A recent project required a miniatures shoot. There were going to be CG elements integrated into the backgrounds and so I needed to capture lighting information.
The usual technique of using a Nodal Ninja mounted on a tripod wouldn’t work in such restricted space. So I decided to put together a home-brew stand using a dumbbell weight and standard tripod bracket. Two part Araldite glue holds the bracket on very firmly and it survived a hectic 9 day shoot without a problem. As a precaution a couple of little rubber feet stuck to the bottom prevented any damage to the floor of the set.
I also needed some small light probes to help with matching the lighting in CG. I purchased two steel balls designed to be used as garden ornaments. I then drilled a hole into each and glued a 1/4″ to 3/8″ thread adapter inside which allowed me to mount them onto cheap mini tripods. For the grey reference ball I found a firm (CJ Aerosols) who colour matched a 50% grey photographic reference card and mixed up a couple of cans of matte grey paint.
The project isn’t released yet so I can’t share anything but I’ll update this post in the future with a link.
[EDIT: I can now share the Coca-Cola project. See the video and read more here]
You can see the stand in use in this behind the scenes video:
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