In the second half of this two part post I look at incorporating flash with a light tent setup for product photography. It's only in the last year or so I've begun to explore the possibilities provided when using artificial light, up until this point, the endless options always seemed so complicated and intimidating with the vastness of choice. I always felt my equipment wouldn't be good enough, or if I wanted to achieve certain results that I needed specific things, things that would cost a fortune, but that's rubbish. Sure, having a top end camera is wonderful if you can afford one, and having a fully equipped studio is amazing, but a photographer's gear is only ever as good as the photographer. And personally, I think cutting your teeth on basic gear will teach you far more about photography as a medium than high-end gear used on auto settings ever could.
Anyway, my point is, that these two flashes cost me about £30 each and I assumed that their cheapness equated to crappiness so I rarely used them, when in reality it's just that their settings are limited. They're manual flashes, they don't 'talk' to my camera, so I have to imput the settings myself. But that just taught me how to imput the settings myself! And sure,the batteries will probably run out faster and the bulb will probably die quicker and they don't have all of the bells and whistles like a super fancy Canon speedlight, but they get the job done and pretty well I think.
5. The first setup is the same as the very top image. Two flashes, both diffused by the sides of the tent. Both lights also had additional diffuser heads, just to try and even out the light but as you can see in the top shot, the right (Centon) flash was brighter than the left (Neewer) flash.
6. Two flashes with one side of the tent down. The brighter flash on the right paired with the lack of diffuser on the left made a more even exposure, but also an annoying double shadow on the upright bottle shot
7. Single diffused flash on the right which was bounced by the wall on the left.
8. Single flash on the left without wall up as a diffuser made my favourite shots in both the vertical and overhead shots of the bottle. I love the cross lines made by the orange shadow of the liquid. Theres nothing like a good single light shot!
9. Diffused flash (right) and silver reflector (left). Probably the best exposure for the overhead shot but made the vertical one a bit flat
10. These were taken by lying the reflector (silver side down) and aiming a flash up at it, bouncing the overhead light down into the cube.
11.The above, vertical shot was a single backlight, but for the lower image your guess is as good as mine. I think I laid the flash (left) down and shot surectly at the bottle from one side, but I can't be certain. It's pretty though and worth sharing :)
12. Backlit and with a flash to the right, both through the diffuser walls.
13. Bottle elevated to eliminate the 'floor' which was a considerably different tone and wasn't looking how I wanted. One egg-cup platform later and it was perfect.
And that's it! I hope you found this interesting, or at least as informative as I did. Until next time!
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