Chaya asked a while back if there was a way of mimicking daylight on model railroad shots. The problem is that most layout shots have rather flat lightingbe cause they are taken under diffuse lighting. I'd been playing around with "slow synch", where the flash goes off at the end of the exposure, after letting the camera gather the room light. Today I too out my D70 manual and really read the correct sections. I am beginning to have some success. I did not use my normal three compact fluorescents in cheap reflectors due to lack of time. The results would have been much better, as I could have avoided backgrounds darkening in the distance. That's for next time. This time I was trying to achieve distinct shadow lines, brighter colors, and more contrast. I'm using a Nikon D70 with a 24-85 lens, and an SB800 Nikon flash. Let's ignore the background, which I didn't light and is cloudy anyway. I've got some nice distinct shadows on the ships. Here's how I got this. It probably requires a DSLR to have these controls. 1. I set the "Slowest Flash Speed", normally 1/60, to 1 sec, the limit. 2. I set the flash sync mode to "Slow." The "Rear Curtain" mode is essentially the same. 3. I set the "Color Mode" to III, which is Nikonese for sRGB with some color enhancement 3. I chose "Aperture Priority" and closed the lens as far as it would go, f/25 for this lens. 4. I set the camera on the tripod and composed the scene. 5. Now for some fiddling. The D70 would not fire at first if the shutter speed was greater than 1 second (see step 1). So I had to turn the aperture to f/16 to get it to fire. Curiously, it would then fire without a problem at f/22 and f/25. 6. I used their remote trigger so I wouldn't have to touch the camera. The color enhancement is apparent in these two shots. First, with all the settings described above: Now just a plain shot under the room lights, plus three compact fluorescents: I'll continue these experiments as I have time. In the second trial, I will move the flash off the camera, and use the compact fluorescents to make the background lighting more even. In the third trial, I'm going to try to use this technique with Helicon software. It should work, but might be tricky.
Pete, This sounds interesting! I haven't taken a bunch time to mess with the manual settings on camera,this might be the motivation for me!
Yes, it's been interesting for me too. I think I can still use the reflectors to light a scene, and then use the flash to sharpen the shadows and colors, at least in the foreground. With the flash off the camera, I should be able to get higher "sun" angles. I should also be able to use my cheapo slave flashes, which are incompatible with Nikon's metering in an ordinary mode (and might still be incompatible!) At f/22 in dim lighting, my setup fires the SB800 at full power. It surprises and awes you the first time.
Pete, Do you know about Inverse Square Law when it comes to studio flash lighting? I use this when I do preliminary lighting arrangements. It's much faster than trying to use the flash meter with every light. If not, the Law states that for X distance you move the light away from the subject, the light output has to be the Square of X in order to get the same amount of light on the subject. Example: Light 1 is 1 foot from the subject. Light 2 is 4 feet from the subject. Light 2 must be emitting 16 times more light than light 1 for their to be even lighting between the two lights. This comes in handy for figuring out the placement of the fill and key lights. My favorite tool for initial lighting set up is a long piece of string temporarily tapped to the subject. I use this to set up the lights and keep their distances correct for the lighting effect I am going for. For the overall fill light, try boundcing a few strobes of the ceiling, provided its white tile. In a pinch I have tapped white posterboard to a ceiling to get the proper effect. -Mark
Mark, I think we posted nearly simultaneously on different forums here. Due to lack of response here I also posted in The Inspection Pit, where I talked about the Inverse Square Law for directed light. I can't remember if it's the same for a bare bulb--it's been more than 40 years. I wrote, before I saw this that: My ceiling is the brightest white I could find. Unfortunately, with a multi-deck layout, getting bounced light into the nooks and crannies is a problem. The undersides of the deck are white, too.
Instead of the on-camera flash, I use various types of halogen lights. Perhaps the least expensive comes in the form of a track light system from the local home store. By all means, tape the slot to prevent electrical shock! To reduce darkening at the back of the scene, hold the light as far back from the layout as possible. It is expensive, but the Dedolight is hard to beat. It has very even illumination and can be focused from wide to narrow beam angles. It also mounts directly on inexpensive photographic lighting stands. Other layout photo ideas are at: Layout photo technique on Smugmug
The inverse square law is theoretically for a point source. A directed/ focused etc. is only marginally different FOR THE REGION IN WHICH IT IS DIRECTED. If however you have a LINEAR light source, such as one fluorescent tube end on end practically forever, ie an infinite length linear light source, the light intensity would be inversely proportional to the distance from the source, not the distance squared. And if your light source were an infinite PLANE of light, the light intensity WOULD NOT VARY with the distance. Since there is probably no such thing as an infinite linear light source or an infinite plane of light, the light intensity would only APPROACH these relationships as the light source approaches/ tends toward these infinite dimensions in porportion to the region involved... Another interesting physics relationship. If you were living in a space colony on a planet or moon with a gravity somewhat less than Earth's and for amusement built an operating scale model railroad, modeling in a scale that is the SQUARE of the relationship between earth gravity and space-colony gravity would produce gravity, momentum and centrifugal forces effects that would appear identical to full size trains in earth gravity. In other words, on a moon with 1/6 Earth gravity, a 1/36 model of a falling object would fall in proper scale speed and acceleration! What does this have to do with photography? Actually, a LOT for motion picvture photography. For filming a model scene that will involve falling action and/or acceleration effects, speed-up the camera by the inverse square root of the modeling scale, and operate the model speeded up by the inverse square root of the modeling scale. Normal motion picture speed is 24 frames per second. Three times that is 72 frames per second. Build a model in 1/9th actual size, and operate it speeded up by the inverse square root of the scale speed. Scale speed would be 1/9 prototype speed. Speeded up by inverse square root would be 3 times 1/9 = 1/3 prototype speed. If you are modeling a train running 60 miles an hour (88 ft/sec) operate the model at 1/3 x 88 ft/sec, approximately 29 ft/sec. Then project the film (taken at 72 frames/sec) at the standard 24 frames/sec along with all the normally-filmed scenes from the movie, and the falling and acceraltion action of the model will appear the same time-wise as a full-sized prototype. I don't think most home video cameras allow you those options, but I thought it would be interesting to present. How did we get off on this anyway? Oh year...lighting.
ncmrdispatcher, I've often done what you've shown, though not that way. My problem with it is that the sky, in real life, acts as an umbrella. So this technique yields too strong contrast for me. Kenneth, Thanks for the clarification. I think the sky, in real life, serves as that plane of light, albeit as a dome or umbrella. The scaling factors are, of course, well known in Hollywood, and also where I work. Thanks for explaining them to others who might not be involved in this sort of imaging. I think some of the higher-end digital home video cameras can be cranked up to at least 72 fps (3X).
Pete - Yes, you are correct in that with a single light, contrast usually becomes excessive. I always add limited fill light (although not as much as a standard but fairly flat studio light ratio) since I'm shooting with a digital SLR not with "contrasty" color slide film. This is an "outtake" from a recent photo shoot at the Greeley Freight Station Museum, showing off Rick Bacon III's DRGW caboose. The key light is a Dedo, set to full broad beam, and fill comes from the museum's tungsten overhead lights. Additional fill from a white reflector could improve the photo by cutting the lighting ratio by a bit more. Some day I will try putting a yellow gel over the Dedo to make it yellower than the fill, which is what happens in real life with blue sky acting as the fill. I was going after a grazing light that would make details on the caboose "pop" even though pre-weathering all sides started life as the same color. In Colorado a typical outdoor lighting ratio on a clear sky sunny day runs much higher than normally encountered at lower coastal altitude (such as where I spent my youth.) All the best!
Very good pointers, Bob. I have the too-strong contrast problem here in New Mexico; thanks to Photoshop's Highlight/Shadow feature, I can usually normalize my images. I had the opposite problem, too little contrast, on the East Coast and in Alaska; again, Photoshop to the rescue. All of this could be done with film by adjusting exposures and/or darkroom techniques to enhance/retard contrast. The problem I was addressing was that model railroad room lighting is usually unnaturally flat, or at least "cloudy day" lighting. Hadn't thought of yellowing the prime light--that's pretty easily done with filters. You've started a whole new train of thought for me.:tb-biggrin: It'll be a long while before I can experiment, as work is taking up a lot of time and effort, and there are priorities due to the regional MRSA regional meeting, where I am on the layout tour.
