Beaubles are back

[LouiseTopp]

Experiments with still life.

[Shadowman]

Nice efforts, were you experimenting with flash on that second shot? Try reducing the intensity to get a bit more pinpoint highlights.

[JR1]

Move the things WAY away from any backdrop

And remove distractions like cane

[Geoff F]

This sort of scene is far more difficult to capture well than it initially appears to be. And you have made a good start; particularly with the first image where you have a bright, but not over exposed area fading into deep, but not clipped, shadow.

Just a few more tweaks, as previously mentioned, and I think you will be there.

[Loose Canon]

This is a classic lighting scenario and just about any book worth mentioning on lighting has this scenario mentioned as a demonstration regarding reflections. I have at least three that I can think of!

Spheres. Matte and glossy!

Just lucky the glossy spheres are not mirror-like surfaces or there would be even more issues regarding the reflections.

I think you have done a decent job with this Louise, and I’m sure learned a lot from it. It is a great learning exercise which is why its classic!

With the top shot you’ve lost the bottom of the sphere to the BG. A larger reflector or light source on the camera left side could help that but you don’t want to light the sphere such that all shadow or fall off is lost. Just enough to keep the edge of the sphere defined. The shadow defines the shape and gives a visual cue that it is indeed a sphere rather than a circle.

The bottom spheres are of course where things get fun! A hard, hot spot of light is generally considered undesirable. As in hitting the object with a bare light with say, a reflector only on it. A couple of things can be done.

A modifier of some kind goes a long ways. You may or may not have these things. A strip box will give a different look. A big softbox a different look still. You could fire your light through a diffusion panel. This could be a roll of tracing paper. A roll of vellum paper. A shower curtain. Lots of readily available items could work. You can play with the angle the light hits the diffusion panel to see if you could get more gradient. You can play with the angle the light in the softbox hits the object. You can play with the angle of the diffusion panel in relation to the subject AND the angle the light hits the diffusion panel. I like to fire lights through a modifier at an angle to a diffusion panel. This give the most potential for gradient, the most diffuse light, and with more control and is generally considered a more pleasing and defining way to light.

But essentially what you are looking at is lighting an environment (diffusion panels) rather than the highly reflective object directly. This is key with highly reflective objects. The deeper you get into lighting the more you realize that the modifiers really have more to do with it than the lights themselves. These are what you use to shape the light.

Generally bouncing light at, or generally lighting a scene with a flood of light, while okay and useful in some cases, is really only a peripheral (but a darn good start) of learning lighting techniques. These reflective spheres are a great example of this and why so many good resources for lighting use them as a demonstration.