Hello and welcome back to The Craft.

I had plans to write and produce portrait tutorials this year… well we all know how 2020 has been so far so I will not go into it.

For this post I thought I would share something a little different. In this one we will be taking a look at how I shot and lit a product photo of a Pixapro CITI 300 Pro.

I was sent this light by Pixapro ready for some upcoming video content I am working on for them but figured why not shoot a photo of it during my usual meter and flash duration testing.

The result of this could have been quite different if Pixapro had asked me to shoot a new product line to a brief. At that point it is a collaboration in part and often a case of we want this product to look like this with a few changes inevitably happening along the way. No brief is 100% from day dot.

Here goes.

For the first few shots I did not have the black (Duvetyne) background up but quickly found that I was getting some light spill on the grey paper that was up on the bars. I could of moves the set further away and the tether table, but it was quicker to put up the black light absorbent material instead.

BTS Setup image below to help along with the rest of the post.

In the first shot above we can see just the top strip box light only (Hybrid 360ii Group A ), no other lights and no reflectors/cards. It has a few issues.

1. The white text is too bright creating too higher contrast.

2. The red text is hard to make out. Its much darker in tone than the white text and less clear.

The other issue with the red text is it’s on a textured darker body. To the human eye in most light it is not an issue but to a camera it presents an issue.

3. The angle of light flattens the texture on the top of the 300 Pro.

How can this be solved? You might want to grab a grid and throw it on the top strip box but that would only cause other issues later. All we need to do here is move the strip box towards camera position and turn the strip box a little towards camera position also.

What this does is narrows the light source relative to subject making it harder. This will in turn reduce the highlight on the stop of the 300 Pro and show more texture of the body and show more of the red text. Win Win.

You will see the highlight band along the side of the light change position and move down but that will be less of a visual issue once the bounce cards are in place later.

The moving of the strip box has also helped highlight the screw handle on the bracket and reduced the highlight on the bottom edge of the back of the light. If you move a light pay attention to what problems is solved and potentially created.

I then checked on the exposure needed for the display on the back of the CITI 300 Pro. This meant a shutter drag / slow shutter speed.

ISO 100 F14 (F18 in the end with final light power adjustment) means a longer shutter speed to pick up the display. For this I must black out the studio and make sure the light from my monitor is not picked up.

A 1 Second shutter speed give me a good starting point.

Now on to lighting the rest of the 300 Pro.

Next up is light #2 which is the gridded strip box and Pika 200 Group B. This light is being used to add a little controlled light to the underside and battery of the CITI 300 Pro but as we will see it is not the dominant light for this part of the 300 Pro, but it does give a highlight along the underside of the silver collar of the light which is enhanced by bounce cards later.

The CITI 300 Pro is essentially a black cylinder shape, so highlights are totally our friend hear and they take the primary role in showing the shape of the light helped along by shadow.

Think shooting a black bowling ball VS a white bowling ball. More on that in another post.

Next we add the reflectors and cards. Silver (foil, cake bases, etc) cards can be extremely useful in product, food and portrait work as they are more efficient at reflecting light and offer a fair bit of control over a white bounce given that they are a more specular source/reflection. I also lowered the main top light slightly.

For the bottom/underside of the CITI 300 Pro I use two silver cake boards (one larger than the other) to reflect / recycle light from the top strip box.

The first silver board was the right hand smaller one which was rested on top of the bottom gridded strip box. This fills in from the centre of the light to the front underside, notice how it added to the highlight on the collar of the light and helps form the shape.

Next up is the larger left-hand silver bounce (aka cake board) which lifts the back and left side to middle of the 300 Pro. I also repositioned the smaller board again.

These silver bounce boards are starting to work but the positions will be tweaked again later. I just had them resting on the lower strip box. Could of rigged them on a stand/arm but I ran out of C-stands .. I must order a couple more from Pixapro.

Next is the front white bounce board. The CITI 300 was set to 1/16th power but the highlight was wrong being not wide enough or strong enough.

To fix this I moved the white bounce board closer to the front of the CITI 300 Pro. Which increases its reflectance and widens the highlight on the front of the 300 Pro.

Next, I added the top white board which was hidden by the top strip box. This white card is put in place to fill in the top of the 300 Pro a little. I also added the back-left edge silver bounce card (aka cake board) this picks up a little of the buttons and back left edge of the light., this is very subtle.

Next up is the optical snoot with the iris gobo to hit the back display and buttons with some controlled light. This bit of kit is new to the studio and I can already tell it is going to be especially useful.

One final tweak to the power of the optical snoot (needed a tad more) and repositioning of the lower silver cards/top white card and we have a final shot. The biggest final change was the position of the top strip and bounce card to extend the highlight in seem on the reflector, I had most likely bumped the strip box fumbling around in the dark. I also flattened out the smaller lower silver card, so it hits the front underside of the 300 Pro’s reflector.

Below is the out of camera, Lightroom processed shot. The retouching done was to remove any dust and the reflector cards in the shot. I also darkened the test button a little, it is brighter than the rest of the display when at this angle. Another option would be to shoot 2 different shutter speed exposures and comp them later.

I have no problem leaving reflectors, flags, negative fill cards etc in the frame, they often have to be worked into certain positions to do what is needed and are simple enough to remove in post.

The final shot.

The Composition

I chose to compose the shot as it is to allow for copy and other uses on social media, you can also frame it tight and fill the frame then add black later in post but for web I am not overly concerned given this was shot on a 50mp camera.

What would I change?

I would have 2 more c-stands to rig the lower silver cards on to arms ideally and give focus stacking a go. My tripod is not the best for focus stacking work, and I am on the hunt for a good studio salon stand, they are far batter than regular tripods for keeping cameras locked down.

Few tips.

Get what you can done in camera and anything that needs to be composited shoot accordingly. When placing reflectors into a shot with no modelling lamps set the camera on self-timer and hand hold the reflectors in place so get an idea of where to rig them on stand, arms, or clamps.

Also tidy your studio space up before having to work in the dark. It will stop you tripping over all sorts.

If you are using grip arms, booms, C-stands pop some tennis balls on the ends to stop you taking an eye out. Picked that up from my friend Scott Choucino.

Some more BT Images and Power Settings

Gear List

Pixapro Hybrid 360ii
Pixapro Pika 200 TTL
Pixapro Optical Snoot
IRIS Gobo for Optical Snoot
Heavy Duty C-Stand & Boom
C-Stand & 50” Boom Arm
Pixapro 35x160cm Strip Boxes
Smart Brackets

Product – Pixapro CITI 300 Pro

Thank you for reading.

Any questions hit me up in comments or on Instagram

Rick
https://www.instagram.com/rjbradburyphotography/