Oh Snap! Tabletop Car shot

It's pick your favorite night!

Each one evokes a different reaction for me.  I like them both for different reasons.  How about you?

The setup:

Another single light source setup (hey, we covered the whole two lights, one source thing last time so let it go, ok?!).  I flipped the table (from the last shoot) on it's side, shined the same two light cans into it and strategically placed black foam cards and paper to create the light patterns I wanted.

Simple setup, but precision is essential.  The small card directly behind the car, for example: too tall and it blocks light on the center of the car.  Too low and you get too much on the roof and start picking up lens flare.  Too wide and not enough light hits the "ground" - too narrow and you get rim lights on the edges.

The 2 tall cards have to block the light completely off the car and table surface.  Well, off the part of the table that will end up in the picture.  Lastly, the paper you see on top eliminates unwanted reflection from the windshield.

I wanted to reproduce this concept, but obviously on a much smaller scale.  I also wanted to try it with constant lights instead of flash.  This last proved to be a bit of a problem - those 2 20W light bulbs can't put enough light out to create the intensity I got from the Lego shoot.  I shot this at night, with all the lights in the house turned off and still couldn't create the intensity I was after.

Yes, yes - with constant light sources I can drag the shutter to bring up it's intensity. But the ambient hitting the black cards and the car come up too.  Despite the 8' tall black v-flats I placed around the back side of the table, the ceiling and walls in front of them bounce enough light back.  The only other choice is to bring in more light behind the white fabric.  Trouble is, there simply wasn't room for more lights back there - the set was just too small!

All that aside, even though I didn't achieve the effect I was after I still really like these shots. They are probably in that "love em or hate em" category.

Well, I love em, hope you do too!

Hope you enjoyed...