Help!!! i am a 4th year photo student and need help on creativity options with b&w studio portraits with lighting and candle light i was going to shoot with xp2 film with an all black backround and halo lighting how do i proceed

-- brian gonsalves (kilo2800@aol.com), March 09, 2001

Answers

In the interest of education and creativity, the best thing to do is start with your intuition, and experiment from there.

-- Chris Ellinger (ellinger@umich.edu), March 09, 2001.

Meter for the strobes, set your fstop, meter for the candle set your shutter speed for the stated f stop and have a dark studio doing the shot!

-- Scott Walton (f64sw@hotmail.com), March 13, 2001.

One other thing... if your shooting with hot lights, you will meter for the appropriate f stop/shutter speed of the candle and shut your hot lights off at the appropriate time. Let's say the candle flame meters at 4 sec @ f22, turn on your hot lights and meter them for f22... and it might be 1 sec @f22, when your ready to shoot, set your f stop and turn on your hot light for the time needed and leave the shutter open for the candle. It might be easy for you if you set your hot light on a darkroom timer for more consistency.

-- Scott Walton (f64sw@hotmail.com), March 13, 2001.

set up an average studio lighting creating an ambience lighting. note that don't this ambient lighting shouldn't be too directional on the subject. meter the lights with the incident light meter also measure the candle flames with a spot meter adjust the ambient lighting almost equivalent to the candle flame reading

While shooting, underexpose by 0.7 to 1 stop

Black background can be achieved by leaving considerable distance from the subject and cutting all the light falling on it. see that atleast 5 stops difference is there between readings at the subject and that at the background. thank shreepad

-- shreepad (middlegray@hotmail.com), March 17, 2001.