Still-Life with Mag-Lite

This is a good remedy for raining, cold and dark days, when the idea to go outside for shooting is far away from our mind, but we still have the will to feel the shutter button of the camera under the fingertips and try to do some light experiments in a warm a comfortable place.
The story of this shot started in the year 2001, when Fabio Zontini, a friend of mine, made a classical guitar with two holes. For whom knows a little bit about guitars this should sound a little bit strange, as the guitar usually have only one hole. Anyway, Fabio is a phenomenal guitar maker, a true artist and he knows all the secrets of the wood (and also of the cardboard, but this is another story). So, despite the two holes, the guitar look really good and have a great and warm sound. I still have this guitar with me.
Once I wanted to take a picture of the two-holes guitar (the second hole is in the right side of the instrument; the light on the internal label visible in the first picture of the post is coming from this hole). To do that, I borrowed the idea from "light painting", which is a photographic technique where the entire or part of the image is created by moving light sources during long exposure times.
The pictures created with this technique usually have interesting and curious light waves that can provide a great visual impact, but in some cases they can also spoil the reality of the things. As personally I wanted to have a quite realistic picture of the guitar, I decided to avoid the curious light waves.
On the other hands, I was aware that the use of directional light sources could help to give character and depth to my picture. So, I made some adjustments on camera set-up and lighting technique in order to have the shots I wanted.



The set-up of the camera and the lighting technique I used are described in this photo-recipe that I called "Still-life with Mag-lite".

Ingredients:
- Mini Maglite AAA
- Olympus E-3;
- Tripod Benro;
- Remote control for camera (optional);
- Fabio Zontini guitar;

We will work with long shutter speeds (about 20-30'') and we want to avoid interferences with natural light. For that we should find a place were it is possible to make dark. A room with roll shutters is exactly what we need.
Then, the subject of the picture shall be placed in a position were we can turn around it (and the camera as well) without hindrance. More comfort in movements means better results in the picture. In my case, the guitar was hanging in the ceiling with a nylon wire.
The camera has to be on the tripod. No doubt on this. 30'' exposure in the semi-darkness with a flashlight in one hand and the camera in the other hand I cannot really image that can be successfully managed, even by Joe McNally :-).
Theoretically the function anti-shock on the camera can be deactivated, as the shutter will be opened in the darkness and the vibrations caused by the movement of the mirror will be not relevant in this case. However, it was not so bad to have still the two seconds delay of the E-3 Olympus anti-shock system at my disposal before start lighting. So I decided to work with the anti-shock function on.
With this technique, the proper shutter speed depends not only by aperture and ISO values of the camera, but also by the size of the object we are shooting and the power of the flashlight. Consider that a small flashlight will allow us to give more control of the light, shadows and nuances, but will require to go over the same parts of the object several times before reaching a sufficient exposure. This takes time and needs long shutter speeds.
ISO shall be the lowest as possible (i.e. 100), as we have already enough noise problems due to long shutter speeds.
Large f aperture values are our friends. For same exposure values, large f values lead to long shutter speeds, which give us the time to light the subject with relative calm and from different angles.
Moreover, a considerable depth of field will help also to keep better focus on all the parts of the subject.

The final camera set up I adopted for both the pictures of this post was:
ISO: 100, Aperture F16, Shutter speed: 30 seconds
This setting works quite well with the Mini Maglite and objects in the size of the guitar (or even smaller).
Anyway, try it and make your experiments and adjustments to find out what is good for you.

The use of a remote control for the camera is advisable, as we can be ready to light the subject of our picture before shot.

The angle of incidence of the light is very important. Consider that side light is mild, helps sharpen textures and give depth to the image, while front light result more hard, brilliant and could create light-spot if not properly controlled. Light in the edges of the object is a good idea, it has similar effect to the hair-light used in portraiture. In this case, contours will be nicely defined.
We can light the object from different directions, left, right, up, down, taking care to light all the parts of the object, with more persistence on edges and details that present irregular shape. This will give strong character to the image.
All the time we should be careful not to point the flash lamp in the direction of the camera lens, otherwise we will have curious light waves in the pictures.

be happy,
Luca