This is the Nendoroid version of Katsura Hinagiku (桂ヒナギク) from Hayate No Gotoku (ハヤテのごとく). As you can see from the setup photo, it's a small subject.


ハヤテのごとくの桂ヒナギク | Katsura Hinagiku from Hayate No Gotoku (Nendoroid version) by goldfries, on Flickr



Canon EOS 60D was used for this shot, lens of choice was the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens due to incredible flexibility when it comes to the MFD.

EXIF - f/6.3 | 1/100 | ISO200. Wireless Flash using 60D pop up. Group A & B were used.

Flashes used were 2 units of Canon 430EX II and 1 unit of 580EX II.


Setup for the shoot - ハヤテのごとくの桂ヒナギク | Katsura Hinagiku from Hayate No Gotoku (Nendoroid version) by goldfries, on Flickr

I decided to go into more detail from this shot, my Suzumiya Haruhi bunny girl photo was taken against a brown box background which was pretty simple. I decided to do it differently this time, even the lighting setup was totally different.

For the background, I decided that it has to be pin, seeing that Hinagiku is generally PINK already.

I have some pink / white bougainvillea plants outside but due to the heat of the noon day sun and the inconsistent cloud and all - this was not the path so back into the house. I then remember that there's his this dark purple / maroon colored articial flower arrangement around some place so I decided to have this as the background. Behind the flower, I decided that it should be white which I think both complement each other very well.

The main reason on why flowers were used as background was to show the feminine side of the character. Just in case you wonder why I didn't use f/2.8 and bokeh it as much as possible - Here are 2 reasons
1) I want sufficient DOF on my character
2) I want it to be decently distinct as flowers, having it creamy wouldn't make sense. It'll be mostly pink blotches.

Through out the process, I took about a hundred shots and spent about 2 hours. YUP! And you guys think this was easy? Heh.

OK Let's go into the details. Flashes from left to right are 430EX II (Group A), 430EX II (center, Group B) and 580EX II (Group A). The 430EX II units were mounted with mini softboxes. The big one on the left to give more coverage of light while the center unit was using the smaller softbox, sufficient to provide diffused light from the front.

The bulk of my shots was to find the angle I like and also the lighting that I like.

I experimented a lot with the figurine's position against the background, and it involved quite a lot of re-arrangement to the flowers, to get it to fit nicely in the frame while capturing the character. Yes, it was intentionally done with the lower left being open area for text and such.

The flower had to be sufficiently lit to bring some lighter shade of it, from maroon-like color to turn out pink. This was done by pointing the 580EX II to the flower and background. Initially it was on the same level as the flower but it cast shadows on the white cloth that I hung over the LCD TV. At a later point, I raised it to a higher level to eliminate the shadow.

Due to the group limitation of the flash where the flash on the left is sharing the same intensity as the 580EX II (Group A) to light the background. This involves moving the flash closer and further to adjust as one of the ways to adjust intensity. Group B is stationary, ratio adjusted as necessary.

In the end, Group A's intensity was about 1/8 -1/3 while Group B was at 1/128. Interesting to note - the 430EX II has the lowest power of 1/64 so I have no idea how 1/128 +1/3 translates but hey, the output was what I like so I'm just reading to you what's on my setting.

Now, as for the EXIF itself - f/6.3 | 1/100 | ISO200

Why 1/100 and ISO200? Why not 1/250 | ISO100 | f/8 - 11 or something? Due to the limitation of the flash groups I have, I wanted to get as much of the background light as possible.

I didn't bother with the rule of the shutter speed, 100mm on a 60D comes to about 160mm but if you're stable enough then going lower is not a problem - case in point, I'm using 1/100.

ISO200 and f/6.3 also to get as much light from the background as possible.

As you can see the shot is at a 16:9 ratio I intended for it to be my wallpaper but it's rather desktop unfriendly.

I normally shoot in RAW but for my figurine shoots - I like to shoot in JPG for training purpose. Same in this case, it's shot in JPG. No adjustment in color, contrast or anything at all. I only cropped it to 16:9 ratio (width to width) and cloned the defects on the figurine. I spent more time on the beautifying the text with the logo.

Thank you for reading - I may rephrase the above should I find the need to.

abang, in my monitor, the nendoroid is a bit overexposed liao.

how's your monitor? calibrated?

regardless the left side (her hair) is on the bright side. bring the shine to her hair. i use the face as measure for exposure.

nice one goldie. but me oso see abit over exposed. maybe the light coming from the left side is a tad too bright. it kinda washes of some details. just my humble opinion

but i really love the background setup. brings in the mode perfectly. lovely

This post has been edited by Tony Stark: May 3 2011, 06:47 PM

erm..can i express my noob opinion also?

it does look a bit over to me on the hair part...but i actually LOVE the shots (the concept and workflow)

thanks guys. left side was left to be that bright on purpose, giving greater impact from light to shadow.

the left side of her body are all lit by the same light. if i were to make the hair less bright, the left part of her face and body will dim together, especially her blouse (on the arm) and the skirt.

end up the figure looks less attractive. so i have a choice - hair vs face and body. i decided to go for brightened hair, furthermore i love the tone from white to pink.

power for light on the left sharing same ratio as the one for background makes it a little tricky as well.

---

Added on May 3, 2011, 7:12 pmoh yeah the left light also lights up part of the background.

still got a bunch of figurines to shoot.

A bunch ah. then do share more

sure thing! you guys can apply the concept here for human portrait shoots too.

its great that u teach and show how u get it done here. this is good stuuf, good info. after all, understanding photography is understanding light. nice one goldie!

Love it so much . . . great job!!!

Great job! I like how the left side of the hair was intentionally overexposed to give it that realistic 'feel'

so in a pitch dark night I can use the flash to lit up Background as well ? ;p

of course you can.

eh abang emas.. beside highlight on hair... the background a lil bit busy or cluttered it steal the focus of my eyes. my eyes tend to focus on teh left hand side where there a big white just right above the jap character.

my 2 noob cent

thanks. i'm not expecting all praises here. even in my photo, I'm working with limitations vs my own expectations.

lacking flower + want an area for writing = what you saw there. if have additional flower, i could possibly cover there but I think like this more natural la.

yes, the background looks busy. some say better it darker. some say better it's blur. i didn't want it bokeh out because I want it that you can still more or less see that it's some flowers.

didn't want to darken the background either as it looks gloomy and unnatural. I decided to go with the more noisy background but with color being stronger than subject. and purposely framed the flowers around her.

Thanks for sharing! My shots of figu have been till this point in time, taken using natural light. I have a few experienced figu shooters using all sorts of lighting modifiers, so I can appreciate the trouble taken to get the shots done.

looks a bit overexposed on my monitor too.. and a bit too sharp for me..
but i totally love the color!

thanks all!

too sharp? I didn't sharpen oh. it's default, resized and upload only.

IMO the term overexposed / underexposed should be used for entire frame rather than the subject, going based on the comment - if it's the hair part, I think the term should be "blown highlights" or "overblown highlights".

nevertheless I appreciate all visits and comments, getting to know people's preference. for my preference, the strong light was to bring in the tone and the contrast.

to all who come here. most importantly, I'm happy to see the sharing is helpful to others.

hi..i m newbei oso.
i find the highligh make is so natural n life-like.
good effort.

This post has been edited by IMHO: May 14 2011, 12:08 PM