Finally! The answer to that age-old question about whether or not the light goes off in your fridge when you close the door. Well, not really, but it’s as close I could get.
This was a tricky one. The technically hard part was that I SO wanted to get this in one shot. Sure, I could composite the thing, but I’ve been compositing a lot lately (and yes, I’m on meds for it), and I just wanted to get as much as possible “in camera.” So, how to balance the light needed for the carton itself (with an overhead softbox), and get the exposure correct on the glowing eggs? And I wanted the whole thing to take on a kind of sinister appearance, as in, “You shouldn’t have opened the lid, mister, and now we’re going to have to do something about it.”
Anyway, here’s the setup. I cut holes on the egg carton and made corresponding holes in the bottom of the eggshells (no simple task, that), and then arranged them just so. The carton was set on top of four LED lights, one under each egg. The lid was held on the semi-open position with pins, which were masked out later. And to keep light from the LEDs from spilling out the sides and the bottom, everything in front and on the sides of the carton was draped in black fabric.
Then I darkend the studio completely, turned on the LEDs, and fiddled around with manual exposures for the glowing eggs, which turne out to be right at 0.6 seconds at f/10 and ISO 100. Then I turned off the LEDs and fiddled with the strobe exposure until I got the correct amount of light on the carton (not much, since I wanted it to look gloomy), and settled on 1/32nd power.
Then I just turned the LEDs back on and fired away, bracketing a bit in case I needed it. Because the strobe was set to a relatively low power, it did not blow out the eggs, and I was pleased to find that I really could get it all in one shot. Well, almost. I had to take a second shot with the softbox repositioned to light the very back and instide top of the carton. So, in the end, it was a two-image composite.
Here’s the big Flickr version.
Meta: Pentax K-3, 35mm f/2.8 macro at f/10, ISO 100, 0.6 seconds, strobe at 1/32 power, two-image composite
