White Stage Flies and Box

[Zach Matthews]

A couple years ago when I turned in my first assignment for American Angler, I was asked to provide some images of flies floating on nothing.

[Mark Schafer]

THAT (fly pictures) is why I wanted the light box in the first place but now it seems more complicated than I thought.

MS

[Zach Matthews]

Here’s all I’m doing.

[Ben Cochran]

Thats the ticket 🙂 Nice images Zach! your images illustrate why I, personally, don’t care all that much for light boxes. You did a very good job of capturing the white Deer hair against the whit background too!!

[David Anderson]

Well shot Zach !

Nice light – anyone would think you were in a studio.. 😉

You could still move the table out more (another 3 feet ? ) for shooting larger stuff.

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[anonymous]

Man, Zach. You ought to be happy with those shots! Awesome.

Thanks for the details and to everyone for their ideas. I’ve learned a bunch.

[Mark Schafer]

I think that I have a handle on this now the wife even said I could use her high dollar camera. Although, she did draw the line at cutting a slot in the table for the paper to pass through.

Thanks for the help..

MS

[Zach Matthews]

So, David, you’re talking separation, right?

[Zach Matthews]

Mark –

The table was a child’s drawing table I purchased for $40 at Sam’s four years ago.

[Ben Cochran]

Zach, where did you get that roll of paper from? I like those home made soft boxes too. Guess it would be easy to make the heads larger and line them with something reflective, did you try that as well and if so, how did it work?

[Zach Matthews]

Ben –

I posted another link somewhere that had a print-out template to make those soft boxes.

[David Anderson]

Zach,

You can use the same roll of paper, just roll it out more.
You can get 4 foot (ish) wide rolls of white studio paper.

The subject (reel size) should be around four feet in front of the background at a minimum.

Another tip would be to use silver reflectors for flies and metal things – makes them pop a bit.

Point a flash down at the fly and have silver from the bottom and front as reflectors.

(crinkly aluminum foil works as well as anything

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[Mike McKeown]

I have learnt soo much from this thread, can’t wait for the weekend, to put into practive…

[dusty montgomery]

How many lights does one need to set up something like this?
Dusty

[Zach Matthews]

Dusty –

Probably two would be enough.

[Ben Cochran]

I agree with what David said but I won’t try to answer for him ;). Lowes has 4′ long fold-out tables, made by rubbermaid, that are very sturdy and work great. I use them to help prevent unwanted splash, on to the subject, possible lens flare and so that I can get better fill light across the backdrop. The price on these tables is about $35.00, I think it was.

Zach, I was thinking about this: I really like the direction that you are going but I noticed that you are now, basically, using only bounce flash. This makes me wonder if you need to use those soft boxes at all and at most, might only need to use the defuser on the hotshoe strobs. Also, with more distance to the backdrop, the wider the area of coverage and higher intensity that you can set the background strobe, while keeping your key light defused and lower as it is bounced off of the white boards. Just a thought…

[Zach Matthews]

Ben, good call.

[Zach Matthews]

Here’s one that’s been more carefully cleaned up.

[David Anderson]

Two flashes is all you need for this stuff IMHO.
One front and one back.

The separation is so you can control the lights for the background and subject.
(I think I might suck at explaining stuff –

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[Zach Matthews]

Thanks David.

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