How Do I Do THIS?

[John.D]

Hey all,

I'm looking for some advice on how to do a certain type of shot, figured I may as well open a thread so perhaps others could post when they need advice on something too.

Basically, I have in mind a completely dark room, with someone standing in the corner, and torches shining at different places on him, and was wondering what settings I would need to use. I tried it the other day but I just couldn't get it working.I know what i'm doing in low light situations, but i've never ventured into the realms of total darkness! ;)

This is an example of the kind of thing i'm looking for -

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5445/howtododarktorchnf6.jpg

There's probably a simple way to do it, but my attempts either were too yellow in the light (i'm looking for white), I don't want flash I don't think because that would brighten the whole room.

[HuBBaTheMan]

What it sounds like is something called lightpainting. It basically means very long exposures, and using a torch or other light to "paint" the light onto the subject.

Since you obviously already got results but they were too yellow i wont go into more detail how to actually paint with light but just note that you need to whitebalance for the torch that you are using (so the light becomes white) and also you would benefit from shooting with RAW files instead of Jpeg since you can finetune the whitebalance in RAW.

(And btw. the image link doesnt work in your post).

Happy painting =)

[John.D]

That's odd, the image is fine here :/

Thanks for the advice. The shots were only quick tests so I guess you could still go into detail ;)

[HuBBaTheMan]

Hm. now it works for me aswell. And heh.. now i see the drawing ;) What i would do is long exposure, and then paint with the torch on the spots you want to luminate him.

Exactly what time you need depends on a lot of things and if you have a lightmeter you could measure the torch light falling in on the subject or the reflective light from the torch if you have a spot meter. The spot meter method could also work with in-camera, so just shine the torch on one part of the face for example, and take a measure there. The f stop & time will be the exposure time to get that exposed properly. You can also push it a stop or two, so you can paint around more freely with the light.

Then its just trial and error.

The model needs to stay VERY VERY still though =)

[Morbid]

Actually, I think flashes would be your best shot. They won't light the room any more than ordinary lights, and they will overpower any stray light (so you could have some light in the room to see what you're doing). You could use one or more flashes with custom gobos. You could put a piece of cardboard with holes on a snoot on the flash, that would give the effect you're after.

You would probably get some bounced light anyhow, but you could easily fix that in photoshop.
. _.____
/ |___|| <- cardboard
| | ^snoot
|_/ <- flash
||

[JonS]

Small aperture, long exposure. Set WB to incandescent or set it custom. Use manual focus, lock the mirror up (assuming an SLR) to reduce shake.

Dose the model with 1000mg of diazepam ;)