Alt Nudes wrote:
Lately I've had a few shoots where I've been asked to emulate direct sunlight. I've used big 6Kw HMI movie lights with fresnel lenses, but they are big, heavy, hot and expensive to rent. Ideally, I would like to buy a light modifier for my Elinchrom studio lights. My question is, which modifier will give me the sharpest, crispest shadows at the best price?

Elinchrom offer two zoom spots that seem to be able to focus the light and give me the hard shadows I'm looking for. But I've never used them so I'd like to hear from someone who has experience with them.

http://www.elinchrom.com/product/Mini-S … ml#content

http://www.elinchrom.com/product/Zoom-S … ml#content

Also, if there's a different way of achieving this type of light, I'd love to hear about it. I'm not averse to creative solutions and a little DIY.

Thanks!

AVD AlphaDuctions wrote:
random observation: so many ppl posting to demonstrate their knowledge (and failing) and so few posting to actually help the OP with useful information.  since the little monkey is here I can shut up

The real star of this thread is Fred Greissing with his incisive, detailed post that has a load of useful info to help the OP:
https://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thre … st15739129

Laura Ann - Fashion wrote:

Let me see if I can find the unedited version, but I don't believe I did too much with it.  Lemme see if I have the photo on the external I currently have hooked up...

EDIT:

Not the same shoot, but the same lighting set up.  Unretouched.

AWESOME! so you just put black paper on the 7" reflector? Dunno if you have any photos of your modification on the reflector?

NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote:

In photography the main difference between objects we call black and objects we call white is exposure. You can make a white wall black and a black wall white.

Making a white lace blouse white without blowing out detail is a demonstration of real skill, not blowing out a wall to pure white.

Al Lock Photography wrote:
Making a white lace blouse white without blowing out detail is a demonstration of real skill, not blowing out a wall to pure white.

Fascinating.

When it comes to matte objects, black white and gray are all different points on the same scale. Black objects (other than exotic materials) reflect about 5% of light. Gray objects reflect about 10% to 70% of the light that falls on them, and white objects reflect about 80% to 95% of the light.

http://books.google.com/books?id=2tW91B … ge&f=false

That's why if you hit black paper with enough colored light you can create a nice colored backdrop.

NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote:
That's why if you hit black paper with enough colored light you can create a nice colored backdrop.

Try hitting black velour with enough colored light to create a nice colored backdrop. Good luck with that.

Al Lock Photography wrote:
Try hitting black velour with enough colored light to create a nice colored backdrop. Good luck with that.

Velour has a nap which can cause anisotropic reflection, so the pattern of light might be different, but I don't see any problem in brightening it or gelling it.

Al Lock Photography wrote:
Try hitting black velour with enough colored light to create a nice colored backdrop. Good luck with that.

Velour reflects more than velvet, and black velvet can make a great colored backdrop.

...with enough light.

When I was doing a lot of gelling, the 2400 watt-second pack with a head very close to the background was being used for the background light, while the main+fill were using less than 50 watt-seconds each.

I vastly prefer black seamless if I'm going to gel, though.

John_Robert wrote:
If you move the light further from the subject, you will create a smaller light source which should make those double shadows far less noticeable.  Or really, what about just lining the reflector with cinefoil? (assuming you are keeping the reflector on for spill)

You can move the light source far away, but you will still have a double edged shadow. It is the light source itself that causes the problem. The flash tube is a horse shoe shape.

A Leko light on the other hand does not project the light source it projects a focused projection of the round inner baffle in the leko.

To help explain this I'll refer to an issue with tungsten Fresnel lens lights.
They produce different light based on the lamp filament. Some lamps, especially ones with a longer life spam have simple non dense filament arrays such as USHIO lamps. I never use them. The best are the Osram lamps. They have a much denser and fuller filament array and the light quality is totally different, especially when it comes to projected shadows.

I never use USHIO lamps and always use Osram.

Just to make it more clear I went and took a photo of both lamps.



The top one is an Osram. the Bottom one is an Ushio.

As you can clearly see the Osram has a denser filament with no gaps when seen straight on (sorry but the photo is not quite straight on).

There is also a 3rd type of lamp that produced nice clean light out of a fresnel spot. It's a lamp designed for the Arri Pars. It's actually not intended for Fresnel spots. It has the filament array rotated 90 degrees. This presents the filaments in profile. This will result in crisper light, but a less power.

This photo for example would not have been clean using an Ushio lamp.

Creative Concept Studio wrote:


This was done with a bare studio strobe, just the silver reflector to direct the light. The edges in this example are not as sharp of the unedited version due to process.

This photo for example clearly shows the bulb shape projection effect. Look at the double shadows produced.

NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote:
If you want to geek out about sun shadow edge softness levels, this thread is very good.

https://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=589714

It helped me clarify some things.

Since the sun subtends about a half a degree of arc in the sky, what would happen if you just took a snoot or a simple reflector and capped the end of it with some diffusion to turn it into a small round softbox?

NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote:

Since the sun subtends about a half a degree of arc in the sky, what would happen if you just took a snoot or a simple reflector and capped the end of it with some diffusion to turn it into a small round softbox?

If you put together the distance required and the light loss of a snoot plus diffusion cap you would have very little power.

Even though the small diffusion cap is small you still need it a sufficent distance from the subject so has not to have a difference in light based on how far it has to travel to the different depths of the subject.

Consider this. You have a subject that is two feet "deep".

The sunlight hitting the closest part of the subject comes from 92955820 miles and the light hitting the farthest part of the subject is 92955820 miles and two feet. Difference is negligable.

Your snoot is at 10 feet. The difference is 20 %

Fred Greissing wrote:
Your snoot is at 10 feet. The difference is 20 %

Ends up being about 2/3 of a stop, I think. (a sphere of 10 feet has about 69% of the surface area of a sphere of 12 feet)

But that's true no matter what kind of small light source is 10 feet away.

NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote:

Ends up being about 2/3 of a stop, I think. (a sphere of 10 feet has about 69% of the surface area of a sphere of 12 feet)

But that's true no matter what kind of small light source is 10 feet away.

No not really. The distance fall off from a light that is a diffused source is much higher than the fall off from a light that is focused with most of the light travelling in a parralel manner.

Fred Greissing wrote:
No not really. The distance fall off from a light that is a diffused source is much higher than the fall off from a light that is focused with most of the light travelling in a parralel manner.

A point source exhibits inverse square falloff.

A small, somewhat far softbox may as well be a point source.

Since you were commenting on my 'snoot with a diffuse cap' example parallel rays don't enter into the discussion. There's no parabola or lens involved to create parallel rays.

I was curious, so I talked my daughter into making this her 6th grade science project.

Dream-foto wrote:

If the sunlight comes from a low angle  it's amber/yellow, it if comes from a high angle  it's white.

And actually it is NOT fully "white" even then as the sun does NOT produce a FULL color spectrum of equal intensity, so it really does have a slight color shift to the yellow. BUT the human eye is very good at compensating for color/white balance shifts. Film/digital is not and so we adjust our white balance accordingly.

SKITA Studios wrote:
Anyone know of an equivalent to the Selecon Acclaim in the US?
Looks like it's a UK light.  You'd think there'd be a lot of chinese knockoffs on fleabay by now :-)

The selecon acclaim is sold in the US too.

B&H has them on their site:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 … 18_to.html

Much better prices through theatrical supply places.

I got mine from www.elslights.com for just under $ 300 with an altman clamp

Photos by Jeff B  wrote:

And actually it is NOT fully "white" even then as the sun does NOT produce a FULL color spectrum of equal intensity, so it really does have a slight color shift to the yellow. BUT the human eye is very good at compensating for color/white balance shifts. Film/digital is not and so we adjust our white balance accordingly.

Actually sunlight in the open is a combination of a high key slightly warm light with a very broad much weaker diffuse cool fill. Sun and blue sky.

Cuervo79 wrote:

AWESOME! so you just put black paper on the 7" reflector? Dunno if you have any photos of your modification on the reflector?

I literally took a matte black paint and painted the inside of the reflector.  As simple as that.  I use the lighting set up quite a bit, so I was okay with doing that since I obviously can't reverse it.

Fred Greissing wrote:

I find that direct heads with reflectors produce a double shadow rather than a clean edge. The sun produces a clean edge. The difference is very evident in the fine shadows cast by hair, eyelashes etc.

Fred, I haven't been able to replicate this myself, but I have seen the very crisp shadows produced from a reflector painted black, direct light.

As for myself, the shadows tend to be a bit more soft for my purposes, and I haven't toyed with them as much to try to get the sharpness.  But perhaps I'll try to do so with the black reflector next time I do some studio stuff.

Laura Ann - Fashion wrote:
I literally took a matte black paint and painted the inside of the reflector.  As simple as that.  I use the lighting set up quite a bit, so I was okay with doing that since I obviously can't reverse it.

A computer simulation of what happens if you paint a parabolic reflector matte black - if anyone's interested.

It's a pretty accurate renderer with regard to light behavior.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi2M6x1uawY

Laura Ann - Fashion wrote:
I haven't been able to replicate this myself...

You'd hafta move the light very close to the subject in order to replicate that - unless the shadow he's talking about is from a fill light or other unrelated source to the key and isn't realizing it.

Laura Ann - Fashion wrote:
Fred, I haven't been able to replicate this myself, but I have seen the very crisp shadows produced from a reflector painted black, direct light.

As for myself, the shadows tend to be a bit more soft for my purposes, and I haven't toyed with them as much to try to get the sharpness.  But perhaps I'll try to do so with the black reflector next time I do some studio stuff.

A direct head with a flash tube and a black reflector will not reproduce sunlight qualities. The problem is the shape of the light source. It's a horse shoe/ring shape.
It will always produce a double shadow and muddled shadows when there are multiple elements creating those shadows. Eyelashes, hair, leaves, feathers.
The results of a direct head and black parabola will produce a smaller shadow demarcation, but it will not be clean.

A Leko takes the shape of the bulb out of the equation because it does not focus the source but the round baffle.

Here are some images to illustrate what I am saying.

Real sunlight.


Here is a tight crop from the same file. Look at how clear the shadow of the eyelashes are:


Here is a photo shot with a Leko in studio with a very very diffused fill.



And here is a tight crop on the eyes from the same file:


and here is a shot with a direct head with a black reflector.



See how here the eyelashes don't cast a clear sharp shadow.
The head was about 25 feet away.

Both the Leko and the direct head produce high key light, the Leko has more of the geometric behavior of sun.

Some may say that looking this close is overkill, but it's not.
The effect of how this fine detail is reproduced will effect the overall look and be quite evident at a distance in hair, wooley cloths and above all on skin.

Fred Greissing wrote:
and here is a shot with a direct head with a black reflector.

At what distance?

Al Lock Photography wrote:
At what distance?

The direct head with black reflector was at 25 feet and an 18 foot high stand.

The Leko however was at about 12 to 15 feet and about 9 feet high.

Karl Baxter wrote:

The hardbox was the first modifier that made me justify a potential move from eli..

Switching systems for the profoto hardbox? All it is is an expensive black bucket.
It produces a double edged shadow just like a reflector painted black.