Interesting. Would love to be able to afford a few of those. They appear to be bulb soft boxes as well.
Some dozen years ago I authored a commercial for Dodge Ram that had the truck climbing a mountain at night in a storm. Barking Weasel, the production company that shot it – on Mammoth Mountain in California – used one big soft box mounted on a crane to simulate moonlight and several huge strobes to simulate lightning flashes. And, of course, a Hollywood rain machine, which is basically a giant overhead sprinkler, and several smoke machines to make fog. Some PAs were assigned to climb trees, so they could drop branches down on the truck as it passed. We even had a wolf who appeared to come snarling out of the bushes, although he was actually shot in a studio and edited in later. The sound track was a woman singing Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild." I don't' have the commercial on line, but I have a still I shot that I took with my LX. Don't remember what lens for sure, but it was probably the M200/4. I just opened the shutter in auto exposure mode and waited for a "lightning bolt" to provide enough illumination and close the shutter. Seen here before, but probably not in the last ten years. Note the heavy grain. Probably ISO 800 film. We used to think that was okay. I was kind of shocked to see the grain when I opened this file today. Hadn't looked at it in ten years or so. Perhaps the grain works here, although it generally seems more appropriate in BW photography. Paul On Oct 3, 2012, at 2:34 PM, Bruce Walker <bruce.wal...@gmail.com> wrote: > Nearly broke my Google-fu, but here's the vid ... > > http://www.petapixel.com/2012/08/05/shooting-a-mini-cooper-at-night-using-giant-bags-of-light > > The bag-o-light is by these guys ... > > http://www.licht-technik.com/eng/html/bol_turn.html > > This bunch were shooting outside so didn't have the superstructure and > needed floating light. > > > On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 2:06 PM, Paul Stenquist <pnstenqu...@comcast.net> > wrote: >> Those giant lighting soft boxes are usually called fisher boxes, after the >> company that makes them and rents them for shoots. You need a studio with a >> superstructure above to mount one, and a lot of equipment to control it. The >> idea is that you can tilt it in such a way that it both lights the car and >> creates an artificial horizon, reflected in the car. They're most often used >> with bulbs (sodium vapor lamps I believe), rather than strobes, since that >> makes it easier to set up the lighting. Plus, the same box can be used for >> television production as well as stills. They're usual augmented with a >> number of flags and flats to fine tune the lighting. >> >> >> On Oct 3, 2012, at 1:52 PM, Bruce Walker <bruce.wal...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> There was that car advert BTS video someone posted here a few months >>> back (I think) where they showed a giant floating light source that >>> turned out to be an enormous softbox. A company specializes in >>> building and renting these things for shooting cars. >>> >>> Besides a large soft light source you'd need to flag a lot of glass, >>> chrome and polished areas to improve their contrast in the shot. >>> >>> When I did a table-top shoot of my light meter for a blog article, I >>> used my hand as a flag to block direct light from the 24" softbox onto >>> the LCD display. That made an enormous difference to the meter's final >>> appearance. All covered in the Light, Science & Magic book. >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 1:21 PM, J.C. O'Connell <hifis...@gate.net> wrote: >>>> Ive never shot cars with flash professionally but I have seen pro setups >>>> where the flash diffusers are larger than cars! (soft lighting across the >>>> whole vehicle). >>>> >>>> ----------------- >>>> J.C.O'Connell >>>> hifis...@gate.net >>>> ----------------- >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: PDML [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of Paul Stenquist >>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 11:26 AM >>>> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>>> Subject: Re: Photographing cars with a strobe? >>>> >>>> I've been shooting cars with flash for more than thirty years, both night >>>> and day. It isn't a bad idea, but it can be tricky. I don't think it will >>>> help you achieve nice compositions in a crowded showroom, but it can work >>>> well as fill in daylight or as illumination at night. >>>> >>>> I used flash for fill on this dreary day shot. It ended up edge-to-edge on >>>> the front page of the Times auto section. I was low enough to avoid >>>> reflection problems, and I used a diffuser on the flash. It has been shown >>>> here before. >>>> >>>> http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=14450338&size=lg >>>> >>>> I've used flash on numerous occasions to achieve motion blur effects at >>>> night, with a frozen central image. These are usually shot at /.8th of a >>>> second while panning: >>>> >>>> http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3708948&size=lg >>>> >>>> And I've used it to achieve sharp pics at night as well. I pick a shutter >>>> speed and stop that will give me some background illumination without >>>> turning it into day, and I tilt the head of the flash up to avoid burning >>>> out the foreground. I usually burn in the foreground a bit as well. Could >>>> have cloned out the hotspot here but didn't bother since it's not all that >>>> distracting. >>>> >>>> http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=11498399&size=lg >>>> >>>> Paul >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Oct 3, 2012, at 8:45 AM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I have headed over to Canepa motors a few times to play with photographing >>>> cars. There is a lot of pretty machinery there. Unfortunately, there >>>> isn't >>>> much room and it's pretty much impossible to get a picture of a single car >>>> isolated from the other cars on the floor. I had the thought that it might >>>> be possible to do something to isolate a car from the background by using >>>> strobes and taking advantage of the inverse square law, to light a car, and >>>> put a lot less light on any other distracting cars in the background. >>>>> >>>>> I suspect that there are a lot of pitfalls to this technique, starting >>>> with all of the things on most cars that are shiny. >>>>> >>>>> I've also considered using a strobe to shoot a car outside at night, for >>>> very similar reasons. >>>>> >>>>> Does anyone have experience usign flashes to photograph cars? Can you >>>> give me some good simple reasons why this is, if not a bad idea, at least a >>>> lot more work than other possible techniques? >>>>> >>>>> LRC >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>>>> PDML@pdml.net >>>>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>>>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>>> follow the directions. >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>>> PDML@pdml.net >>>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>>> follow the directions. >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>>> PDML@pdml.net >>>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>>> follow the directions. >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> -bmw >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> PDML@pdml.net >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > > -- > -bmw > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
