One light + a Mirror

VW Bus
Model by Malibu International LTD

Two posts back I talked about putting the optically triggered booster strobe in a Magic Silo. (See HERE if you missed it.) I showed it being used by itself with a lens adapter as the subject.


Today I'll show what I did to fill out that flash and get rid of the dark side of the moon adapter. Let's start with a photo of the above VW Bus model with the single strobe in the Silo.

Not bad. The soft light on the nose and top of the subject from camera left is decent and workable. The whites are white, green's green, and so on. Here's the setup on my studio/bed:

Simple enough. That dark square to the right is a mirror that I will use to even out the lighting on the far side of the strobe. Here's the setup with the mirror in place:

I used a camera bag to prop it up. The model is again on my piece of ripple glass with one side painted black, making for a water effect. Not much of that was picked up in this shoot though. I wasn't lighting to highlight the water effect, so it's not really there.

With the mirror in place, and no change in exposure (1/200 @ f28) the subject changes significantly.

NOTE: Framing isn't exactly the same. I was handholding the camera. It's close enough to see the lighting.

Here are both photos together so you can compare.

 

Wow. The blown out white areas in the top somehow flattened with the reflector in place! I had moved the peaks in the histogram from the right side closer to the middle. Even at the same exposure with the same amount of light from the strobe (it's not adjustable, after all) I got more color and more detail and less clipping.

These are the little details and tricks that pros use to make those photos we like so much look so tasty!