So you think that those snazzy glossy black or white images can’t be pulled off without thousands in gear? Take a look at the below image. I call it “Tulip Deconstructed” and as you can see it sports that glossy reflection and solid black background, the kind that makes the subject really pop from the image.

If you still think these types of shots take tons of wallet draining gear, hit the Jump and think again.

As you can see this is a shot of what I threw together to get the shot at left. I have better gear, as well as a more suitable area for this type of photograph, but I wanted to show that it’s easy to get quality shots with minimum gear.

The setup, which was in the floor next to a bed, is 2 basic off-camera strobes triggered with hotshoe optical triggers. Both strobes/flashes are diffused with simple typing paper. The background is black foam core with a piece of plate glass to provide the glossy under-reflection. Shot with a Nikon D80 w/ 50mm f/1,8D lens. Shutter is set to flash sync speed of 1/200th second, and f/stop is set to 8 to control the amount of light reaching the sensor. Remember when using a flash, it is aperture, not shutter speed, that controls the exposure. So what about cost? Below is a quick rundown …

• Vivitar 5250 = ~$15-25 or less
• Vivitar 5600 = ~$10-15 or less
• 2 x Black Matte Foamcore = $7
• 2 x sheets of typing paper = Free
• 1 x 16″x20″ plate glass = Borrowed from a picture frame
• 2 x Wein Optical Triggers = ~25-35 each

So for less than 100 bucks you can be set to do this kind of photography. Sure, you could spend upwards of 1000.00 on this exact same setup by switching the old Vivitar strobes for brand new ones from Nikon or Canon. Upgrading the foamcore to seamless paper or cloth. Shoot through umbrellas, light stands, and all the other little things photogs have. But I can promise you that the outcome will be so close that you might not be able to see the difference. So get out there and try this technique. Its great for smaller things where you want to capture alot of detail. Flowers are excellent, small antiques, eBay auctions, as well as any type of creative still-life shots. But, don’t stop there, you can use the flashes as off camera lighting for portraits or any other shot to get all kinds of professional looking effects.

(Pics Link to the Full Sized Images on Flickr)

Tags: light, lighting, offcamera, optical trigger, setup, tulip

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 8:58 pm and is filed under FlashPost, Photography Basics. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.