Kens Photography Blog

I have been having an annoying problem with my product shots lacking good contrast so I had to do it in post. I just got a set of bardoors for my setup, a very cool set with a honeycomb grid and 4 gels from the danish photography and studio lighting shop Flash og Fotobutikken

I put on the set of barndoors and took a couple test shots. Like magic I had more contrast because I could now block the family of angles from the lights. I use diffusion panels exclusively, (sod softboxes, pain in the ass to setup, takes up space and are expensive) and a lot of times the camera can “see” the reflectors on the heads causing glare.

So it seems that my contrast problem was simply flare biting me in the ass. (Again, grrr) but with the barndoors this is a thing of the past. Also nice that I can stop spill on walls and ceiling, I get better colors now to, since I don’t have reflections from the walls and ceiling bouncing off colors back into the scene anymore.