OnSet Part 1: Lighting Tutorial - Nike Zoom Pegasus

Hello! Welcome to my first lighting tutorial. I'm hoping to make more of these tutorials in the future to share my thoughts and process on creating images. For my first tutorial, I will walk you through step by step on how I created the shot of the Nike Zoom Pegasus running shoe. For this particular image, I wanted to have a dark and contrasty look. Also, I wanted to use coloured gels to accentuate the blue elements on the shoe, especially the Nike logo and the heel. Here is the final image we will achieve.

Gear

Camera and Lens:

Nikon D750
Nikon 105mm 2.8G Micro

Lighting:

2x Yongnuo YN560 II
Yongnuo YN560 III
Yongnuo YN560TX
2x 60x90cm Softbox
Rogue 3-in-1 Flash Grid
Rogue Medium Blue Green Gel

Other:

Clamps
Flags
Black background

Lighting Diagram

Step 1

Set camera on a tripod and set up the framing of the shoe. Play around with the shoe's position and pay attention to the lines and form. I used clamps to hold the shoe in a secure angle. Next set up the black background. Be aware when shooting test shots, there maybe light spill on the background. An easy fix can be either put the background further or use flags to flag off any light spill. *I forgot to take a photo of the set up :(

Step 2

With the camera, subject and background in position. Set camera settings to at least 2 stops under exposed and take a test shot. Make sure that any ambient light does not affect the flash exposure. For the key light, I decided to use a 60x90 cm strip softbox placed behind the subject on camera left. This key light 's purpose was to provide a soft rim light on the topside of the shoe.

Step 3

Once the key light was set, I noticed that the sole was very dark in the shadow. Rather than having the sole of the shoe in shadow, I placed a second light with 16º grid below the shoe firing upwards. The light acts as a fill while also highlighting the textures of the sole.

Step 4

The final part of the shoe that needs attention is the heel. Similar angle to the key light, I placed a third light with a 60x0cm strip softbox on camera right to separate the shoe from the dark background. This creates a nice rim light and adds some shadows to the curves which shows the form of the heel much better. To accentuate the blue colours of the heel and add some interest to the photo, I decided to place a Medium Blue Green gel on the light.

NOTE: Due to adding a coloured gel, the gel absorbs approximately 2 stops of light. Although the Key and Rim Light are both at full power, their light intensity is very different.

Step 5

With all three lights in place with the best power settings, take the final photo for post production. Check out what all three lights look like and what each light does in the slide show below:

All Three Lights

A - Key Light

B - Fill Light

C - Rim Light

Post Production

For my post production I usually keep things very simple. I imported my photo into Adobe Lightroom and colour graded the image. Next, I imported the photo into Photoshop from Lightroom to mask out the clamp and convert the background to black. As you can notice, the difference before and after are very subtle. Here is the before and after:

Final Image

Here is the final image: