A certain board member who's name shall not be revealed is just getting into night and underground photography. Anyway, so Rob666 had the idea of a thread for curious people to ask how the lighting in particular shots was achieved.

Now, some people might well not want to give up their hard-earned secrets, which is perfectly alright. Personally, I'm of the opinion that having to explain things gets me thinking usefully about aspects that I might otherwise gloss over. Besides, someone will always come along later and do it better, regardless

So, I suggest we work things like so:

1) If you're happy to discuss your photos, say so in a reply to this thread, and I'll maintain a list of participants at the top.

2) If you're interested in how a photo was achieved, and the photographer is listed as a participant in the list, link to their photo in a reply here. Please don't ask for details unless the photographer is a participant - that way we avoid awkward "I'd rather not" replies.

I suppose there's nothing stopping one PMing a photographer to see if they'd be interesting in participating, too.

The List:
(photographers happy to dissect their own stuff)

metawaffle
Rob666
AnAppleSnail

EDIT:
Looks like I didn't read the original post very well. I guess I'll leave this here, and if you see any pictures I've taken that you want to ask me about, I'll be glad to tell you what I've stumbled upon...






http://www.flickr....45@N04/3329642111/
The lighting here is a bit messy. Large (3w D cell) mag light bouncing off the wall to my right. Bike headlamp sideways about 3' inside the 6' RCP to give glow. All lights kept on steady, green laser point stroked across falling water.


http://www.flickr....45@N04/3327442802/
I'm lit by a grate above, and a ping-pong-balled light in my hand. The tunnel is lit with a 6v megalight in my other hand, held where the camera can't see it. The megalight was kept on for 2 seconds.




http://www.flickr....45@N04/3200573428/
2 small LED spots for near light (On top-right door, and on me), headlamp for near tunnel, and my late Cree supertorch for the deep tunnel. All LED lighting, and cold as the damn arctic. Compare to http://www.flickr....45@N04/3199727895/, lit only with the Cree.

Meta, do we talk about frantically waving LED lights to get even coverage?

EDIT: Looks like I didn't read the original post very well. I guess I'll leave this here, and if you see any pictures I've taken that you want to ask me about, I'll be glad to tell you what I've stumbled upon...

Funny you should say that because what you posted was exactly the kind of post I was hoping to see. A "here's a picture that I took and here's how I lit it".

My initial thought on the setups that you describe below is "no wonder I don't get these effects. I don't use 3 or more light sources!"

http://www.flickr....45@N04/3329642111/ The lighting here is a bit messy. Large (3w D cell) mag light bouncing off the wall to my right. Bike headlamp sideways about 3' inside the 6' RCP to give glow. All lights kept on steady, green laser point stroked across falling water.

I really like the warm lighting the bike headlamp provides from the RCP. The laser highlights the falling water. The mag light provides a good balance.

http://www.flickr....45@N04/3327442802/ I'm lit by a grate above, and a ping-pong-balled light in my hand. The tunnel is lit with a 6v megalight in my other hand, held where the camera can't see it. The megalight was kept on for 2 seconds.

I really like how the ligting brings out the texture of the bricks. I assume the megalight is shone behind you, down at the ground? I picked up on using a ping pong ball (thanks meta) but haven't tried it yet. Nice effect.

http://www.flickr....45@N04/3200573428/ 2 small LED spots for near light (On top-right door, and on me), headlamp for near tunnel, and my late Cree supertorch for the deep tunnel. All LED lighting, and cold as the damn arctic. Compare to http://www.flickr....45@N04/3199727895/, lit only with the Cree.

The small spots really do it for me. So much more detail than if a bigger spot had been used. Sorry to hear about your Cree though.

Posted by AnAppleSnail Meta, do we talk about frantically waving LED lights to get even coverage?

Incessantly!

Posted by rob666 Funny you should say that because what you posted was exactly the kind of post I was hoping to see. A "here's a picture that I took and here's how I lit it".

Yeah, agreed - if people want to just ramble on about how they did stuff, all the better. I was originally hoping people would put that sort of stuff in the light painting thread, but it probably works better if we leave that other thread as a gallery, and use this thread for more detailed stuff.

Serious and Important Exploration

I'm going to give some detail on this image, just because I need an excuse to post the silliness, and it's a very simple setup. The location is the remnant of a world war two US Army mess hall, something of a novelty in this area, and one slated for demolition in the near future (a portion of the camp is retained for posterity, but not this bit).

So, I'd been here recently, and had had my fill of 'serious' shots. I was back with a friend who hadn't seen the place before, and so decided to take a prop, and go for novelty.



Rock on!

Obviously, this shot is lit with flash, to freeze motion. I don't often take short, flash-lit exposures at night, so this is a departure for me. A single flash was positioned underneath my leaping form, pointing straight up, with a Sto-Fen tungsten-balanced diffuser, to soften the light, and spread it around the building. I didn't think it would be so effective at lighting up my surrounds, even at the overexposed power level I chose. I did prop up a piece of wood with rusty nails in it, in front of the flash, to avoid any lens flare issues. Always a good idea, putting down some rusty nails right where you're jumping around.

I didn't have radio flash triggers on-hand, so I used Nikon's built-in remote triggering instead. This meant using the on-camera flash as a master trigger, but I set it manually to minimum power, and covered it with a blue gel, and it has no appreciable effect on the image.

So, that's it - one diffused light source, and a room that bounced the light around pretty readily.

Posted by rob666 My initial thought on the setups that you describe below is "no wonder I don't get these effects. I don't use 3 or more light sources!" I really like how the ligting brings out the texture of the bricks. I assume the megalight is shone behind you, down at the ground? I picked up on using a ping pong ball (thanks meta) but haven't tried it yet. Nice effect. The small spots really do it for me. So much more detail than if a bigger spot had been used. Sorry to hear about your Cree though.

The small spots are mostly to get a more even light, they're not very bright. You can set them on the ground pretty close to something that's not lit by your megalite and it will show detail without washing out. The real trick with lights is to get texture! This is mostly getting the colors and natural shadows to show up (That's right, artificial lights meticulously placed for 'natural' shadows). This is what you get when you do it wrong (Light from two directions). Bricks are flat, shadows are funny.


Here is the absolute reason why to use off-camera light, for all those who don't believe us. Two identical shots, one lit with off-camera megalight, one lit with flash. Identical tripod placement, with the megalight held above head height against the right side of the brick arch.


These also show poor use of the little lights. Way at the back, random sections of brick are lit with cold white light. If the sun weren't maiming the center of the picture, your eyes would be drawn to these mysterious lights trying to figure out what's so special there.


It's easy to use too much light for small spaces. Anyone who spends time in 4' RCP knows this scene:

Just my headlamp and a single spot. My headlamp lights the RCP on the right, and gets my shoulder/elbow lit. The spot in front just hits bright RCP for the frontlighting. This 'lights on opposite sides' works because it's diffuse light with no shadows conflicting. That earlier picture had multisource shadows crossing, which looks funny. The pipe here winds up acting like a partial lightbox, and 2 small lights are plenty for it.



Something completely different: Candles. You have to be pretty careful not to destroy all shadows between the candles, which usually means "put tea lights along the baseboard." Here I used some brick steps (the drains on campus are old and don't have regular steprungs) to hold the candles. Any suggestions here? I haven't had a candle session in several weeks now


Everyone's favorite lighting method: Wave a hand light around frantically, hoping for even lighting. I think this took about eight tries, and I've used this technique many a time before. I swung fast past the near walls, and lingered far away...fairly basic, and it's easy to kill off any innocent shadows by accident.

These have been most of my favorite artificially-lit pictures. If you'd like, page through http://www.flickr....otos/12536945@N04/ and feel free to ask about any you like. If I keep up shooting and lighting this way I'll completely forget how to shoot with the sun.

Here's one of the few I've been happy with:



Camera on tripod pre-focussed on brick wall in a room that was essentially black. Tripped shutter on one of the automatic settings. Held a bright, tight LED flashlight up near the wall and turned in on. Wrote '666' in my neatest script and finished by moving the light off screen to the right (hence the downwards arc to the bottom right) and turned off the light just as the shutter closed.

It's not very complicated or profound but I was quite happy with it.

Compare it with an earlier effort:



There a few things wrong with this one, one of which is that you probably can't even be sure what I wrote! Also, the camera was set up too close and I made a poor choice of background as the graffiti is just too busy. It was my first try though and I didn't think it was THAT bad (I was wrong).


My suggestions for success:

1. set up the camera an appropriate distance away,
2. choose a plain background, probably a darker coloured one,
3. use 3 or 4 letter names for your kids. 5 is just too long,
4. a tighter flashlight beam held closer to the wall is easiest to work with.

Posted by AnAppleSnail Something completely different: Candles. You have to be pretty careful not to destroy all shadows between the candles, which usually means "put tea lights along the baseboard."

Candles! I've taken some woeful candle shots in drains. Actually, I remember Glass had a good one a while back, where he'd had a few people come along and help set up.

I can't really offer to dissect anything in massive depth because I'm busy busy lately, however I wrote this a while ago, some people here might find if useful.

http://sleepycity.net/tome

It's long and has a few tangents but otherwise is pretty true to the subject matter of this board.

Posted by dsankt I can't really offer to dissect anything in massive depth because I'm busy busy lately, however I wrote this a while ago, some people here might find if useful. http://sleepycity.net/tome It's long and has a few tangents but otherwise is pretty true to the subject matter of this board.

That's brilliant, ds!

I'm happy to try to attempt an explanation of any of my images.

Great idea for a thread guys! I had often thought of asking something similar. I'm such a noob when it comes to this kind of photography so these explanations are great I'll be sure to contribute when I have something of a worthy standard

For the time being I look forward to reading more of the explanations

I'm super swamped, but I think i will throw in the idea that if you think your going to get wonderful results with even one of two lights, you will be disappointed.

I find 3lights plus long exposures work well.

oh, I recommend ds's lighting write up, very useful stuff.

Well, these days I rarely use more than one light source for my own stuff, but I light different areas sequentially over the course of an exposure. Does that count as using more than one light? Sort of, but not really.

I know having all kinds of different lights at your disposal is cool and all, but there's something to be said for learning how to get the most out of just one or two.

Here're a few recent ones taken using a single handheld spotlight. All were 30 second exposures because I forgot to bring the shutter release cable that lets me use bulb mode. I hate it when that happens.

Posted by micro Well, these days I rarely use more than one light source for my own stuff, but I light different areas sequentially over the course of an exposure. Does that count as using more than one light? Sort of, but not really.

Man that's one pretty picture! Love that!!! In keeping with the thread, care to share how you got that?

I agree with the massive scaling down of what comes along on a draining trip for photographic purposes. I used to drag so much stuff with me. These days I take most of my pics using two torches, both of which are pocket sized. I would opt for the longer exposure while jumping from spot to spot to light it, but my camera is really harsh on the noise front on any exposure over a minute, even at lowest iso. So I cheat I guess, and often shoot two frames with one consistent light source, while varying the other and then see what I can do with the two frames processing wise.

Posted by Jondoe_264 Man that's one pretty picture! Love that!!! In keeping with the thread, care to share how you got that?

Oh yeah. Right. Ok.. so I gave it a few (five?) seconds worth of foreground lighting with the trusty spot, making sure not to light too far into the steel section where I knew I'd be standing. Then I dashed forward and lit the rest of the pipe up for another five. And *then* (this is something I've been doing a fair amount lately), I stuck out my arm and turned the spotlight back on me which can result in some nice lighting patterns and highlights around me.

Another thing I've started to do a lot over the past few months has been to do all my test shots at ISO 3200. That way I'm not wasting precious battery power and time trying to figure out what might get the best results. Quick and dirty flash-filled shots help a lot too, especially when trying to get angles right because working through the viewfinder isn't always convenient.

Posted by micro And *then* (this is something I've been doing a fair amount lately), I stuck out my arm and turned the spotlight back on me which can result in some nice lighting patterns and highlights around me.

Hey, that's a cool idea. I have trouble sometimes getting well-defined silhouettes - and your approach sounds generally more interesting, anyway.

Posted by micro Another thing I've started to do a lot over the past few months has been to do all my test shots at ISO 3200.

Back in the day, I wrote an application for my phone to calculate exposure times when changing aperture and ISO for long exposure test shots. Because, you know, multiplying by two a few times is so mentally taxing

Posted by micro Oh yeah. Right. Ok.. so I gave it a few (five?) seconds worth of foreground lighting with the trusty spot, making sure not to light too far into the steel section where I knew I'd be standing. Then I dashed forward and lit the rest of the pipe up for another five. And *then* (this is something I've been doing a fair amount lately), I stuck out my arm and turned the spotlight back on me which can result in some nice lighting patterns and highlights around me. Another thing I've started to do a lot over the past few months has been to do all my test shots at ISO 3200. That way I'm not wasting precious battery power and time trying to figure out what might get the best results. Quick and dirty flash-filled shots help a lot too, especially when trying to get angles right because working through the viewfinder isn't always convenient.

Awesome, thanks.

I too have been doing similarly with the light shone back on myself, often results in some nice stuff. This is a recent example of it in practice from me . .



In the interest of Teh Thread. That pic is three shots photochopped. One exposure for the foreground, one for a good exposure of the side pipes brickwork (i.e. not blown out), then one with me jumping in the shot, leaving the side pipe lighting in place and using a torch first shining the torch ahead to illuminate some of the distant tunnel, then shining it back on myself to try to achieve a crisper silhouette-ish. I like most of it except the foreground, especially far right, I think it looks a little unnatural, almost HDR like . . shudder.

Posted by metawaffle Serious and Important Exploration I'm going to give some detail on this image, just because I need an excuse to post the silliness, and it's a very simple setup. The location is the remnant of a world war two US Army mess hall, something of a novelty in this area, and one slated for demolition in the near future (a portion of the camp is retained for posterity, but not this bit). So, I'd been here recently, and had had my fill of 'serious' shots. I was back with a friend who hadn't seen the place before, and so decided to take a prop, and go for novelty. Rock on! Obviously, this shot is lit with flash, to freeze motion. I don't often take short, flash-lit exposures at night, so this is a departure for me. A single flash was positioned underneath my leaping form, pointing straight up, with a Sto-Fen tungsten-balanced diffuser, to soften the light, and spread it around the building. I didn't think it would be so effective at lighting up my surrounds, even at the overexposed power level I chose. I did prop up a piece of wood with rusty nails in it, in front of the flash, to avoid any lens flare issues. Always a good idea, putting down some rusty nails right where you're jumping around. I didn't have radio flash triggers on-hand, so I used Nikon's built-in remote triggering instead. This meant using the on-camera flash as a master trigger, but I set it manually to minimum power, and covered it with a blue gel, and it has no appreciable effect on the image. So, that's it - one diffused light source, and a room that bounced the light around pretty readily.

Well that worked a treat then!

I have yet to really dip my toe in to the use of flash(es), but I see a whole world of other possibilities there. I know Steve Duncan often shots with remote flashes etc, and gets some special results.