| Joined: | Thu Apr 19th, 2012 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 4424 |
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That's because a light tent does reeeaaaally diffuse the light quite a lot...no matter how you arrange your lights outside.
If you want moody or stronger lighting you need to come out of a tent.
I also prefer to shoot shiny metal items outside a light tent. Thats because in a light tent even the darkest areas reflected are still whited out...there is insufficient contrast to make them look really shiny!
Far better to shoot these objects in a darkened room with strong local lighting JUST around the object. In this way the 'pools of darkness' behind you are reflected in the object.
Here are some examples. The food and the aluminium component are in a light tent ...the 3 tube examples are shot out of the tent on a white table illuminated directly from above ...the dark areas being the reflected studio out of the light spill region.
Its also true that you get weird reflections from the tent material (creases) and the camera opening itself reflected...unless you are really, really careful in setting up. I even ironed my light tent to remove some of the storage creases for one shoot!
So a light tent is fine for many ...but not all items.
Edited by Robert to correct a typo.
Attachment: tents.jpg (Downloaded 36 times)
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Eric