Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Jewelry Part II

this is tthe e two little earrings here you can see upon the screen with some nice shiny facets on them may be a little bit brighter here come on go mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm oh okay so I may have overcompensated because the picture was enough I thought I was looking at the one I just haven't really looks dark for some reason there we go in there we got some nice bright facets and that's because of these two silver cards here let's take the two cards away shoot the same jewelry again and we'll say not so special to pieces of insides of coffee bags taped on or glued on to phone court what she want to do is to provide something really really bright and by the way we're shooting this with a very what was this what was the power of this light in here it's a hundred watt light in a little clamp on stand the more power you can start to play with your lights he could do a bit more with it right now we can't beat the ambient with this so we are stuck with some of this jewelry is being expose...

d by our ambient light way would like to get it down to none of the jewelry is exposed by hamit light it's all us um but that makes it that's not gonna happen in a video situation okay so let's create something with strobe where we can beat the lights and do something kind of fun with it all right you know when you're assisting for somebody you still don't get to put the pictures in your portfolio that's one of the things that gets me about the second shooter wedding second shooter thing um you do writing all right do you have a problem with second shooter wanting to put the pictures in their portfolio or uh no not really all in on my page usually I also shoot for somebody else and so I'm the second shooter and I just kind of let it go like they set everything up it's it's not your gig you know it doesn't end up in your but that's my my you know I don't have any contracts or anything it's just like doing it so you shot way paid you for that it's like work for hire you know work for hire work for hire is uh you got paid you're done you got no rights to it anymore so I'm kind of that way you know when you're when you're how we doing your breath good when you're doing those group shoots when you go out with your buddy to shoot you know like you get a model or you're gonna go somewhere to shoot you have a great idea here's here's an idea if you're the shooter in the morning your buddy leads his camera in the car got it he's assisting you in the morning and you have lunch in the afternoon you're the photographer he puts you you're the assistant you put your camera in the car it's nothing worse than you working on a shot and then have the person who's assisting you go can I get a few uh no actually no it's my shot I'll put my camera way later help you then you don't have any problems you just do not have any problems on the other way you do what we do is we're going to the same things before we have bring this end but because we're gonna be down in about f eleven at one hundred twenty fifth of a second or two hundredth of a second if we have to we will now beat thes these ambient light's and be able to control it we're also going to use a little bit of a thing to give it a highlight to give it a on extra bit of a punch and I've been doing using this a lot in my work lately and this is a great spot good old very narrow grid spot that I use my speed lights have taped it off to be a very narrow little grid spot so this thing the height of this little grid spot when I set it down on the scene like this is just kind of whiskey right across the tops of these things it's not really going to get on the surface or anywhere else so I can really tweak ends and kind of knee light with it and I discovered this by the way playing in the studio on a day when I was trying to figure out a shot that I had seen that had a real soft little light right on the front of this guy's face he was a football player right on the side of his face like no he was and he was a deejay coming in like this and he had the earphones on and they were dark and moody and he had light from this side and light from this side but on the front of his face really small that's just just not figuring it out was trying it's I know it's not a snoot because the snow would be too hard oven ej and I knew it wasn't a grid spot because the great spot would be too big you have to have a tiny little grid spot in really tight and I was thinking well how did I make a tiny little grin spot I was looking at my grid no way I could take it off I could just take it off and get a grid size of whatever I want which I was basically probably channeling that the pollen of the paul buff makes the the soft box with all the different things you can put in front of soft boxing put a circle in front of a star huh almost like a like a gobo I thought well I'll just go blow it off and if this actually works better than a gobo because when I tried it to do it originally with the grid and the gobo I would get a shadow the gobo created a shadow on you're looking at the shop there's no shadow it's just light revealing subject centric light will always reveal itself to you if you just all righty are you on what have power okay you prefer rechargeable batteries or just regular bad I have ah couple of sets an ellipse that I like but all the rest of them I I stopped using it just went right back to batteries and there's a disposal place not too far from my house I'll just gather money and send him down there but I have not been able teo I've not been that enamored with the um inexpensive rechargeable sze but the antelopes are pretty cool I don't travel with batteries because they're too heavy you know I take twenty four anna looks with me it's you know gosh it's twelve or fourteen pounds I don't know what it is heavy with the charger I just buy stuff on while I'm there that's the point you were making earlier about the figuring out the grid spot and you were bothering it was bothering you and all that stuff and that was something that you taught the lighting essentials class that was very point it to me was deconstruct issues of looking at photographs and deconstructing the figure out but that shot just really I just I just was it was in my brain I couldn't get that shot in my brain I want to be able to do it and I mean every time we have a model over there and have a little extra time I try to do it no that's not it that's not it I could see it and then the moment it hit me of how how I could do it it was like I can't believe I never thought of that it was just like you wanted face paul time you know just just made so much sense to do that so did we get to meet a reading ever no we did not so I'll get one now on bada boom so at f r I s o eight hundred we have f forty five I'm gonna I'm gonna vote for taking the I also down what you think yeah eso es one hundred we have f sixteen that's pretty cool of sixteen's pretty nice to take this thing back here I'm just going to get a test shot at f sixteen so we know we're in the ball game and my shutter speed up to get rid of some ambient here I s o o you go the other way with the eyes of god and there we go here we go with the shot that's kind of a a nice boring terribly lit photographs we've got a nice little soft across the top does that show the jewelry off not at all not even a little bit that is not what we want to go to our client with we've got to have some or interest in that so let's try uh to bring some cards into the front on the way I bring the card into the front is actually lean it up to the camera here so we had a white board somewhere gonna bring this right up to the camera in front and change the entire look of this jewelry all right bring it down like care now we have more jewelry doesn't take much right but it's also not really what's that what's that coming in front of the jewelry what's that dark area reflection because this is now it's still wet a little bit so let's bring our light forward a little bit brett actually let's leave it like where it is the smooth our table back because we're right at the edge of our light there and yes so now we have the light force more above the jewelry instead of behind the jewellery and without the white card and with the white card right up to the edge of it just like that it's much better notice how our reflection is now smaller in the front now that is that background is not working for this jewelry is it not even close to business too busy plus it doesn't match the kind of jewelry that we have we need something a little bit different well let's go with um try the white tile is trying a white top yeah try the white tell when we're using before thanks keith when we're doing this we can almost always take questions change it up to set a little bit and that includes questions and that money here you know that what from you yes absolutely done the internet is concerned that you're still shooting j paige because you've made quote that you only shoot raw yes I am still shooting j pagan and I have given the word to several people here to remind me that moment the show's over ok thanks going back thank you for that relieve everyone in the chat rooms right with white card up wait and that way we're getting better what's going on with my screen that's way darker than my image on my screen my screen's generally calibrated and what if I bumped it when I was doing something no no that's moved I took a reading at sixteen and it looked really dark bright on the back of my screen here and I lowered it twenty two is definitely not twenty two is definitely closer to sixteen thank you very much right in here on and off but we'll okay wow one of this because j peg okay does that look anything like that to you you know that something has been something has been goofed up on my screen here because that's not right all right and that's what the meter said that's what it should look like okay so that's kind of that's that's a better shot why we've opened up bottom of the jewelry because we're used a brighter background says dark jewelry begin with its not as busy as the other background wass and the very nature of the fill from the front of this white background fills in the front of the jewelry because it creates something bright for that curved jewelry to come over to reflect now there'll be be clients will say well can we get rid of thank you for that that's perfect can we get rid of this in here yes you can probably shoot it on plexiglass and get rid of that in there then you have a piece of jewelry that's floating and it looks weird always it's weird how do you decide on the composition in jewelry uh necklaces are always rounded you've got a girl with a rounded kind of uh thank for you gonna put it on someone's neck I guess if you want you could always do that but um I just wanted to make it I'm just kind of doing a natural looking look to the shot you can shoot straight down on it and you can shoot it what I call natural angle you've probably never shoot this straight across never shoot this straight across because it would look terrible down here it wouldn't look like jewelry ending so you know it could look like kids toys or something that doesn't look like jewelry because it doesn't have that arch to it just might be a still life but it's an interesting picture but it was not an interesting picture oh sure sure it is a still life you're you yeah thanks which saying yes you could do a still life but for product you actually just really wanted to you want to start out with your product at least looking like product yes wait not this guy way charles can I have you hold this right there like this we're just gonna see what this looks like okay we don't have remember what we were doing it earlier today we were doing it with some pro photos and modeling lights we don't have meiling lights we just have this thing here so we're gonna kind of see where it gets on it and right there good no no no I'm just not liking this shot of all what would I do with this thing it does not work sitting on a degree it's not working it's gotta be on it's gonna be high hanging on something probably a little bit hang it may just be hanging from a from a boom like this people that would work let's let's move on from this one so we could come back to this one if we have time okay uh so a question from a tl floyd do you ever use mannequins with jewelry I do I have the I have a black uh what the one where the neck is cut off is just like like you would see in a jewelry like like a like a display but like assistant it's a display busted come he has got a little bit just right about here so you can see it's a woman right about here and then the neck is cut inverted this way and you can hang the jewelry around it I wish I it only works for shorter necklace is the one that I got so if you have something that's really long I would dangle way down into the clave age it doesn't work because it just stops there bob but it works great because when you hang it around it's made it just perfectly no forms that heart shaped shape that thing and you look for those its supply houses different like robert hand yeah one of them yeah anyplace that serves up uh stuff for that the display industry on there generally companies that work on ly with retail so you could find it that way we have a copper julie that we were actually going to shoot first before I saw that other necklace there that'll teach me to stick to the plan huh all right copper jewelery and I use you gotta be able to fix these chains so pull it tight they're just using a pen just take a pin and a little shape to it you can use dental tools that you can find it different outlet places you could use dental tools you can use toothpicks you could do something but you can't use your fingers because when you do your fingers that'll catch on your fingers and you get these little jagged things gotta have something that it'll roll off and we're gonna shoot off this because we're gonna go with the whiting look to it and I'll crop later if you get my drift yeah see what happens if you don't get those those just perfect these may have twists in him a kind of pretty isn't it and I'm at sixteen let's go with the fifty can't get in tight enough with this you know if you have apple box would be helpful yeah I'm good yeah this's another one where you could you know you could actually shoot straight down on this for a different kind of look and just go with the graphics of the jewellery getting a lot of very hot speculator on this thing question from home able the realistically how many set up it's that same necklaces can you do in a day depending on how difficult the necklaces are uh you could do eight or ten or you could do to trust me this is gonna take a while if I want to see the black annual we might do is to set this up after hours and then come back tomorrow with this shot cool so you guys could see what we did this is gonna take cem cem jury rigging we've got black cord that we want to see we've got round faceted jewelry this is a job this one not so much because it's copper flat stuff we're gonna find a nice angle for it's gonna look good and we'll take care of it so I've done as many as eight ten in a day and I've done this if he was one so it's there's no nothing to it and the more ornate and difficulty they want that shot to be the more different angles and stuff they want the harder it can take I spent three days by the way ana got up pendent uh broach pendant and earrings shot three days so you wouldn't take me three days now because of digital because I wouldn't have to wait for the film to come back so I could do it today but in those days had to wait for film to come back to say oh that sucks shouldn't done that was I thinking I think you guys can all get a really flavor of how difficult it is to do this without modeling lights I can't see what's happening before I snapped trigger island like your suggestion little led light on top of the booth like you thought of that that's I shoot speed light so that will be a great help and there we go with kind of a nice backlight look to this as it comes up we don't have that if we do we have this nice bright speculum in here that's giving us a nice its focus for it but as you can see all the facets of this this jewelry is lost way cannot see the facets of it because it's reflective and it's coming out here we need to put some cards around it so it reflects something on that I got a uh right there way got another one for over here small one maybe yeah let's go in writing from the front like this right way go now we deliver this to the client and we have all of her little facets are lit up in here see the front of these guys all over and here this is going dark because we got to get something to the side that's where brett isthe right now over here it's not going dark see these edges since it's right in here we put these up side by side with the last one and we'll see that this edge here is not lit because we don't have a white card over there say it's dropping off real dark here picking it up in here getting those nice facets it's kind of dead totally lit up it's the detail that matters that's what we're going to be dealing with when we take this thing to into post um it does look a little dark to me thiss card should come but that's lean there uh this one's will lean no actually want this one to lean out like this I mean they're actually sit right on their back on you probably get this and let's just do this smooth this out ready to put this in like that got it and the last one of these before we move on sweet and now we've surrounded with cards and we get everything we wanted so licks a lot darker to me up there and it does on my screen interesting don is your preference to use the white foam core or can we do what you're trying to do with multiple lights set up uh lights become light sources so to do the same thing I just did with these white cards you would have to do with light sources as bigas these cars okay otherwise they're just going to be a little speculative so ever bringing a little small soft box over here it's gonna be a small soft box on this jewelry on this jewelry because of the rope you could actually use multiple speed lights on this jewelry because the speed lights is going they're going to really like this rope up it's small enough we could actually bring in a couple little soft boxes that's how I'm envisioning we're going to set this up after class is with three little soft box will speed the speed of light like trump's off boxes and light it that way giving that kind of funky back back front light okay back back top alright oh that's nice isn't it look at that and see all the details of this jewellery we can see it all plus we have a nice little highlight too give us some great asian to the background put that in the photo shop we can increase that contrast just a little bit make a little bit darker on the edges and have a very fairly nice uh shot this would be great for you know your local you're doing a little calum a catalog or something like that you're gonna have a setup that resembles this well this is the type of setup from not mistaking you could take to their jewelry store in a back room and do product shots for them on location you sure could you could actually go on location with this six or eight sheets of foam core little scrim soft box let's put the gammy light on the soft box for this jammy light soft box on the yes um this is ah little speed light soft box made by gammy light I'll bring this out for you and it'll change up our life questions folks uh to be able to be mobile like this is huge because right you say to a jewelry store guy can come here to jewelry store and shoot your jewelry for you he's gonna be kind of you know all over that some people were really worry about taking jewellery to your studio we shot a two million dollars emerald necklace at our studio and we budgeted twelve hundred dollars for security way had three armed guards with car beans in our studios two million dollars jewelry that's just too much about that's just too much of a carrot to dangle and so they arrived in a brinks truck got out at one guy at the front and two guys in the bank back and they were just like you see on tv that the little walkie thing is they're private security with little sunglasses never saw their eyes and they answer you in one word answers so what do you think of the place nice gay so you have it insurance for some yes it was also insured yes that's all built to the client we had two days of insurance for two million dollars on the studio cost about a thousand bucks I think for that because it was a high risk items one item one tiny little necklace two million dollars that's a high risk where's the necklace oh I don't know I thought it was over on the chair last week I lost a pumpkin too oh my question from shutter man seven and from a has not in bangladesh um what are the advantages or disadvantages of using a light ten instead of your set of you have right now the advantages of like tennis if you're shooting a product or something where you really need that light tent look which is basically light everywhere they're great uh negative thing is very few times will you ever want to shoot something special with that like tim look because it eliminates all reflection right or it gives you one giant reflections put that way removes all shapes for the reflection so now you have a silver pot that is pure white you've lost shape of silver pot snout pure white so I don't I have one and there's times when you using there really are like a little um I used it on uh cheap shoot you know his name badges like whether they don't ceramic name badges I'll work great for that just drop in the middle of tent shoot it just dropping pop and they paid you know thirty five or forty bucks a shot we had about a hundred of them we did him and really literally about an hour you know then that's great work great for that because you didn't have to finesse anything it was a ceramic name match um but if you're shooting wine or something it just kills it it makes it dead looking it's just too much great explanation thank you and a question from limoncello is yes it can I use flash diffuser instead like a dairy farm diffuser instead of the suspended wait for instead of the suspended white blur instead of the instead of this no no you can use it behind this has a double diffuse light and you'll love it that's what we're gonna do with a gammy like right here yes you can use it behind it to double diffuse it but no it doesn't uh it's a saying it's the thing about those little things that go on your speed lights whether it's a gary fong or a um stuff in for any of those things it's on the speed light it has not changed the size of your light source in relationship to your subject it's still a point source is just not going to change the light from hard too soft when it is going to is to take that very very powerful true value transition to shadow which we see from from direct flash we see that as a sharp edge right if I use a flash on you from over here you've got a shadow on your nose and it's dark shadow chris blind true value for the skin right those little things will defuse that edge just the edge and people always look softer no just the edges softer in the depth of the shadow the f stop in the shadows still the same it's a three stop difference it's a three stop difference only that tiny edge has changed when you change a light source not only does the edge change to a very smooth transition it's also a less of a depth to them to that shadow so it doesn't really change that at all wait on all right one last quick notes mark wallace is in the chat rooms morons to let you know that his fellow arizona photographers are watching and snap tractor says keep up the good work done frank's work thanks for watching man it's cool we had a whole bunch of people in the area this is like arizona second home mark comes over jared platt comes over right um everyone's trying to escape that hundred thirteen merryweather will come which is what come over and just hang I mean mark and I'll jump in the car we just come here and hang and just pretend we're we're here because it's hot in there is lame and love that we'd bring jared but he'd want to talk about the light room the whole way and we'd have to kick him out of lake and just be so anyway the second shot now we're using a diffused light source have we changed it up can we put him up side by side way changed it hell I wouldn't they say we have but your speed like same power same distance says that left image but we're ending up with this job because I want to get killed to stop so your exposure is the same you're just spreading the light more know exactly exactly the exposure is the same I compensated for the gammy like because I know it kills a stop so I opened up from sixteen to eleven but looking to see the real bright speculate here falling off much more even speculator across the tile and look how pretty the jewelry looks all the way through here so this is a little party this look at the exactly look at the facets in here never one solution always multiple solutions there's a way to do everything differently then you thought you could do so when you're playing around with your still life and you're playing around with your work think about other little things by the way we have we're gonna give away a couple of these gammy I think tomorrow and that'll be kind of a lot of fun um and we have some something special for the studio audience as well so studio audience like david letterman thank you thank you