately but well, first of all just check what we get with the background so she'll kind of be a silhouetted first until we'll throw some light on her I think just like that and screech this way just a little bit okay way we're thinking kind of kampi sixties kind of style once we get this thing going way flash well, look at that right behind her head and perfect ok, cool so we're kaleida lights looking pretty groovy we just need to throw some light on her don't move from where you are that's a great spot loathe we'll use our luna grip here does you weren't here yesterday this is a this is a this's, a prototype for products already in production from westcott. They are awesome about supporting innovative ideas and we came up with this idea too clamp onto your existing disk which everybody already has or should have because it's an essential piece of gear and hold the speed like behind because that's what I was doing manually for years or just holding my disk holding the light shooting it through makes a beautiful light but it's a pain in the butt so we kind of made it super easy this came out on the tracks on a light stand or tripod or just hold it like this and the cool thing is you just change the zoom changes how much area you cover and how soft the light will be so caitlin, come on down we'll use this is our main light channel, eh? Teal and I'm going to set the zoom on this a little narrower, so we have a little more directional light and kind of bring that kind of right here. Okay, that was on a bring that power down take zoom on channel, eh? They're the test firing mean like they're remember where it was. Get that thing right behind your head. That was good. Okay, so you're going to be kind of chin towards that thing looking up to your face that way just a little bit right there that's good, no move because if this is good, we don't just want to stay in the same spot. Whoa! Did I change their everything it's in china you were pregnant of way closer to her. Something got whacked out of adjustment here way go so beautiful life from the lunar grip I love that quality of the light and it's needs to go a little bit down overall but otherwise looking cool with myself that way just a touch want you to bring that second so I'm gonna raise up my um collide alight one stop powers that's a full power this is already with the lunar group is already at the minimum one one twenty eight and but I do want to bring it down a little bit so I'm gonna crank this over change my eyes so back to you about they're two fifty try one more incident gets so like you but you were looking was just right don't move too far ah right over her fate head moment okay just issued it felt more like that okay like that almost a smile you just kind of thinking oh, this is so can't be huh? Beautiful all right awesome. That one I think all right, so you see the fun you can have a son like that so let's just try one more this shot I wonder if we put you down in there and let's bring our ladder will shine the clyde light down on her just use only that light dabbling her with kind of colored lights and we kind of funky so we'll turn this one off completely and see that right but there is good you have to rotate your uh taking things and the kaleidoscope to change it up a little bit so I'm gonna shake that up shake it, shake it well the part the twist is this and so that one to us but it doesn't shake the glass soul in here so I need to be ableto do some like that so you're going to just a little lie down on your back you could put your legs that way so we don't have any peekaboo and when I just want to give some shout outs to the internet patrica our kartika says, wow, I've never thought of a toy that tore it could be a tool for photography so yeah really doing us thiss kaleidoscope was, um I don't know four bucks or something like that kid to kid toy store so it's uh not something has to be expensive that's aiming the wrong way I'm trying to tame it down as close to straight down on terrible when I kind of just cover the carpet with it cover her with it we're not in this particular one we're not going to get like beautiful light on her face it's really just a move kind of a thing that we're checking out here with this shooting it down so look it is pointing right actually then did daniel, they got the flag of the tube there may be right the way he is into the rafters at school like kind of playing with your hair like that cute okay, so we'll see what we got here with the the light lift your chin just a little bit that far? Well, groovy. So when you look at that that blue patch writer I that's sick well she looks like a mardi gras girl little bit blue eye curry z so let's bring you into the yellow so few new towards this way just a little yeah towards left just about half ahead to it. Yeah, and caitlin or somebody can you come in and kind of style her hair just kind of flew it out to the side and a nice little wanted kind of streaming out to a little point on one side of her head a streaming and curling now a little more of a we want to kind of bring it to a little bit of a point just not yeah through what we're going for silly here, silly sixties that looks like conehead I think I'm sorry. It may be a little more a little more less all right, so let's see where we are so let's see howto hand there that's good for your right hand away from but you're right there. Okay, here we go chin up just to bid species in the light there get here we got one blue eye it kind of like actually so leslie chin up but no smiling just like that good keep it there so I'm shooting it off to change to the right just a little bit okay we'll never get the yellow on her face there I got a blue eye on this one probably monkey all right cool and well let's scoot you let's get you all the way into the yellow for one shot all I kind of like the blue eye to scoot that we don't just have a head nice nice blue forehead gates way so we gotta pull you down just a little um yeah I think you might have gotten a little over the edge we'll see yeah a little bit it is still kind of cool though all right so you get it we're gonna have to scoot you half ahead right straight towards caitlin thanks good chins up great don't move don't move at all blow look that funky thing on her head it was like a vampire woman turn your face that way okay right there wait where we learned now kind of funky like it the last one we're gonna lift your chin much and turn to the left to the right yeah I mean lifted shine even more eyes big ok so a lot of fun just playing around with this thing I mean I could shoot all day with this just trying different things background like we might even try putting it behind her aiming at the back of her head things like that? Yeah. What it it would concentrate that's untreated and more so, uh, from right here where we had it on the wall, it pretty much fill the pretty good portion the wall. So it's a nice, nice spread because you could use this in a in a small room and told me fill a wall with just this distance with that particular one, that particular kaleidoscope. I can't remember if we put that that particular kaleidoscope that I bought online, uh, on the media but if anybody wants, but I'm go experiment I'm sure whatever you get could be twice as good as what I've used. You just never know, but yeah, I just wanted to for for people. For specially this is what? About ten feet tall that you have the the light? Yeah. It's about eight feet tall. The light is now shooting down, right? I had it a little lower when we were aiming it at the back wall. And it is about ten to fifteen feet from the back wall when we looked straight at the wall. But when I was playing at this when I first discovered it is just fun because I take a shot. Shake it up, take another shot. You know, we can keep the lights down, actually, for one more second, it's just kind of see the patterns that you can get and that's kind of the fun. You know, I think if it's, if you had a client say, senior or something and you want to do something cool with the seniors, I mean help fund would be to interact with them, and I have to tell her, you know, each one will shake it up and get a different pattern and shoot another one. And so you get your ideally, um, different, like there what I would do would be moved the model a little further from the background which will enable me to keep her life completely separate from that light. And we were just about the border of it on the previous images, when we did the ones with the wall behind her. So there's a little bit of washout on the background that's not as rich as it was when we did it, without for which was that without the light on her, so to get that to keep it that rich on the background, what we need to do is to pull her and her whole light source for just a little bit more, so there's a little less spill and that would keep the background, richard darker and her still dominated beautifully. So had a little more room in here for me to move back. That's what we do, okay, but let's, I do like that last one we got was just right. So let's, just play it a couple of shots and change what the pattern looks like, just for fun, and we'll move on another project. So I'm from right here. Same powers hitting there's, a pattern, the flashes going crazy when I'm shaking it, it doesn't like that no way, another coin so infinite possibilities and fun and that's kind of again. The reason I brought this one up is it. Make it make you think, what can you shoot light through? What can be used as a lighting tool? Sometimes it's the cheapest, easiest things, even about a lava lamp, and was trying to play with lava lamp to shoot it through that, but then it's like, ok, you shoot it, and then the lava is moving and it's and you shoot again in love with me, you know, it changes, and I didn't bring it along, but it was pretty cool, too, because you get that same kind of thing going on and if you're there for doing video, a lava lamp, it actually kind of cool because you could set it up just right. And had that thing just going in the background here, behind something to be super cool. So I encourage you to play.