Product Lighting 101 Class on 6/4

Creative Arts
#1

As an outgrowth of this thread I decided to prepare a class on basic lighting for taking pictures of the things we make and was inspired by a post by @Cairenn_Day

This class is going to teach the basics of lighting your small(ish) products to create better quality images for display on the web.

To emphasize the importance of lighting in the process, the demonstration shots will be made with very simple lighting equipment and a cell phone camera. However, the principals will work with any camera you have access to, and the better the camera/lens, the larger the image can be printed.

Emphasis will be on the lighting and not camera operation, but I will answer questions where I can on camera operating procedures and how more sophisticated camera can improve or speed up aspects of the process.

Class needs no signup, just show up!

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#2

Would probably be better for this to be in digital media.

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#3

I could see that perspective; however, for me, photography is an art medium, much like painting and really belongs in Creative Arts, at least the way I plan on presenting this material. However, there is certainly a lot of overlap between the two, when using digital cameras. And certainly video has a strong need for lighting, but the ‘digital media’ approach is one I wouldn’t feel comfortable teaching. Indeed, I am signed up for my first introductory class on digital audio this weekend!

Of course, you never know I may decide to use my old 4x5 large format film camera! :smile:

#4

Yeah I can see it both ways but whichever you wanna do is up to you. I know digital media used to be under creative arts, it’s purpose somewhat covers what your doing. That’s actually a great introductory class to media so that people get the basic foundations before moving to advanced. And like the DMS motto goes, if you can do it you can teach it. We are all here to learn from one another and pursue our interests.

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#5

Walter and Justin -

I was just chatting with Haley last night about this. There will be some courses that traverse CA and DM. Digital Media Courses are generally be established by me for the purposes of bringing users from consumer to pro-sumer; and from pro-sumer to pro.

Digital Media will be bringing a few outside instructors to teach these concepts as well.

That being said, The Creative Arts Committee is long standing, and it is understandable that members who participate in Creative Arts (specifically photography and digital arts) would have a higher comfort level there.

As an aside(shameless self-promotion), the Digital Media Committee has plans to purchase a studio by the end of July. This will include a tent box, and soft boxes. Once that equipment is purchased, we will offer a periodic class for commercial photography. We are also building out a PC with Adobe CC, and will be teaching basic functionality within the toolset (Including Illustrator and Photoshop) with the ability to train up to 4 students in a hands-on environment.

Walter, have a great class! Keep on teaching…

@ke5bud
@wandrson
@uglyknees
@Haley_Moore

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#6

@Natasha_Cooks

I am very glad to hear that you will eventually be offering period classes that cover this subject. I am only offering this class because I saw an immediate need, and since the subject is on the back burner of my current interests, I wasn’t planning on offering it again. So I am glad that you’ll will be taking care of this in the future!

As to the tent box, I thought we already had one at the space? Not that I needed it for this class, since I was planning on demonstrating how to ‘make do’ with what you can find to improve product shots. That and I actually don’t like tents for product shots, since I like to have separation between the surface I place the object on and the surface I use to provide background. That way the lighting for the object and the background can be handled separately. So I use glass to place the object on, and then light that. I have found this works particularly well for black on black shots like this:

01c2111fae837c9a.jpg576×864

This also works well when you want a colored background, but want to minimize the effect that color has on your object.

#7

Walter -

I have only made my third payment to the DMS, so I really do not know what the space has. I am only aware of what was availalble in the AV room.

Nice shot! Yes, we are trying to help members improve their content. We have a number of Ebay/Online retailers, in which we can help improve shot composition and lighting.

Digital Media is what the committee wanted. I would have chosen “Digital Media Arts and Technology”, because there is an art to content creation.

Nice shot! I like the separation at the base…

@wandrson

#8

Natasha,

I think you and I must have joined around the same time. The only reason I think the space has a tent is because it was mentioned in the thread that I linked in my OP.

And I didn’t mean to imply that the work/emphasis that Digital media is doing isn’t art. I was really thinking of still photographs versus moving images (video) and think that as art mediums they are very different. I may well be wrong, but it seemed that you’lls focus was on video as opposed to still photography (particularly film, which still interests me). I also know absolutely nothing about video and frankly don’t know how much overlap the techniques for lighting video would have with lighting photographs.

Again I was thinking creative arts, because the lighting for product photography uses exactly the same techniques as used in still life painting.

@Natasha_Cooks

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#9

Hello Walter - Digital Media will cover digital photography as well, since most DSLR’s have video functionality. DSLR’s are cameras first. Camcorders are secondary.We will explore the best uses for each.

Digital Media Covers the following:
Consumer and prosumer videography and photography
Podcasting, and Field Audio.
Animation
Vector and Raster Imaging
Virtual Reality Creation (mid-term goal)
Game & Applications Development (longer term goal)
The science behind all of this.

We are leveraging Technology for creative and commercial pursuits. Unfortunately, I have not had the time or opportunity to create posters or signs for Digital Media to communicate this message.

I hope once the June and July classes are scheduled and confirmed, then we can get started on a bit more advertising (We don’t really have any funding in the budget for now, which is why we have a big focus on classes).

Great input, thank you!
@wandrson

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