The first light is a very large Softbox - here I use a 120 x 180 cm box. It first acts as a white background that should be clean white but too much overexposed, otherwise it creates flair. The black flags between the light and the camera help to reduce this flair.
In a second step another black flag is placed between the object and the large Softbox. This flag is large enough to cover the entire background visible in the photograph, but smaller than the Softbox. Like this the background turns entirely black, but the Softbox still creates a clean white contour all around the Siros monolight.
The next light is a P70 standard reflector with narrow grids. It comes far from the right side to avoid any unwanted reflection in the shiny black "broncolor" lettering. The lamphead itself is black as well, but matt - not shiny. So it catches some light and reflects it to the camera while the lettering remains all black.
As the P70 is very close to the object, you might expect a very uneven illumination - much brighter on the right side. Adding honeycomb grids to the P70 and directing the light rather to the handle than to the front makes the light distribution even.
(In the how-to video on this shot, you will also be explained how to make the “broncolor” lettering brighter than the matt lamphead.)
Finally another P70 standard reflector with grids is used to lighten up the front panel on the left. Turning off all the lights (studio and modelling lights) and using a long time exposure on the camera, makes all the LEDs appear in the final photograph.
The picture is shot with a digital medium format camera at ISO 100 and a focal length of 120 mm. The exposure time is 1 s and the aperture f/22.
