Pocket Wizard Plus II X 12·포켓 위저드 플러스 무선동조기

This is 1/4 of my collection of Pocket Wizards. This product shot was inspired by recent observations of advertising photos using a radially symmetric pattern, in particular a poster-size PDN insert picture of the new Nikon D3. (Mmmmmmm, D3...)

My objective was to take a relatively plain subject and see if I could jazz it up visually using the radial symmetry scheme, except instead of comping multiple copies of the same image with the same lighting, I wanted to have depth in perspective, lighting, and focal plane.

This image is composited from 12 separate images of 1 Pocket Wizard Plus II Transeiver rotated around a center 30 degrees between each shot. This was done by mounting the PW (using museum wax and monofilament line to keep it upright) on a 4 foot by 4 foot sheet of black acrylic (a.k.a. plexiglas or perspex). The acrylic was placed on a heavy-duty turntable around which I marked 12 equally spaced lines around the circumference. A stationary pointer was placed next to it to align with the marks for each shot.

Because I wanted to use a wider-angle lens for a bit more perspective, there was a challenge dealing with positioning everything including the background which had to be very large to fill the reflected surface. The background was 9 foot wide seamless paper behind and angled up over the set. Because the camera needed to be stationary for each shot, and it was above the acrylic, it was placed on a Bogen Magic Arm clamped to a C stand. Composing was the most challenging part of the setup due to "family of angles" issues (see the Light Science and Magic book) and the need to check carefully during a full turntable rotation to make sure the PW and it's reflection was visible throughout the entire rotation. Each shot was triggered with mirror lockup and using a shutter release cord to eliminate any movement during exposure.

The exposure was 1 second for each shot, long enough to make sure I could catch one of the periodic blinks of the red LED lights on the PW.

Strobist: 2 flashes triggered by PW's (what else?). One high above and slightly left of the camera was blue-gelled, 1/4 power and pointed at the background paper; it was flagged at the bottom to prevent direct illumination of the PWs. The other flash, camera left at 1/16 power, was gridded and pointed toward the front right portion of the setup to maximize illumination of the front face as it rotated through the 4-5 o'clock position.

Comping the 12 shots together in Photoshop with layer masks was relatively straight forward due to the care taken in shooting the images.


Learn how to light at Strobist.