This is important to me because I love to shoot my models in real sunlight. My back yard has been snow covered all winter. A line of grass is showing now, out to about six or eight feet from house. Area where I set up for my outdoor photos is about twelve feet out. Also, bare grass right now has some standing water in it. But, weather forecast for next week is highs in the forties, with maybe a day in fifties! That should do it.
While I can do the eBay style shots on new models (soft lighting and plain background) on new models I finish, I love to do photo backdrop shots (I have photo backdrops made for several of the genres I build. I love to have nice crisp edges to shadows in photos, and I think collimated light shows contours better than soft lighting. I have several builds finished this winter waiting for the sun!
I have thought about trying to build a mini solar simulator, but I remember the big bucks the simulators cost in our vacuum/space chambers at work, and I worry such a rig is beyond my means.
Hang in there a few more weeks. Being in San Antonio Texas I been busy with yard work while the weather is is the sixties and before the heat wave arrives. Once it arrives I will be in-doors until October.
Pffttt… we’ve got another Nor’easter on the way - 3rd one in 3 weeks. I just hope our summer turns out far better than last year’s summer with all that rain.
This!!! I’m so sick of winter! It needs to go away. We had such a crappy summer last year. It was horrible. I think that is one of the reasons I’m having such a hard time with this winter.
Oh, cruel world! Yesterday no snow clear out to area where I set up my table and tripod- just waiting for the grass to dry a bit. This morning, there is half an inch of snow back on that area- and two inches forecast for Saturday night. I have three planes I finished this winter ready to get outside and get their picture taken. Guess they will have to wait a bit longer
I’ve been looking for solutions to shooting collimated light indoors, because the weather here always sucks. One thing I have learned is that, if you use a ‘snoot’ on the lamp (essentially a funnel for the light), it can sharpen the shadows more like daylight. I keep looking for better solutions, but I think the good old outdoors is still the preferred route. I think LED lighting offers some hope, though. It is very directional light.
What did they do to simulate sunlight where you worked?
In the Southern Hemisphere we are still experiencing summer weather. The last 4 days have been 30 degrees (Celsius) or higher. In Sydney Australia (a coastal city) they got to 40 degrees celsius on Sunday 19th March.
The solar simulators were like slide or movie projectors, big things with big expensive optics and a super brilliant light source. I would not need the super brilliant source, because I don’t care about exposure time. I use a tripod, so even with very high f/# I can stand a minute or so exposure. But, my setup and photo backdrops require an illuminated area of about two foot square. For highly collimated light, the exit pupil/aperture must be as big as that illuminated area, and optics that big are expensive.
An alternative would eliminate optics. In that case, the source of the light must subtend the collimation angle or less I desire at the distance it is from the scene. I would want to use at least four or five feet distance or else the angle of the rays would no longer be parallel. So the light source must be tiny. I am going to look for the most intense white LED I can find, and see if that works without requiring an excessive exposure time. BTW, I think I do not need collimation of a half degree that the sun provides. I think as much as a couple of degrees would still give sharp enough shadowing and contour modeling.
Big area clear in backyard, and sunlight. Thank goodness, since all covered with light snow this morning, and forecast is rain, snow, or mostly cloudy for rest of week! But I did get some shots of Connie, Rapide, Jetstar, and Jennie. Jetstar photos are lousy so I won’t even post them, but here are some shots of the Connie, Rapide, and Jennie.
I had posted several shots to Postimage yesterday to use in Aircraft and Civil Aircraft forums. This morning they were gone and had to reload them. Don’t know why.
I’m glad I got the above shots in when I did. Today “studio” has about three inches of snow on ground. It will likely stay for awhile. Weather calls for highs in mid 30s, and chances of even more snow. I have my Red Baron Stearman just about done, and need to reshoot the Jetstar. The Stearman has a really colorful scheme that really calls out for sun.
Oh my!! I have had to blow snow every day lately. We’ve had at least seven inches since I last saw grass! Cold weather forecast for rest of week, and another snow storm this coming weekend. Just finished my Aerobatic Stearman, but I guess I’ll be restricted to eBay style photos for at least another week
It keeps getting worse! The last few days had some temps above freezing, and the portion of my back yard where I do my model photography is bare now (though pretty damp). But there is a major snow storm heading here this weekend, 7-10 inches! Model club, church, meetings called off. Perpetual winter!
Thought I’d gotten off easy. The storm was supposed to be in two waves, the first early this morning, the second at one this afternoon. The second wave seems to have come by early and it looks fierce. The storm was supposed to be over by one am tomorrow morning. But it is really coming down hard now (10:30am)! It looks like the second wave is not going to let us off easy.
Wife was supposed to fly out to Florida Sunday, and was worried the storm would not end on time- now we got word it will last till 7pm Sunday! She is really sweating it.
Got me. The title of the thread has become a sarcastic comment!
The storm is over. I have not seen anything on exactly how much my town got, but an adjoining suburb got 20 inches total over the weekend. I had a real snowblowing job yesterday (had to get my wife to airport- in spite of many cancellations, her flight got off, though very late). We got another burst last evening, so I will be going out to blow snow as soon as I get done with this post. Predictions of lots of sun and temps in the fifties are moderating downward. More snow Wednesday, daytime his from mid 30s to mid 40s. This snow will be around awhile. The weather bureau declared this a blizzard, with winds in the 40+ range, so I have a lot of big drifts in both front and back yards (and drive).
