Lighting setup for newborn photo/video shoot?

[Todd Terry]

Another thing… you say the room is small… understandable, we are crammed in small rooms for shoots all the time.

But, I got the impression that this was a fairly closeup portrait, maybe all of the baby, but not much else.

If so, why shoot in that room? Or as Mark suggested, why shoot on the bed at all?

If it were me, and I had to shoot in whatever house that was, I’d find the biggest room that I could make dark (living room, family room, whatever), strike whatever furniture I could, make a pallet with blankets in the middle of the floor, and go to work. So much easier when you have plenty of room to play with.

It’s sometimes easy to get confined in thinking (a baby on a bed is naturally in a bedroom, right?), but no viewers will know where that baby/”bed” actually is. It could be in the middle of the backyard at night for all anyone knew. We are always shooting things that appear to be one place but are actually somewhere completely different… it’s just part of showbiz.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Stan Welks]

The idea behind all of this is to shoot photos/videos every week, and this is about the best location in the house to easily store the lights and equipment (all being borrowed long term), keep them away from the dogs, kids in the house during the shoot, block natural light (other rooms have high ceilings with windows I couldn’t easily block). I could put the baby on the floor during shoots on soft cushion material, though it just seemed that the bed would be comfortable and safe. I’m not sure I understand the reasoning for going with the floor instead of a bed, other than trying to find a different location with more space for the lights?

I’m going through all of the stands, connectors and diffusion I have available to me before I go out and buy anything.

I have this diffuser https://www.samys.com/p/Color-Filter–Diffusion-Sheets–Rolls/DFS4P/ParaBeam-400-Diffuser/17650.html
and have it connected to a clamp like this:

1.) Any thoughts on this diffuser? Any idea if this material would produce better results than shower curtain liner?

2.) I can also try hanging the flozier in front of the Diva on a C stand instead of shower curtain liner. Any idea if this material would produce better results than shower curtain liner?

3.) What about hanging chimera soft box fabric from a clamp on a C stand a few feet in front of the Diva? Would that produce better results than shower curtain liner?

Any thoughts on all of this?

THANKS!!!!

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[Mark Suszko]

If this is meant to shoot pseudo-time-lapse of the kid growing and changing, with a shot every week,then I think your rig is way overbuilt and over-ambitious. What I would go for is a ceiling bounce for the main lighting, with just a reflective board propped in for a key. You’re going to need a light setup that is very repeatable, week after week, on short notice/ short amount of time to set and strike. Messing with a lot of hanging diffusion and such doesn’t fit this profile. Either a ceiling bounce and/or a single pop-up softbox is the ticket here; you’re not trying to be Anne Geddes. Though a note: Creative Live is offering a free webinar with her this week)

Why put the baby on the floor? You must not yet be a parent:-) Babies gravitate to floors like it’s their main job. Sometimes the kick and roll and motate like they are actively trying to kill themselves.

If the baby is already ON the floor, you never have to worry about it taking a tumble. Putting the baby on the floor also gives you more room above him or her for a light and the camera rig.

That rig is supposed to shoot more or less dead-on 90 degrees in this case. I’d go with a lightweight length of board, supported on two light stands, with a DSLR bolted to the center. The board could, in fact, also hold a soft fluoro tube light as well, so you have one unit ready to plug-and-play when shoot time happens. To get the kid to look up, add something like a toy, mirror, or other visual target to that board to keep an eye-line,

The target area on the floor should be a non-white cushy blanket or comforter, with a foam rubber pad below, and bolsters at the sides to help keep baby centered. If you’re also wanting to show height/length changes, consider a pattern or scale marker on that blanket that remains a constant. You’ll want to shoot slightly too wide, giving room in post for precision alignment of each shot to a template. That template could be a still shot on your laptop, with markers, so you can compare your weekly framing. In a time lapse job I once did, we just made tape and ink marks directly on a spare monitor and framed up the subject using those every week.

Finally, one other suggestion: instead of all this, set up a wall-mounted, diffused fluorescent tube light and HD web camera above the diaper changing table, with a nearby laptop set up with a stop-mo capture app for image capture. Whenever baby is all changed, reach over, push button, and take a snap, see laptop screen for confirmation, done. You’ll get many more pictures this way, which better documents the rapid changes in face and body, especially over the first 6 months, and the baby is already accustomed to that location for the diaper changes, so will be less fussy about “picture time”. You’ll also be more likely to take the images regularly because it’s all set up all the time, instead of needing to put the baby somewhere safe, go set up the gear, bring the baby in and position it, etc.

[Craig Alan]

The canon 5dmiii is a great camera and you can get fantastic shots with little light. Two Kinos is more than enough light particularly if you are blacking out the room. Try to avoid snake eyes. You might want to consider a baby jr stand to mount the key kino. Maybe use white foam board as fill instead of another light. You might consider a broadcast monitor to better judge your composition and lighting. An apple box would help you adjust the lights and get the height or a seat you need. When shooting video you need the camera mounted and you might consider a prime cinema lens. 24mm or 50mm. also great for stills.

If you take the suggestions of putting the baby on the floor get a large muslin to lay the child down on. You can park pillows under it if need be and this will give you an even non distracting b.g. However all high angle shots might not be ideal.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Bill Davis]

Regarding the SuperClamp (the cast black clamp in your first photo)

When you use these to clamp on a flat item, use the flat surface insert. In your photo, it’s the odd “wedge shaped” item at the base of the thumbscrew. If you loosen the thumbscrew, you can slip the insert slightly sideways to separate it from the clamp – then you’ll see two holes on the wedge side that match the two holes you’ll see inside the jaws of the clamp.

When you insert it there, it changes the clamp from a round jaw to a flat jaw and makes it easier to clamp onto flat stock.

Do remember to snap it back into it’s storage location when you’re done. Probably 75% of these clamps have lost their inserts. Don’t let yours join them! Have fun.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Bill. Never understood what the heck that was for and it falls out pretty easily. I have bogen’s version.

Grip equipment/manufactures are still pretty old school in their assumption that they are selling only to grips who know how everything is mounted.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Stan Welks]

Hi all,

I’m finally getting back to this thread. Linked is a recent photo taken with my current lighting setup. I’m using the Diva with an attached flozier and a piece of foam core to bounce the light back onto the model. The brightness of the Diva is turned all the way up, and there is no natural light or other light sources turned on in the room. I did my best to mask the identity of the model to fulfill the wishes of the parents https://imgur.com/2paZfdC

1. There seems to be pink spilling over from the chair onto the subject. What can I do to minimize this?

2. Any thoughts on the lighting? I’m not sure if it is bright enough, and I’m thinking of replacing the foam core with a second Diva.

Thanks.

View post on imgur.com

[Todd Terry]

[stan welks] ” There seems to be pink spilling over from the chair onto the subject. What can I do to minimize this?”

This is going to seem like a totally smartass answer (and I don’t mean it to be), but the real answer is “Don’t shoot in a pink chair.”

ANY type of surface (even a non-reflective one) is going to reflect its color to some degree. The more chroma level the object has to it the more you will notice it… and the closer it is to your subject the more you will notice it. When you have your baby actually on that material, it will be very difficult to completely eliminate it.

The good news is that we are talking about stills, not motion video… so that would be relatively easy to correct in Photoshop. It would take someone who knew what they were doing and probably multiple masking layers to avoid getting rid of too much pink in the wrong areas, but still very easily done.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com