Fotohacker » strobes

Light it up from below

Jason — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:07:05 +0000

I’m always looking for new and interesting ways to light a subject, and one of the best places to pick up inspiration when it comes to lighting with strobes is from Strobist blogger David Hobby. Apparently, DIYPhotography thinks so too, and they’ve built a cool new tool for our strobes to play in.

What they’ve done is create this clever little light box that allows you to fire a strobe from underneath a subject (in this case, a bottle of beer… mmm, thirsty).

The top of the box is open, with a piece of clear plexiglass overtop of it, where the beer bottle sits. The best part of this effect is not only that it lights up the contents really well, but the reflections in the plexiglass as well.

Read the article here and part two here.

Use your Christmas cellophane as gels

Jason — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:24:52 +0000

We here at Fotohacker hope that all of you had a fantastic (insert holiday name here) this year! If Christmas gift giving is your thing, and if you got any gifts that were wrapped with colored cellophane (fancy!) this Christmas, keep the cellophane handy for your strobes. That could be useful as a colored gel for some interesting lighting effects. Just don’t tell anyone that’s what you’re doing… or they’ll think you’ve gone nuts.

You can use an elastic band and wrap it around the head of the flash and bam… you’ve got some new colored lighting. Some of those ribbons could also be interesting gobos for creating patterns, and the shiny wrap can create some awesome effects on the wall if you bounce the light off it like a reflector.