Tiny Kitchen - How Would You Light It and Which Lenses?

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
Hi all:

I have a client who wants to shoot some footage that will need to look in the neighborhood of
what this footage looks like https://www.tastemade.com/shows/tiny-kitchen/tiny-spring-brunch

Same concept, tiny kitchen, tiny food, I think with hands. I have some ideas about how I want to light this
and for once, I think our Rhino EVO slider with Motion may actually be important for this to add movement.

Thinking about renting the Laowa Probe lens so give it some depth but that is a super slow lens and I am
concerned about having subtlety and modeling, Chiaroscuro on walls and BG, which is hard if you have to nuke the lighting
levels. I will probably shoot this with a combination of Fuji X-T3 on the motion control slider using the XF16mm f/1.4 since it is
basically a macro lens with it's 7" minimum focusing distance, but I would rent something interesting for the C200, possibly
the Laowa Probe lens?

How would you light it and what lenses would you use to photograph it to add some depth and movement as the camera moves
through the tiny kitchen? We will have to have a few hero shots of certain food that will be "baked" in the tiny kitchen.

I recently used the Rhino and Fuji/XF16mm f/1.4 to shoot a whole trove of medals and ribbons from an athlete so I have a good idea
of what that FOV, DOF and framing looks and feels like. Client mentioned wanting three angles, one overhead and two others, not sure if
the food stylist can repeat actions so I am planning on hopefully getting the whole thing in one or two takes w three angles so that will restrict
how closesly I can moves sources into the frame, I am not sure if she wants the overhead clean or if it can be a "BTS" angle that shows all
of the grip, lighting and cameras? I will find out.

I'd value your suggestions and input, this is an interesting assignment.
 
This sounds like an awesome project. I'm jealous, mostly because you may have the chance to actually use the dedo projection attachments.

There are some ridiculous examples in these videos but you can see how easy it is to achieve precise control over lighting small areas.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPgRhU8Kxdc
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7kivMJ_17Q
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz1vr__i3V0

You could easily just set up one nice soft "sun", then pick out any BG spots to hit as harder light with separate instruments e.g. window pattern, as if it's coming from that same sun. Or just let existing elements cast the shadows like the cupboard in the reference video. Without knowing the full brief, because you're creating this "perfect world" type look, I don't think every light source needs to be motivated so you can go with what looks good vs. staying true.

For the lens, the laowa probe was made for projects like these, I think it'd be great for moving through the food. IDK anything about the rhino slider but just make sure its slowest setting isn't too fast at the macro level.

I hope you don't have to send them a tiny invoice.
 
rob norton said:
This sounds like an awesome project. I'm jealous, mostly because you may have the chance to actually use the dedo projection attachments.

There are some ridiculous examples in these videos but you can see how easy it is to achieve precise control over lighting small areas.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPgRhU8Kxdc
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7kivMJ_17Q
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz1vr__i3V0

You could easily just set up one nice soft "sun", then pick out any BG spots to hit as harder light with separate instruments e.g. window pattern, as if it's coming from that same sun. Or just let existing elements cast the shadows like the cupboard in the reference video. Without knowing the full brief, because you're creating this "perfect world" type look, I don't think every light source needs to be motivated so you can go with what looks good vs. staying true.

For the lens, the laowa probe was made for projects like these, I think it'd be great for moving through the food. IDK anything about the rhino slider but just make sure its slowest setting isn't too fast at the macro level.

I hope you don't have to send them a tiny invoice.
Click to expand...

Good stuff Rob, thanks! This is for promo stuff for an upcoming family film, we did a
bunch of totally different things for the first edition of this franchise, so I am glad I
have a really creative producer who likes to try different things.

It's been slow, the invoice will not be too tiny!
 
There's a Rokinon 12mm (or was it 14?) that will work with Canon DPAF. But it was mostly recommended for the Canon full frames that had a center crop in 4K. Otherwise, Sigma 18-35mm might be fine for close quarters, mostly around 20-24.
 
This does sound like a fun & interesting shoot. I have no experience with the Laowa Probe - but this job certainly seems like perhaps worth a try. Alternatively (or maybe in conjunction), I might suggest renting something like the Tokina Vista 11-20mm or 16-28mm - or perhaps the stills versions of these. I know they make them in EF mount for your C200.
I have the original Tokina Cinema 16-28mm and it's minimum focus distance is something like 10". On my FS7 - that puts the focal point about an inch or two in front of the glass. At T 3.0 - that gives you a really nice soft background - allowing you to really separate the background - something you likely won't get with the Probe and would allow you to light with maybe more modeling. I use mine often with using a speed booster - so that S35 at 11 or 12mm and t 2.0 is a look I really like for certain things.
I also have the Rokinon CS 12mm (manual) - and it's certainly a very good lens for the price (very little distortion for such a cheap lens). Use it mostly with gimbal work - so that could possibly be another option.
 
If you want any shots with super shallow depth of field, there's always the old reverse mounted lens hack. Here's a hand-held still I took holding a Nikon 50mm 1.8D up to my D7000. I missed focus slightly, but it's not bad for a hand-held macro shot. The shot is of a patch of moss BTW.
44366012380_1b7e9ad92a_k.jpg
 
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Imamacuser said:
If you want any shots with super shallow depth of field, there's always the old reverse mounted lens hack. Here's a hand-held still I took holding a Nikon 50mm 1.8D up to my D7000. I missed focus slightly, but it's not bad for a hand-held macro shot. The shot is of a patch of moss BTW.
View attachment 138347
Click to expand...

Funny you mention, I am looking for the exact opposite effect. I've shot lots of tabletop and by default, macro and tabletop is always about fighting too shallow DOF.
We have a top designer and food stylist, I don't want the shots to look like 1" DOF blurry mess, I am considering seeing how hot I can light the set to
maximize DOF to see and show off all of their beautiful work with the set, the food, etc. Even the food stylists hands will be in almost every shot so I
want to see all of her hands in focus, not just the tips of her fingers.

Still figuring out my three angles. The video I posted from Tastemade does a pretty good job, single wide lock off and opposing angles with longer lens
FOVs showing the inside of the little pans she's using, the ingredients. I found out client is okay with at least two full takes of each section, plus she knows
we'll need to shoot insert and hero shots where I get a chance to light some teeny, tiny food. I'm thinking I will set up one camera on the Rhino Motion
Control rig, doing a small half arc around where the action is happening, then perhaps I'll operate a camera on tripod with a similar FOV from the opposite side.

It'll be an interesting shoot for sure! I'm only going to rent the Laowa Probe Lens if we're going to have the time to put it work. Remember, my regular lenses will
probaby be running somewhere in the f/4.5-f/7.1 range and the Laowa is a fixed f/14 lens. So that means I probably can only use it for insert shots and I
will have to up my lighting levels considerably to get correct exposure for an f/14 lens. I think we could capture some killer shots with the probe lens but as
usual, the clock will be ticking so we'll see if we have time to use that lens.
 
I think the DOF is going to give a sense of scale.

FOr example on a movie with minitures acting as real props you want a lot of DOF on the other hand if you want it to look small then DOF should be thin.

Id go with a reasonable DOF which is going to be 8-11-16 ish?

You want it bright

A reverse lens can be stopped down and get deep DOF it doesnt need the look above.

==

FYI My grandfathers watch, Nikkor 200macro and bellows https://vimeo.com/218293602
 
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions guys. This shoot WAS supposed be happening this week, but like most of my other gigs, has canceled and hopefully will re-schedule
when life in our country returns to normal.
 
James0b57 said:
Ah, well, hope things turn around.
Click to expand...

Amazingly, new client sent an email today for a project that was just green lit for March 24th. Very small scale, me solo, one day shoot, two day edit. But in the face of almost all of my projects canceling and every colleague I have spoken with in the past week,
all of their projects canceling or rescheduling, this is quite a pleasant surprise. Makes March, along with some other income sources coming in, not a total wash, not starvation yet. Now to see if we can save April as the end of the world moves into it's second month ;-)
 
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