Zero no Illya

This time again an outfit I've had laying around the house for over a year, but just haven't figured out a time or girl to use with. But after finally getting and rewatching The Familiar of Zero up to season 3 got enough motivation. Since there is still no actual Louise in the house, the next best thing, especially after Carnival Phantasm, and Indeed Prisma Illya, Illya got a pink curly (though at the moment less curly) wig, and hey presto...

 

I know im using the hair clip wrong as a hairband, but I dont recall Volks ever giving info about how it was supposed to be used in the first place to get the hair bunned up without the wig-cap showing badly.

 

In anycase, hope you like, despite _again_ failing to get a white balance setting I liked fully.... Guess I need to downgrade the bulbs in the lights, but thats another story..

 

anyways, hope you like:

 

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Thanks for looking.

Illya as Louise, now that's an interesting mix! Me approves

 

Had a look through all your older sets too. Must admit I'm jealous of your ability to come up with interesting poses!

 

Are you using led lights or incadecent/flourecent lights? I recently found out the hard way that led lights (the cheaper ones intended for non-photo lighting) aren't useful as photo lights. The rapidly flickering light that they produce really messes with the camera's light meter.

thank you very many.

 

Coming up is perhaps a bit strong, ability to adapt things seen elsewhere is perhaps closer to the truith. But when you cant compete with scenery, have to make up for that with something else... like posing.

 

These are what im currently trying to use:

random001

 

60x60cm soft-boxes with 4x40w flourescent bulbs rated at 5000-5500K each... plus the 120cm inverted reflective umbrella on occasion.

 

Their relatively nice for the cost, but setup has been a constant issue, with what working on one day not working the next. But Im guessing my recent location that technically should be best for constant results, with little to no ambient light might have something to do with it. Also the light-meter in the camera is pretty useless with these.

 

But with what I've experimented so far me camera apparently does not appreciate full black or full white backgrounds with these lights... Could always cave in and go auto-white, but it wants to capture a super sterile white, which I'm not terribly fond of, and neither am I of post production, unless absolutely necessary.

 

probably need to go back to my livingroom where there is some ambient light available and where I've had best results so far for the next set. Or getting a set of 20W 3000k bulbs that are not on the raggedy edge between two or three balance settings like these.

She looks amazing! All the photos are great! I really like her eyes and wig, they go so great together.

awww a cute loli!! The pictures are great, and the poses too!

Coming up is perhaps a bit strong, ability to adapt things seen elsewhere is perhaps closer to the truith.

Well, adapting previously seen things certainly fall in the "coming up with" category - at least in my book After all, it's very seldom that an idea is 100% original. I'd say 99.9% of all ideas are amalgamations of previously discovered things. To me the skill of remembering, and perhaps most importatnly combining and/or adapting, those ideas is quite impressive because I'm lousy at it.

 

but setup has been a constant issue, with what working on one day not working the next.

 

But Im guessing my recent location that technically should be best for constant results, with little to no ambient light might have something to do with it. Also the light-meter in the camera is pretty useless with these.

Hmmm.... that's interesting. Theoretically no ambient light should be the ideal setting. Could it be that the lights' brightness and/or color temp changes as they warm up (I've read that can be the case with some lights)?

 

I guess one experiement could be to set the camera to full manual mode and then take photos of a white background lit by only those lights, making sure the camera settings are such that the first photo is slightly under exposed in case the light intensity increases significantly over time. Take the photos at, let's say, 1 minute interval over 10 minutes without changing camera settings. Start when you switch on the lights, making sure the lights are at room temp when switched on. Then compare the photos and see if the exposure and/or color differs.

 

But with what I've experimented so far me camera apparently does not appreciate full black or full white backgrounds with these lights...

Do you end up with under/over exposed photos? Do you set the white balance and/or esposure manually with a grey-card (18%)?

 

Could always cave in and go auto-white, but it wants to capture a super sterile white, which I'm not terribly fond of, and neither am I of post production, unless absolutely necessary.

I think that trying to get good results with no/minimal post processing can be a bit tricky with a low-end DSLR (I'm using a Nikon D3300, basically a D3200 with more mega-pixies, and I sort of gave up on the no-post-production route from the start ) I've noticed my D3300 has an annoying tendency to produce differently exposed photos of the exact same scene with unchanged settings and controlled lighting. It's not a major difference but it's noticeable, both to the naked eye and and when I look at the histograms.

 

Can't remember where I read it, and I'm not sure how true it is, but the article claimed that low-end DSLRs are intentionally mis-adjusted from the factory in such way that they'll produce the best results in as many situations as possible when set to automatic/program mode. Thus, when one tries to use a priority mode or manual mode, the result is not as good as with a higher end DSLR. The article author's reasoning behind that claim was that since low-end DSLRs are mainly targeted towards beginners - that most likely are used to point-and-shoot cameras - have to be mis-adjusted like that in order to not disappoint the beginners when they start using their new DSLRs, most likely in program/automatic mode.

 

 

Sorry for the wall of text but since we have similiar cameras I'm curious to see what problems you find in your setup and how you manage to work around the issues.

Louise!

Illya looks great as Louise~

all her poses were super cute

Thank you all very many

 

@sleepywolf:

heh, I don't mind the wall of text.. at least gives some re-assurance that Im not going totally bonkers, although Im not ruling out user stupidity error on my part yet.

 

For the most part I take my photo's in full manual, since I want to control the aperture, and white balance (which has been the humorous success story). Im not in that technical of a level of using grey cards, I just do dial in tests with different settings that I check on my computer and try to pick where I want to be most.

 

Sometimes it works, and I've been in a sweet spot if you wish (The Beatrice defaults, Kosmos and Melty dancing and Michi laying around sets for instance), And then there are these like here I initially thought were ok or tolerable, but as I got all the shots side by side in my editor the whole obviously turned out a little wonky.

 

I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist, but there is some obvious evidence of dumbing down low end models, for instance when I was shopping around for my camera, it was either the D5100 or the D3200... Since the D3200 was advertized with the better CPU, and higher resolution sensor I thought I could live without the extra presets and flip-out screen.. Turned out that the D5100 could do for instance 99 timed interval photos with the built in setup, but the D3200 can only do 9 interval shots.

 

But I still find it hilarious that the more controlled the environment became the less controlled the results.. now Im back in my living room, and looking at how things go there again... so far one catastrophy, one Ok, and one So-so sets with actual sunlight to play with.

Illya cosplay louis ! Great pics ! it is a successful Cosplay. I like different poses and white background. giving a class side.

she looks really cute!