Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

(EDIT): Yes - see the prev. msg by Tech Support that was posted as I was typing mine.

I would not even use anything as big and fancy as the SB-600. Always expect that part of the setup to be driven into the sunset or wrapped around the transmission. A basic $25-$30 slave would do to manage the shadows. With some diffuser - in a pinch I've used something as fancy as a square of toilet paper + scotch tape. A white silk handkerchief over big-bubble wrap, affixed to the mini slave with a rubber band, had proven ideal for the purpose - delivering virtually a bare-bulb type spread. It is possible to set the SB-600 outside the car on a mini-tripod, but it would have to be repositioned with every shot, unlike the mini slave positioned under the middle of the car. The huge advantage of the single stand on rollers was that you just roll the thing around and point and click, and with the onboard laptop they had even eliminated the separate image transfer step (but it was mostly done to check the images on the spot). If you have enough room you could set up that circular track they have for dollies and mark standard shot locations with gaffers tape, which at fixed focus and aperture would dependably deliver perfectly consistent results, fast . But my clients did not have quite enough room.

Hanging your lights is .05% of your challenge. I have retired from 35 years of photographing cars and am in the process of building a home studio to do the same as a hobby. If you would like my input please ask and I will ramble as only a person of my years can, other wise I will just wish you the best of luck.

I tried to post a photo of some autos but failed. Can you help me Tech?

we do not allow direct postings, however you can link to one by hitting the "Img" tab above, and pasting the link in the code

[img]your.link.would.go.here[/img]

That is certainly one (expensive) solution. You can aim your lights using just Superclamps and the strobe mount which would bypass having to buy the Magic Arms. Either way you do it just remember to safety cable the strobes. I use p-cord wrapped through the AB umbrella mount hole which is then tied to a rail (or truss or whatever you are anchoring the clamp to).

I'd like to hear it, not just the technical side but which way you nurtured the business and how you negotiated. You can just upload the photos to flickr or picasa and just give the link here.

Since this is a tech forum, I’ll stick to that . The problem our friend is going to encounter is a car, like everything else in our physical world, is a mirror. Be it a crude or a pure mirror everything reflects light. As a young photographer I was told that when photographing glassware and autos “You are not photographing the object, but everything else in the room”. The compound curves in cars see walls, ceiling, and floor from a single eye point. Because of this even the largest light can seem quite small. As stated in an earlier post of mine, I had been using a Chimera F2 10’x30’ softbox. This time around I’m using a 20’x20’ Matthews butterfly light box fabric. Both of these are the minimum area for an overhead light source. The Chimera had Broncolor heads, this time I’m using (6) AB1600 heads. He is lucky enough to have a white floor which will return enough light that he will not have to light under the car as others have stated. I have always placed a grid light on the floor aimed at each tire tread. In this case an AB with a 10 or 20. His lights can be secured in many ways, just look through a Matthews catalog. Testing will tell him a good distance above the car for his light source, remember that closer : larger, softer but more fall off. I do agree with Tech in that hang them lights and leave them alone. In darker cars BOOMERK6 is going to see the reflection of his curtains, lighter colored cars are more forgiving. My space has always been around 40’x60’ but even at that you can see a power cord that’s 20 feet from your subject show up as a reflection in the strangest places. Please keep in mind that with this, as all things in life there is a trade off. I had somewhere north of $50K in my lightbox and cyc wall plus 2400 square feet of real estate, BOOMERK6 is shooting for alot less. If you want to talk about the business side or anything else photography, give me a call. I’m going to try and post a photo in a second reply.

Hope this works.
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