Science Photography EdX Course - Week 3

Week 3 of the science photography course has come and gone, and the assignment this time was about different lights and light positioning.

I started out with some limited daylight from the front. There is a bit of a gleam, but fairly uninteresting in terms of light.

Then I added another light, in the above image it is bouncing off an umbrella from the front right. Still pretty similar to the daylight only, just mainly some color differences. Below you can see the setup I was using for these initial photos.

Then I tried the bare light (without the umbrella bounce) and I think this is much more interesting. The watch interior has more of a gleam to it.

This series really demonstrates how drastic an effect simply changing the light position can have. I hope I have the descriptions correct; it was a bit hard to remember exactly where the bulb was in each. Check if my analysis makes sense.

It was very interesting how a low light (the bulb was just an inch or two from the watch and my lens) casts the etching/engraving in sharp contrast and gives a graininess to the flat surfaces.

Whereas a higher light makes things appear more glossy with lots of specular highlights.

This final one might be my favorite from the shoot, in terms of composition and lighting.

Later,
Stuart