Reynolds Wrap Table Top

For those of you who were reverse engineering the shot of the flash last week from the cheat sheet post, make the jump for the setup shot -- and a link that has me laughing out loud.









Okay, here it is. It's shot on my TV cabinet. Which makes my (mostly) unwatched TV good for at least something. The backdrop is a sheet of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil. This gives a cool look, plus throws back light like crazy.

I like to use foil as a backdrop when I shoot something techy-looking. In this case, I blurred out some of the wrinkles, too.

The light came from pretty much everywhere. There were three SB-800's slaved in the SU-4 mode on 1/32 power. I was working close, so I just set them all the same, down low, and then dialed in my aperture until it looked right.

Then I filled with another SB-800 in a Ray Flash to get front light everywhere, too. This is not something I would have done a year ago, but I am really starting to dig hard, wrapped light. I like what it does to all of those black, specular edges.

As for the power on the front light, since I already had a working aperture, I just dialed the front flash in on manual until it looked good. Back flashes drive the aperture, aperture drives the front flash. Sounds way more trouble than it is, until you try it.

I am shooting a project (some portraits that I will be OA'ing later) and am finding that I am hardlighting more of them, too. Just like being able to define all those edges. Starting to think five SB-800's is not enough.

(This is always a dangerous thought at 11:52 at night -- Amazon is open 24/7.)

And while I am thinking of the Ray Flash, there were lotsa Q's in the original post, so I am going to post a Q&A, along with a video next week. If you have any more questions, get them in via the Ray Flash post comments.
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Oh, almost forgot that totally unrelated link:

Are you ashamed of your Photoshop skills, as you work quietly in near-total obscurity? Well, things could be worse. Much, much worse...

(That's just one post. Take a look through the site and don't laugh out loud. Betcha can't.)