Agent 8


090628_Agent_8_18, originally uploaded by Hartsord.

Figurines are some of my favorite subjects for photography, since I can bring them out anytime, with little fuss or set-up.

This figurine is Agent 8, from The Adventures of Spawn. She's about 8 inches tall, and comes with a base (although I didn't use it for this photo.)

The set-up for this shot is similar to my set-up for the Hitman shot: the background is the same sheet of black felt paper, to absorb the stray light. I laid it on top of the bed, and stuck the back part to the wall with a small piece of blu-tack. The figurine wouldn't stand properly on the bed, so I slipped my macbook pro under the feltpaper to serve as a stand for the figure. I also had to adjust the position of her gun a bit to get her to balance correctly.

I also took the opportunity to replace the battery of my Sekonic lightmeter. I set my Vivitar 285HV to 1/16 (the lowest setting), and took a reading of the light on her face, getting f/16 at ISO100. I set the camera to f/16 and 1/250th (to minimize the effect of the ambient), and take a few shots.

Looking at the first shots, as expected the shadows are very hard, and dark. To get more detail in the shadows, I hold a piece of white paper above the figure to reflect more light into the shadow areas.

In post-process, I noticed that I forgot to set the WB to daylight, and the auto-White Balance didn't quite get the correct color. Fortunately, I shoot RAW, so the correction was really easy.

Click on the photo to see the pic larger, and to see some of the other photos in the set.

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