PROJECTS: STROBOSCOPE
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5. MAKE THE HOOD
5a. Find a cardboard box big enough to turn upside down and fit
over your whole rig, with room to spare. Use an X-Acto knife to
cut out the back wall so you can access the camera. Cut a round
opening in the front of the box, to give your camera and strobe
disk a clear line of sight.
5b. Place the box over your rig to check the fit. Make sure the
camera still has a clear view and that the slot in your strobe disk
isn’t obscured. Voilà — your stroboscope is complete!
Backdrop, Subject, and Lighting
Good stroboscope photography requires a black
backdrop, preferably fabric, which makes your
subject show up clearly without being lost in a
bright clutter of background noise. With a black
background, light and brightly colored objects will
“pop,” while dark objects will disappear.
Your subject also needs to be well lit, or else
it won’t show up. Clamp lights work well and
are easy to adjust. With the camera pointing
straight toward the backdrop and your subject in
between, place 2 clamp lights pointing in from the
left and right, respectively, lighting up the subject
GETTING SET UP
rather than the backdrop.
You can also set up your stroboscope outside,
using sunlight instead of clamp lights. As long
as you have a black background and bright light,
you’re in business.
Camera Settings
To set up your camera, temporarily remove the
strobe disk and focus your lens on the place
where your subject will be moving. Make sure the
focus remains set to manual. Here are some
good typical settings you can experiment with
for starters:
Shutter/exposure: Two seconds. With a too-
short exposure, you won’t see much happening
in the image, but if it’s too long, the image will be
washed out.
Aperture: Set this to the lowest number possible
to gather the maximum amount of light with each
pass of the strobe disk slot.
FINISH X
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NOW GO USE IT »
