Lighting, Lensing and Molding
Having crossed over 20 active years in commercial photography, Dilip Yande says his forte is Fashion and Portrait photography. He believes variety is the spice of life, and to keep himself motivated he does a lot of tabletop as well. For Dilip, names like Rembrandt, Renoir, Gauguin, Picasso, Turner, Monet are household names because of his childhood that was spent in a lineage of fine arts. This ‘fine art’ reflects in his work because he feels that there is always a little bit of ‘ you’ in everything one does. Having shot for many advertising agencies, juried a few competitions, mentored many workshops, and guided many photographers in their formative years, for Dilip, photography is just another way to romance his first love – art. He may be contacted at dilipyande@gmail.com.
If you refer to any dictionary like the Oxford or the Webster, you may not find the word ‘lensing’. But it does exist, at least in the glossary of photographers. This is what they refer to, while talking about choosing the right focal length for a shoot. Thus the expression ‘Use the right lensing’.
Molding
Molding (creating the right feel, form and tonality) on any product can best be attained when there is a right combination of lighting and focal length for the object to be photographed. Many amateurs may ask that if 85 to 105mm is considered ideal for portraits with full frame cameras, what focal length is good for a table- top? In case of shooting pack-shots of tall product, say a tall box, or a bottle, it is necessary to keep the verticals as parallel as possible and this can be achieved with lenses having focal lengths of 105mm and above (with full-frame cameras) and then shooting from the correct angle.
Depth of Field
Some people have misconceptions that shallow depth of field is only possible by using a longer focal length lens. But this is not so. One can also try to photograph the same subject by going much closer with a lens of lower focal length that has an f/stop like f/1.4, f/1.8 etc. Doing this, and with the same composition, it is possible to get a better bokeh (out of focus background). This happens because you are moving closer to the subject and as you move closer, depth of field reduces. Hence by using the right focal length, the right aperture, the right shooting distance and keeping the background sufficiently away, you can create the required sharpness/blurriness of the background.
Perspective
Apart from this, one has to remember that wide-angle lenses tend to exaggerate the distances between the subject and the background, while telephoto lenses compress them. This is the very reason that while watching a cricket match on television, one finds the opposite side of the stadium is much closer and enlarged, when the cameraman zooms-in onto the batsman. Product photographers also have to take several other parameters into consideration, like the ‘flat-field’ property of a lens, the distortions that it may produce or the aberrations that it may create in the picture. Hence all serious hobbyists and professionals should opt for good quality lenses. Taking all these parameters into consideration one has to plan one’s own kit of lenses which would be helpful to him as per the nature of the job one handles.
Lighting
Lighting plays the most important role in defining the molding of an object or a face. Changing the angle of the light with respect to the camera and subject, changes the roundness or the depth of a subject. The hardness or softness of the light source also makes a lot of difference, especially if there is texture on the
surface of the object. The light source also decides the kind of shadow that will be created on the base or the background. Once again the angle of the light and its distance from the subject/object decides the length of the shadow that is created. This indirectly decides the drama in the picture. Every three-dimensional object has to be viewed and analyzed in a specific way. (See diagram 1) The x, y and the z planes have to be analyzed and defined for precise lighting. Please note that with any object a maximum three such planes can be viewed from any angle at one time. The surface texture has to be taken into consideration while doing the lighting. To explain these lighting fundamentals, I have taken an off-white box as our subject. The surface has a beautiful texture of ‘mother-of-pearls’ on it. I have specifically chosen this long box in order to explain the ‘lensing’ factor. I chose to use a 70 to 300 mm zoom lens. This gave me the liberty to use intermittent focal lengths which are not available in non-zoom lenses. The box was kept on a small sheet of seamless white drawing paper. Light from any and every position was reflecting back from this seamless paper. Since the field area was small, controlled lighting was a must. In the beginning I first framed the shot by going closer and then further away from the box, observing from where it would not appear distorted through the camera, I kept zooming in and out as I shifted the distance. I did not wish to give a very ‘shallow depth of field look’ to the pictures. After the position of the camera was fixed, the placement of lights was started. In pic 1 the box was placed as shown on the white background and a very basic lighting with a single soft-box kept slightly topish, was done to study the molding of the box and to observe the texture of the ‘mother of pearl’ on the box. It is very important to see how texture stands out in a given lighting condition. Using a black ‘cutter’, part of the light reflected back from the white background was controlled. This defined the top of the box in a better way. The picture though may be technically correct in terms of lighting, still has a lot of scope for improvement. The overall depth in the picture appears less, this is mainly due to the fact the plane Y has a less surface area compared to the other visible planes.
In pic 2, the light source which was a ‘rectalight’ was shifted to the left