Help with lighting

[LWArchery]

I am starting to do Euro mounts and when I try to take the pictures they are to bright and you cant see the detail of the skulls. For example. Both pictures were taken in the shade out side but the good picture was taken on a cloudy day. Any tips?

[Casey]

What kind of camera are you using?

[Hillary]

You need to bring your lighting in from an angle.

It doesn't need to be all over light, like from a forecasted day, or by using a straight on flash.

Either extreme overhead light or a light off the the side casting a shadow at an angle should help.

And like Casey said, knowing the what type of camera you have will help us.

[LWArchery]

sony cyber shot compact

[WyoBull]

Try to either expose for the skull if you can with spot metering or underexpose the photo so the skull is not blown out. I am not sure how to do that on your camera but that is what you want to do. Flash will also be a challenge in this situation if you are using a pop up flash straight on the subject.

[Swat791]

2 Clamp on light fixtures with 60 to 75 watt equivalent compact fluorescent light (CFLs)bulbs 56k bulb (daylight bulb)...may even try two different wattage bulbs one 60 and one 75+.
I like the CFL since they don't produce a lot of heat and you can get different color temperature bulbs

Cover the bell of the fixture with a white piece of 200 thread material (cheap Wal-mart pillow case)...making a very inexpensive softboxes or "guerrilla lightboxs" as others may call them.

Even with a small pocket camera you may diffuser the flash a little by covering the flash with a piece of scotch tape or a small piece of the white material. I've used a piece of a Sunny Delight jug to make a decent diffuser before as well.
This may be just enough diffusion to capture the shot your looking for without a "softbox" or multi-lighting set-up.


Using different wattage light and lighting at two different points/ angles can still yield some pretty good pictures even with a compact camera .