Photography Club: The Set Up

Hi photo friends! @horologytrinkets reached out with a question specific to a recent watch shot I posted featuring the SARB033. I thought a quick walk-thru might make for a fun post for those folks out there that enjoy the photography aspect of watch collecting.

The question asked was how I effectively lit this shot and achieved the flecto - which is the term folks use for the highlighted reflection on the (left-side) crystal. This highlight can likely happen in a number of different ways, so please don’t think my setup is the “right” way of doing this. Also, on that note, I am NOT a professional, just another enthusiast that enjoys snapping photos.

As I don’t want to set up the actual shot again, I created a quick diagram to illustrate what was involved. Hopefully it’s easy to understand.

Staging: The watch sat on my desk atop a texture mat. Using a mat offers opportunity for fun reflections on polished cases, as well as allows for quick, minute adjustments to the angle of the shot/watch by rotating the mat (while keeping my camera fixed).

Main Lighting (light blue): Unfortunately, due to my lack of space I don’t own a proper soft box… so most of my shots rely on natural daylight from my windows at home. Thankfully Seattle is blessed with an infinite number of unrelenting overcast days - which works great for evenly lighting watch shots and absolutely nothing else. A large soft box can achieve the same lighting - so please don’t move here.

Flag (dark blue): If I care enough (I usually don’t), I will whip out a flag panel to further control my light. For me, this is a 24x36 piece of matte black foam core you can purchase from almost any hobby/craft shop.

Reflector (yellow): While my use of a flag is hit or miss, I end up using an opaque white reflector in almost all my shots. Typically this is a 24x36 white piece of foam core. Occasionally, if I am super lazy or if the space I am shooting is too confined (making the foam core difficult to position), I’ll just use a blank white sketch book to reflect. This is all to say that a reflector can really be anything so long as the material can bounce light. I positioned this reflector to the right side of the watch and opposite the window - this cuts down on any harsh shadows as well as highlighting the shape/dark side of the watch case.

Diffuser with hand-held light (red): Now this is the “trick” to getting that flecto on the watch dial. I own a baby 12x12 collapsible soft box which is pretty much useless for anything besides creating these soft highlights on the watch dial. I position my light inside the soft box against the diffusion material. I’ll mess around with the position of this light until I am happy with the results. If you want/prefer harder-line reflection (vs soft) you can forgo the diffuser and just use the light. Tip: If you don’t have a hand held light, one trick I’ve found is to use your cell phone or tablet. Do NOT use the flashlight, rather open up a blank white screen on either device and mess with your brightness level of your screen. This obviously won’t be helpful if you’re using said device to snap photos of course. 😉

Well, that’s it. Another aspect to getting this specific final shot was the edit in Lightroom as well, but that’s a whole other ball of yarn. To any actual professional photographers out there who bothered to read this way too long post, I apologize if I’ve grossly communicated something wrong here. Again, I am just a hobbyist at this so please forgive my ignorance. In fact, chime in below with what I am doing wrong… always an opportunity to learn!