Experimenting With Flower Lighting

[Frank Petronio]

Mapplethorpe used hot lights bounced off white foamcore. Maybe the plants wilted but he managed to keep his other subjects turgid under the hot lights.

[Scott Rosenberg]

frank... just to keep things simple, i'm going to try to control as many variables as i can, and change them selectively while i'm experimenting. as such, i'll eliminate as best i can ambient light and rely only on my little halogen cans. i've got two at the house now, but might pick up a third... i think they were only $7 when i bought them, plus another $10 for the bulb. i'll play around a bit with these lights, my foam core boards, and my 80a filter and see what i can come up with. should be fun!

the two i have are 50W, but they come in weaker flavors. if i pick up a 30W to try to, as you said,
use different watts as additive sources of light, you might get a great tonality in your picture

what would recommend i do to start?

thanks,
scott

[Peter Hruby]

If you are familiar with portrait techniques, that would be a good start. Look for the position you might find interesting. I suggested different watts because of the space problems you might have. If you have lots of space around your table, the distance of light sources if they are equal is a substitute for it.

You might start as main light just beside you (actually little bit behind you) and additive light from side. There is a lots of techniques how to shoot. Distance, number of lights, filters, reflection matts direct light, indirect (reflected) light. Lots of options.

Probably you might consider to buy some books for portrait or commercial photography. Most of the techniques are the same for portrait and composition photography. but there are also differences. It is always about what, where and how the light falls on object you wanna take it.

Peter Hruby.

[Scott Rosenberg]

hey, thanks peter.

i'm going to pick up the book ralph suggested earlier in the thread this weekend, it should be an interesting read. right now, i just sort move the lights around and see what strikes me... below, above, behind, from the side, they all have a different look. it's fun to experiment, i'm sure the book will give me lots of new ideas!

thanks for all the tips,
scott

[Pete Watkins]

Nobody seems to have mentioned tungsten balanced film for use with tungsten lights. I've tried it and I was very happy with the results.

[Scott Rosenberg]

pete...

would i then need to go out and replace my lights with tungsten lights? i thought that the simpler route would be to simply slap an 80A on my lens and go from there.

[Peter Hruby]

Pete,

I think I mentioned it in my first response...

Scotty,

I don't know what halogen lights do you have, but if you use regular halogen lights they are tungsteen lights and you definitely need magenta filter. If you have regular bulbs, be ready that your final picture might be little bit greenish. I probably would try to look on your bulbs who is manufacturing them and then go to their website to look if they have any color characteristics regarding color and tungsteen.

I would recommend for you to buy Cibachrome or Ilfochrome printing filters. They are plenty of then on Ebay for few bucks. For you experimentation might be quite working. If you wanna go deeper into it you might consider to buy some kodak gel filters or Cokin stuff.

you can try with 80A filter and see how your print will look like. Actually, you do not need to use magenta filter for exposure, unless you gonna do positive film. If you do negs, just slightly increase magenta exposure to offset tugnsteen cast.

Peter Hruby.

[Frank Petronio]

You know, there are a lot of RIT and Brooks professors rolling over in their graves at this thread ;-) You're taking a subject that some people have spent their lives working on, and coming at it in a truly primative way.

One tip - leave things set up, get the film processed, then make changes based on what you see. Or do what thousands of pros do - use a digital camera or Polaroid - to get an idea of what is going on before you shoot the big film.

If you have a digital workflow, do yourself a favor and shoot color neg.

Good Luck!

[Scott Rosenberg]

wow, great information in this thread... THANKS everyone.

the bulbs are ge edison PAR20 50 watt halogens... the only information i could find is here and and here (the 2-1/2" diameter is the very bulb.

so to get started, using positive film and these lights, i'd be well-advised to use an 80A filter and a magenta CC filter, such as the CC05M.

alternatively,

i could use tungsten balanced film and a magenta CC filter, such as the CC05M.

am i straight here?

i'm not trying to win any contests for light temp theory, just stave off cabin fever while the weather is lousy... and maybe learn something in the process!

thanks SO much for all the assistance,
scott

[Peter Hruby]

Scott,

I found this information about PAR 20 bulbs

www.electriciansupplies.com/index_e.cfm/ S/46/N/619/Par_20_Capsylite_Par_20_Light_Bulbs.htm

They are tungsten, the color temp is 2950K so 80A filter will not be enough. Try and See. Regarding Frank's comment, I would agree, there is a significant knowledge about light and I personaly dig into it for more than 10 years. It is a big conversation and it requires lots of money to be invested into filters and equipment to have ability to control light. It is pretty straight if you have only one source of light (like day or tungsten), but it is way more complicated if you have more different light sources with different color temperatures. And this is a science.

Regarding your questions...
If you use Tungsten Film, it is already adjusted to all aspects of average tungsten light which is 3200K, 82A filter would be needed to get color balance to normal for your light bulb. No magenta CC is reguired.

If you will use daylight film, 80A + 82A + (CC05M or CC10M), and increase exposure by 1 1/3 stops.

Peter Hruby.