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How to light macro shots?


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Hi! I’m looking for advice on how to light macro shots with metallic surface and small details. I’m looking for a soft wrappy light with high contrast. Do I need a small diffused source? How do you flag and control light with small objects? Any advice or link to an article would help. Thanks!

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Keep in mind that the softness of a light depends on its size relative to the subject, so if the object is tiny then the soft light doesn't have to be very large to be soft.  If you're lighting a golf ball and bring a 1K Fresnel with 216 on the barn doors just two feet from the ball, it's going to be a soft light.

So flagging the light is the same as if you scaled everything larger for full size objects -- small lights, small diffusion pieces, small flags, snoots (sometimes made with black wrap), negative fill, etc.

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On 5/8/2019 at 4:22 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

Keep in mind that the softness of a light depends on its size relative to the subject, so if the object is tiny then the soft light doesn't have to be very large to be soft.  If you're lighting a golf ball and bring a 1K Fresnel with 216 on the barn doors just two feet from the ball, it's going to be a soft light.

So flagging the light is the same as if you scaled everything larger for full size objects -- small lights, small diffusion pieces, small flags, snoots (sometimes made with black wrap), negative fill, etc.

Thank you David, I just learned about Dots & Fingers

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