Micro Lighting Setup

Photography ... to draw or write with light. Don't believe me? Look it up...

Centuries ago, a camera obscura was used to display the lit world in a dark chamber (camera obscura) so that artists could draw/sketch outlines on a canvas which later was filled with pigments carrying oil to form marvelous paintings.
What am I trying to say here? A first sketch was taken in a very dark room from a very brightly lit scene. In a later process, mainly based on the observation of the artist, an image was formed, an image that impresses the viewer centuries later.

Speedlight or flash photography is very much the same. I was always fascinated by flash photography, due to the fact that in one frame/negative two images are captured:

1. the bright light source, just as in the camera obscura, which is nowadays provided by a speed-light (flash) and controlled by the aperture setting of the camera
2. the ambient light, as if the artist was filling in pigment by painting, which is controlled by the shutter speed.

Nothing new, I hope, up to here. 

I love my artificial light setup, but... carrying about all those speed-lights was rather a cumbersome thing to do. So, I usually did not do that. As a consequence, usually, I did not use the creative possibilities such a setup provides.

Today, that all changed. I got myself a handful of very small and inexpensive light sources:

a handful of lights

What you see is a Godox iM30 and an Ulanzi SL03. I also bought an Ulanzi SL01, which however does not contribute to this story.

You will notice that the iM30 on the left indicates "S1" and "S2" on its cover. These are slave settings, which were the main trigger for me to actually purchase this device. Of course the manual power setting dial is another great selling point, however, does not play a bigger role in this text.

Lets turn to the star of the show, the SL03 on the right. There are, next to its tininess. two features which stick out: 1) the video light and 2) the tilting flash head (pointing forward in the image).

So, what do we get with the SL03? 

1. a bright light source, which can be pointed either directly on the subject or be pointed upwards 90 degrees away from the subject (I will come to that later in the post)
2. a relatively weak constant light source (the video light) pointing at the subject

In the case of the Ulanzi SL03, the video light and the flash (with power settings) can be operated at the same time. This is the magic of this tiny speed-light.

Single light setup

Here is a scenario:

• run the video light as fill light for a scene
• point the SL03 flash directly on the subject or bounce off the ceiling

This option of being creative with light and camera settings. 

1. the speed-light exposure is controlled by the aperture and freezes motion
2. the ambient light exposure is controlled by the shutter speed and allows for motion blur

In a world of film, all of the above will sound illusional. However, the sensitivity of modern cameras allow shooting at ISO 6400 w/o mention-able penalty.  Hence, a faint touch of flash or constant video light will make a difference. In addition to that, even my Ricoh GR-IV monochrome is provided with image stabilization making longer exposure essentially safe.

Multiple lights

Possible scenario:

• run the video light as fill light for a scene (optionally)
• point the SL03 flash upwards / behind (*)
• use the iM30 as key light and back light (via a reflector)

This is a minimal setup. Imagine using more than a single iM30... endless possibilities, e.g. hair light, back light, color gels... you name it. 

And that goodness fits in the pant's pocket.

(*) I tested inserting the SL03 backwards in the hot shoe of my Ricoh GR and it triggered just fine, the Ricoh GR-IV monochrome did not allow this to happen.

LED light pad

Some shop over here in Europe offers a device adapted for tracing drawings, they call it an "LED light pad". I would call it a light box... But, I am old skool and a photographer.

The device is sold for just under €10. So, how could I resist getting one?

Initial testing displayed a somewhat homogeneous illumination at the center of the device, the periphery is a different story though.
For tracing from some original, this seems all OK.
HOWEVER, I wonder if the device could be used for contact printing in the (more or less) homogeneous middle of the light-box. 

Here comes the kicker, maybe the LEDs can be replaced by UV-LEDs, turning the light-box into a device for anthotype printing. 

Camp Snap Pro - Xenon-flash

CampSnapPhoto did a very good thing, adding a real flash to the Camp Snap Pro. This features allows for "slaves" being triggered enabling elaborate lighting setups. Very very cool in particular since the CS-Pro flash has 2 different settings.
However, there is a (solvable) problem. The flash of the CS-Pro does not produce a homogeneous field of light, something I tested flashing a white ceiling. The photo displayed stripes across the image. A strip of Scotch Magic Tape over the flash unit improved the distribution to some extent; not perfect, good enough however.

My thanks to the CampSnapPhoto-folks for adding the Xenon-flash. Setting up a scene with slaves will erase the problem with the in-homogeneous light-field. Mind you, I already sold photographs taken with the Camp Snap 105. I am pretty sure that I can create professional scenes with the Camp Snap Pro and a decent setup of inexpensive slave speed-lights and cheap light modulators / reflectors.

Camp Snap Pro - a true BW camera now

Life kept me busy/lazy for a while. Finally, my return to the Camp Snap Pro. I sent the company a message about my desire to have the LUT of the CS-105 in the CS-PRO. I guess the market for this kind of weird stuff is pretty small, hence, I have not heard back after the first confirmation, also, their filter-designer-tool seems to create files as before. So, well, no real weird stuff possible as with the 105. (bummer!)

However, now CampSnapPhoto explains how to assign filters to all positions of the mode-dial:

Filters are case-sensitive and must be lowercase.

std.flt, vtg1.flt, vtg2.flt, or bw.flt

(cf https://www.campsnapphoto.com/pages/filters%20)

So, it is what we got. However, here comes the plan, look at your B&W-photo text books on how to use color filters with B&W film. Here is a "random" page, I just picked up by a search engine: https://thedarkroom.com/color-filters-with-bw-film/

With CampSnapPhoto's filter creation page, we can of course design our own filter definitions for the CS-Pro.

My advice is to play with R, G, B first, then with Hue. Now reduce the Saturation to 0 and fine adjust with Brightness, Contrast and Hue.

Is it as good a manipulating the RGB-LUT of the CS-105? Of course it is not. However, once you have fine tuned your filter-files, you can set a specific filter to a specific position of the selector, making the camera a BW-film with 4 filters simulation.

My choice is to have a general purpose black and white setting on the STD position. VTG1 has a soft portrait setting (for women), VTG2 a hard portrait setting (elderly men). The BW position is occupied by a very hard contrast setting having a red filter (landscapes, skylines, dramatic skies, etc).

UPDATE:

While the standard setting can be modified, as shown above, it might be best to just leave this one alone, so there will be a color option at the end. A photo taken with this setting can always be de-saturated. 

My present settings are equivalent to a green and orange and a blue filter.

1. vtg1.flt:
   lum:19
   contrast:0
   rgain:-63
   ggain:100
   bgain:-82
   hue:0
   sat:-100
   
   
2. vtg2.flt:
   lum:29
   contrast:0
   rgain:100
   ggain:-90
   bgain:-92
   hue:0
   sat:-100
   


3. bw.flt:
   lum:150
   contrast:0
   rgain:-90
   ggain:-74
   bgain:100
   hue:0
   sat:-100

The envisaged use of the filters are as follows:

1. low contrast landscapes, smooth portraits - smooths out irregularities in skin
2. dramatic landscapes and cityscapes - increases dynamics in the sky
3. character portraits - emphasizes skin irregularities

Acros and Kodachrome on the Camp Snap

In my last post, I layed out a way on how to getting a film simulation on the Camp Snap (v105).
Today, I want to discuss some of the results. By now, I own 2 Camp Snaps, for the reason of having one equipped with a B&W film simulation and the other one with a colour film simulation. 

The following considerations are along a rather contrasty scene, taken in the late afternoon. Both were taken with cameras side-by-side, overhead to avoid the fence to interfere. Sorry for the tilt, it is what it is, straight out of cameras.

Kodachrome 25 film simulation

Acros 100 film simulation

At first sight, both images look pretty decent in terms of contrast and detail. However, there is a catch...

Let's look at some details.

Crop and resize

I am sorry for not having hit the exact same crop. I think they are close enough for what I want to demonstrate here. 

The Colour image, looks somewhat weird due to the camera's over-sharpening. See the halos about the dark structures? I guess one can noise-filter / smooth those out in post. However, post is not the aim original of the Camp Snap.

Crop and resize

Let's have a closer look at the Acros film simulation. For some reason, at least to me, this looks a lot more natural, i.e. filmish like.

When developing B&W-film, I usually use a semi-stand technique in order to boost edge contrast. Somehow, the over-sharpening of the Camp Snap created this very effect. 

Another feature of the Acros image, the noise! Isn't that lovely film grain? I love it!

Maybe, just maybe, the Camp Snap with a B&W-film simulation is the perfect poor man's Leica monochrome.

Fujifilm Acros 100, Ilford PanF+50 or Kodak Kodachrom 25 on the Camp Snap

None of this is any of my own ideas, I just compiling things which seem to work for me.
I use either Linux or ChromeOS as my main operation systems. The following will be available on Linux, maybe on ChromeOS with the Linux extension (not tested).

In RawTherapee film simulations can be applied to images using look-up-tables know as HaldCLUT. So far so good, we have all been using this once and a while, I guess. I you have not done this before, be aware that you need to point to a HaldCLUT-directory in the RawTherapee settings.

Would it not be nice if the camera can apply such simulations right away? Yes, of course, the Fujifilm range of premium cameras can do this.
What if I told you, the $70 Camp Snap can do that too?

Here is how to do it with the help of Turtle Bard's webpage Camper Snapper.
In essence, just follow the instructions. 

• download the Ramp.png file
• open the Ramp.png file in RawTherapee
• apply the desired film simulations (there are plenty of those in the HaldCLUT)
• save a 8 bit-png with an adequate name
• upload your file to Camper Snapper
• download the flt-file for the Camp Snap

Optionally, you can use Camp Snap's filter webpage to check the effect of the flt-file, without using your camera.

As I mentioned previously, the SD-card of my Camp Snap has a directory for those "filters". On the move, I can use my (cable connected) smartphone to delete the flt-file in the root-directory and copy a desired filter-file from my filter-directory to the root-directory.

Here you have it, a very simple method to get film simulations and Fujifilm Acros, Ilford PanF or Kodachrome on your $70 Camp Snap.

As a tip: you can dive deep into RawTherapee and apply various colour-filters to your BW-conversion as well. Once you got the hang of RawTherapee, there are no limits to creating jpeg-profiles for the Camp Snap camera.

Just remember it is a $70 camera and cannot compete with a Fujifilm X100VI.

Acros simulation with LED-flash --- tree in front of my home

same as above, different part of the tree though

Kodachrome

Kodachrome

Camp Snap flat jpeg profile

In the hope that blogger does not "improve" anything in terms of image quality. Here a test photo and a respective edit.

flat jped as shot

edited with Google Photos

In this edit, I tried to keep as much detail in the foliage on the upper right, while also having detail in the clouds.