Well this type of shooting has been a learning experience. I had been working on this for a while, but then this thread really pushed me when I noticed it last week. Not perfect, but I learned a lot that I could definitely bring over to other types of shooting. I have some white background too, but I'll post the black first. The beer bottle and glass I took advice from these forums and did a warm set up, then pulled my glass and beer out the freezer in a quick switch.
First the setup: Black fabric, reflectors (one DIY and one Impact), acrylic from picture frame on top of black fabric. black frame to keep flash from hitting background, black binder handheld to keep flash from lighting the scratches in the acrylic. 430 triggered by 580. Using lamps with 60 w and 150 w bulbs to "try" and get some modeling light.
I needed something to keep the flowers from falling, a seasoned salt bottle
next 4 shots ISO 100, f8.0, 1/200
the white setup (actually shot these first):
Impact reflector as background, 480 set to full power. Did this to try and match a target ad (different floral arrangement, but pretty close on the lighting. Need to get a little less light on the stems but the light on the flowers matched the ad. I probably shouldn't scan the ad though and post here.
ISO 800, F7.1, 1/15
Now I'll be going back to the white background to shoot some more pics.
C&C welcome
Canon 40D : Canon 400D : Canon Elan 7NE : Canon 580EX : 2 x Canon 430EX : Canon 24-70 f2.8L : Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L USM : Canon 28-135mm f/3.5 IS : 18-55mm f/3.5 : 4GB Sandisk Extreme III : 2GB Sandisk Extreme III : 2 x 1GB Sandisk Ultra II : Sekonik L358
Well this type of shooting has been a learning experience. I had been working on this for a while, but then this thread really pushed me when I noticed it last week. Not perfect, but I learned a lot that I could definitely bring over to other types of shooting. I have some white background too, but I'll post the black first. The beer bottle and glass I took advice from these forums and did a warm set up, then pulled my glass and beer out the freezer in a quick switch.
Nice work.
A couple quick observations:
The light looks a tad hot on the left side of your Fructis bottles. To get a better balance between the left and right side, move your umbrella further back. Remember that light falls off slower the futher away it is, so if you pull the umbrella back, you will get a better balance between the sides.
It looks to me like your white background is a bit too bright and flaring. To get a rough ballpark exposure for a white background, meter off the background and push it 3 to 3 1/2 stops. If you push it much more than that you will start having trouble with lens flare.
I will definitely work on it again. I was working on getting rid of the shadow on the fructis bottle (on the right of the picture) and I finally remembered that I could pull the bottle forward to get the shadow off the bottle. I still didn't pull it far enough forward as I can see shadow in the word Fructis, but it was 4 in the morning and I was tired and I knew the wife was eventually going to need my subjects back.
I'll also work on the white background. I exposed it for the flowers with the solo halogen bulb, then I put the flash on manual and played. I need a combo flash, incedent, reflected meter.
Canon 40D : Canon 400D : Canon Elan 7NE : Canon 580EX : 2 x Canon 430EX : Canon 24-70 f2.8L : Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L USM : Canon 28-135mm f/3.5 IS : 18-55mm f/3.5 : 4GB Sandisk Extreme III : 2GB Sandisk Extreme III : 2 x 1GB Sandisk Ultra II : Sekonik L358
Migraine - light flashing - aarrgghh - green vase
I followed the instructions (thanks to who wrote them) and after 90 mins of my strobist studio flashing continusly came up with this shot. The best of 89 bad ones. However I did fix my light stand.
I followed the instructions (thanks to who wrote them) and after 90 mins of my strobist studio flashing continusly came up with this shot. The best of 89 bad ones. However I did fix my light stand.
The problem is that the black cloth is clearly visible and looks horrible. Even the vase (I didn't have any bottles) isn't that wonderful.
Can anyone help me perfect this without photoshop.
Also I found continual flashes in a dark room gives me a migraine.
Your photo is private so I can't look at it. However I can give you a few pointers:
The first is that most shoemount strobes are capable of completely overpowering indoor lighting. I always shoot with a lsmall ight on in the room; I just shoot one frame with the strobes off and if the frame is completely black then I know the light isn't contributing to the exposure. For some kinds of work, I can leave all the room lights on and not worry about it at all, but when working with glass you have to be a bit careful. Bounce the light off a ceiling or wall and make sure there is no direct light falling on your subject and you ought to be fine.
Here is how I set up my exposure. I shoot in manual mode and set my shutter speed for the max sync speed. On my camera with Pocket Wizards that seems to be 1/160 enen though the manual says it should be 1/200 (most cameras these days are faster than this). The shutter speed doesn't affect the flash exposure, but it does reduce how much of the ambient light contributes to the exposure. I set the ISO to 100 (or 200 if that is as low as your camera can go) and set your strobe to 1/4 power (we'll go higher than that if needed, but 1/4 is usually high enough for table top photography. Then I set the aperture to f/8, take a shot and chimp the histogram. Then I adjust either the aperture or the flash power for proper exposure depending on my DoF needs. I prefer to keep the flash power low if I can for fast cycle times.
As for your black background, the issue is almost certainly that you have spill on it from your strobe. A black cloth typically meters only about 2 stops under middle grey (though some are darker). Your camera, on the other hand, is can render detail as much as 5 stops below middle grey. What this means is that for a dead black background you need 3 stops less light on the backround than you put on your subject. So to darken your background you need to control spill from your strobes, diffusers and reflectors (including unintended ones like walls and ceilings).
The simplest thing to do to control spill is to move your background further away from your subject; the farther back you place the background the easier it will be to control spill. Also, get your light as close to your subject as you can because falloff can help you quite a bit. If you can arrange for your light to background distance to be at least three times your light to subject distance, that will give you three stops. Beyond that, shoot your scene with a wide angle lens and try to figure out how the light is getting to your background. Gobos can help in some situations. Also try angling your lights and diffusers away from the background if you can.
Your photo is private so I can't look at it. However I can give you a few pointers:
The first is that most shoemount strobes are capable of completely overpowering indoor lighting. I always shoot with a lsmall ight on in the room; I just shoot one frame with the strobes off and if the frame is completely black then I know the light isn't contributing to the exposure. For some kinds of work, I can leave all the room lights on and not worry about it at all, but when working with glass you have to be a bit careful. Bounce the light off a ceiling or wall and make sure there is no direct light falling on your subject and you ought to be fine.
Here is how I set up my exposure. I shoot in manual mode and set my shutter speed for the max sync speed. On my camera with Pocket Wizards that seems to be 1/160 enen though the manual says it should be 1/200 (most cameras these days are faster than this). The shutter speed doesn't affect the flash exposure, but it does reduce how much of the ambient light contributes to the exposure. I set the ISO to 100 (or 200 if that is as low as your camera can go) and set your strobe to 1/4 power (we'll go higher than that if needed, but 1/4 is usually high enough for table top photography. Then I set the aperture to f/8, take a shot and chimp the histogram. Then I adjust either the aperture or the flash power for proper exposure depending on my DoF needs. I prefer to keep the flash power low if I can for fast cycle times.
As for your black background, the issue is almost certainly that you have spill on it from your strobe. A black cloth typically meters only about 2 stops under middle grey (though some are darker). Your camera, on the other hand, is can render detail as much as 5 stops below middle grey. What this means is that for a dead black background you need 3 stops less light on the backround than you put on your subject. So to darken your background you need to control spill from your strobes, diffusers and reflectors (including unintended ones like walls and ceilings).
The simplest thing to do to control spill is to move your background further away from your subject; the farther back you place the background the easier it will be to control spill. Also, get your light as close to your subject as you can because falloff can help you quite a bit. If you can arrange for your light to background distance to be at least three times your light to subject distance, that will give you three stops. Beyond that, shoot your scene with a wide angle lens and try to figure out how the light is getting to your background. Gobos can help in some situations. Also try angling your lights and diffusers away from the background if you can.
More luck comments please
Once again I cannot photograph bottles as we don't have any so I started with vases. Three photos are side tungsten lighting. (And how do I post pics into here please?)
Once again I cannot photograph bottles as we don't have any so I started with vases. Three photos are side tungsten lighting. (And how do I post pics into here please?) Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3
De
I like the first one alot!
3d one is too dark to my taste, and on the 2d one there are too many stray reflections, you gotto watch for those bastards...
This was fun. I still need alot of equipment. lol. Tossed all my funiture out to make a studio in the living room, and I almost didn't have anywhere to put it. Luckily for me, I still have to dress nice for work. LoL. Out of all the shots I took, these were the ones I liked best.
First the set up shots. I shot in complete darkness. Unfortunately, I only have one good camera, so I took the set up shots with my blackberry. Please excuse the low quality.
Set up
I only have one tripod so I had to hand hold the SB 600. A snoot would have helped alot also.
Typically you don't need to shoot in complete darkness. If you are shooting at, say, 1/200s, f/8 and ISO 200 most indoor lighting will be irrelevant unless it is directly reflecting in the glass.
That said, your lighting doesn't have much contrast; I am not seeing much more than about a stop between your highlights and shadows. I have a couple thougts on that. First, is the strobe on camera firing or just acting as a trigger? You'll get better contrast if all the light is coming from the off camera strobe. Second, you are probably getting some fill from the white wall to camera left; either hanging a black cloth on that wall or pulling the setup out into the middle of the room will improve your contrast as well.
Typically you don't need to shoot in complete darkness. If you are shooting at, say, 1/200s, f/8 and ISO 200 most indoor lighting will be irrelevant unless it is directly reflecting in the glass.
That said, your lighting doesn't have much contrast; I am not seeing much more than about a stop between your highlights and shadows. I have a couple thougts on that. First, is the strobe on camera firing or just acting as a trigger? You'll get better contrast if all the light is coming from the off camera strobe. Second, you are probably getting some fill from the white wall to camera left; either hanging a black cloth on that wall or pulling the setup out into the middle of the room will improve your contrast as well.
The on camera flash was firing. I will reshoot tonight. ;-)
Last night, I had an inspiring moment when I was in the kitchen. Needless to say, I feel confident that I will be able to recreate it and capture it. And it will also fit this assignment better than my Grey Goose shots. By the end of the week I'll have found time to duplicate the senario and get the shot down. It's going to be a good one! ;-)
All that excitement for nothing. I wasn't able to get a large enough tarp, so I tried to mask everything out. It came out horrible, but here was my general idea. :-(
And here is my final shot on bottles. This is the best that I can do with my current equipment..
I love these shots - Exquite botles!
I beg you for permission to draw these pictures. I know the photographs are your righful property, but I would like your permission to draw them on 19 x 25 black paper in black and white and color. If not I will understand. Thank you in advance. BTW - I had my glass bottle drawing stolen with the rest of my portfolio (my best work) a few years ago and it has been really hard for me to find good subject material to draw again. If you would like to see some of my work I could send you some emails or website - I put one together - the link is below and I will be updating it often. Please reply, Thank you so much
Green Bottle
I don't know if this is legal or not. I can't show my set-up because I took this outside of a shed that I spotted when out looking for something to photograph. The shed wasn't worth a shot, but the bottles were just sitting there on a shelf outside. No lighting except for the sun, and no reflectors or anything used. I did shoot wider than this, but cropped it for composition. I did pop the color in the green bottle.
join me, too...
...this shot was a bit of coincidence. Actually, I had a really bad day, and was out in the garden, with the bottle standing on the wall and sunlight shining through it. Worth a try, I think, and I'm quite delighted by the result.
Taken with Canon Macro 60/2.8 and a 30D.
I don't know if this is breaking the rules or not, but being a non-drinker (almost three years sober) I don't have a plethora of glass bottles laying around. What I do have is a ton of vases compliments of my fiancee. I just did a darkfield/lightfield set up for these but will be playing with other setups later this weekend.
I don't know if this is breaking the rules or not, but being a non-drinker (almost three years sober) I don't have a plethora of glass bottles laying around. What I do have is a ton of vases compliments of my fiancee. I just did a darkfield/lightfield set up for these but will be playing with other setups later this weekend.
Thanks for the assignment and ideas!
Very nice! Love the dark series!
What was your HK setup? the same without the gobo?
I'm glad that you liked them! Sorry I forgot to grab a setup shot of the high key bunch. For the HK setup I just got rid of the gobo and replaced the black granite with white poster paper. I really need to get some white acrylic for that kind of thing. I love Home Depot. They sell so much photography equipment and don't even know it.
I'm glad that you liked them! Sorry I forgot to grab a setup shot of the high key bunch. For the HK setup I just got rid of the gobo and replaced the black granite with white poster paper.
Thanks for the confirmation, I thought so..:-)
I really need to get some white acrylic for that kind of thing. I love Home Depot. They sell so much photography equipment and don't even know it.
My Attempt
Hopefully I am not too late but I am going to work through the monthly and weekly assignments over the next few months.
I saw this and had some time to give this a try.
I will start with my reflective attempt.
I was not happy with the outcome of this and would like some input to improve so I can try again. I wanted the lettering at the top of the bottle to stand out more than it does. The bottle was an old glass milk jug I had lying around.
The shot was at 50mm f13.0 for 1/125.
This was the setup.
The flash was at 1/16 and shot through a piece of parchment paper that is hard to see. The best shots had the foam board reflector opposite the flash on the same plane as the square sides of the bottle.
I was much happier with the refractive result with the same bottle.
Again shot with the 50mm at f13.0 at 1/125.
Here is the setup.
Used the white foam core to hold up the parchment paper diffuser. The flash was at 1/32 and snooted to control the light better.
I also used the same setup to shoot a cruet filled with olive oil. I was very pleased with this result.
Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. I would like some input to reshoot the reflective shot again to get the desired result.
My favorite part of this thread...
is that most people are posting their set up photos! It is wonderful to see the behind the scenes shots and creative uses for everyday items.
With the budget running dry right now for new equipment, it's good to know that there are some alternatives.
Keep up the great work and the creativity here and hopefully I will have something to contribute soon.
OK, so I have my subjects. I am new to photog and I dont have any real equipment, no remote flash or reflectors and what not. Any advice on How I can do a setup with standard household items? I am on another fourm and they told me to come check out your asssignments. I like the way you have this setup and hope to start sending in some shots.
Here are my bottles. I am assuming with the transparent bottles and the colors I shoudl be able to get some good pics.
OK, so I have my subjects. I am new to photog and I dont have any real equipment, no remote flash or reflectors and what not. Any advice on How I can do a setup with standard household items? I am on another fourm and they told me to come check out your asssignments. I like the way you have this setup and hope to start sending in some shots.
Here are my bottles. I am assuming with the transparent bottles and the colors I shoudl be able to get some good pics.
Welcome!
While I applaud your desire to become better in shooting galss objects, I must honestly say that you seem to be underequipped for task . It is not feasible to attemt to produce a nice image of a glass subject without having at least some control over the environment: flags, gobos, lightsources.
Hardly recommended: get Da Book (Light: Science and Magic), start reading and start collecting some props. They don't have to be expensive, in many cases a trip to the local OfficeMax and $10..$20 for a set of white and black poster boards should do the trick. Lack of strobes can be compensated by the household lights, but in that case you should be ready for long exposures = solid tripod.
Comments
First the setup: Black fabric, reflectors (one DIY and one Impact), acrylic from picture frame on top of black fabric. black frame to keep flash from hitting background, black binder handheld to keep flash from lighting the scratches in the acrylic. 430 triggered by 580. Using lamps with 60 w and 150 w bulbs to "try" and get some modeling light.
I needed something to keep the flowers from falling, a seasoned salt bottle
next 4 shots ISO 100, f8.0, 1/200
the white setup (actually shot these first):
Impact reflector as background, 480 set to full power. Did this to try and match a target ad (different floral arrangement, but pretty close on the lighting. Need to get a little less light on the stems but the light on the flowers matched the ad. I probably shouldn't scan the ad though and post here.
ISO 800, F7.1, 1/15
Now I'll be going back to the white background to shoot some more pics.
C&C welcome
dak.smugmug.com
Nice work.
A couple quick observations:
The light looks a tad hot on the left side of your Fructis bottles. To get a better balance between the left and right side, move your umbrella further back. Remember that light falls off slower the futher away it is, so if you pull the umbrella back, you will get a better balance between the sides.
It looks to me like your white background is a bit too bright and flaring. To get a rough ballpark exposure for a white background, meter off the background and push it 3 to 3 1/2 stops. If you push it much more than that you will start having trouble with lens flare.
I will definitely work on it again. I was working on getting rid of the shadow on the fructis bottle (on the right of the picture) and I finally remembered that I could pull the bottle forward to get the shadow off the bottle. I still didn't pull it far enough forward as I can see shadow in the word Fructis, but it was 4 in the morning and I was tired and I knew the wife was eventually going to need my subjects back.
I'll also work on the white background. I exposed it for the flowers with the solo halogen bulb, then I put the flash on manual and played. I need a combo flash, incedent, reflected meter.
dak.smugmug.com
I followed the instructions (thanks to who wrote them) and after 90 mins of my strobist studio flashing continusly came up with this shot. The best of 89 bad ones. However I did fix my light stand.
See photo here
The problem is that the black cloth is clearly visible and looks horrible. Even the vase (I didn't have any bottles) isn't that wonderful.
Can anyone help me perfect this without photoshop.
Also I found continual flashes in a dark room gives me a migraine.
Your photo is private so I can't look at it. However I can give you a few pointers:
The first is that most shoemount strobes are capable of completely overpowering indoor lighting. I always shoot with a lsmall ight on in the room; I just shoot one frame with the strobes off and if the frame is completely black then I know the light isn't contributing to the exposure. For some kinds of work, I can leave all the room lights on and not worry about it at all, but when working with glass you have to be a bit careful. Bounce the light off a ceiling or wall and make sure there is no direct light falling on your subject and you ought to be fine.
Here is how I set up my exposure. I shoot in manual mode and set my shutter speed for the max sync speed. On my camera with Pocket Wizards that seems to be 1/160 enen though the manual says it should be 1/200 (most cameras these days are faster than this). The shutter speed doesn't affect the flash exposure, but it does reduce how much of the ambient light contributes to the exposure. I set the ISO to 100 (or 200 if that is as low as your camera can go) and set your strobe to 1/4 power (we'll go higher than that if needed, but 1/4 is usually high enough for table top photography. Then I set the aperture to f/8, take a shot and chimp the histogram. Then I adjust either the aperture or the flash power for proper exposure depending on my DoF needs. I prefer to keep the flash power low if I can for fast cycle times.
As for your black background, the issue is almost certainly that you have spill on it from your strobe. A black cloth typically meters only about 2 stops under middle grey (though some are darker). Your camera, on the other hand, is can render detail as much as 5 stops below middle grey. What this means is that for a dead black background you need 3 stops less light on the backround than you put on your subject. So to darken your background you need to control spill from your strobes, diffusers and reflectors (including unintended ones like walls and ceilings).
The simplest thing to do to control spill is to move your background further away from your subject; the farther back you place the background the easier it will be to control spill. Also, get your light as close to your subject as you can because falloff can help you quite a bit. If you can arrange for your light to background distance to be at least three times your light to subject distance, that will give you three stops. Beyond that, shoot your scene with a wide angle lens and try to figure out how the light is getting to your background. Gobos can help in some situations. Also try angling your lights and diffusers away from the background if you can.
Once again I cannot photograph bottles as we don't have any so I started with vases. Three photos are side tungsten lighting. (And how do I post pics into here please?)
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
De
3d one is too dark to my taste, and on the 2d one there are too many stray reflections, you gotto watch for those bastards...
First the set up shots. I shot in complete darkness. Unfortunately, I only have one good camera, so I took the set up shots with my blackberry. Please excuse the low quality.
Set up
I only have one tripod so I had to hand hold the SB 600. A snoot would have helped alot also.
And here they are
#1
#2
C & C please, you guys are making me better.
Nikon Shooter
It's all about the moment...
Typically you don't need to shoot in complete darkness. If you are shooting at, say, 1/200s, f/8 and ISO 200 most indoor lighting will be irrelevant unless it is directly reflecting in the glass.
That said, your lighting doesn't have much contrast; I am not seeing much more than about a stop between your highlights and shadows. I have a couple thougts on that. First, is the strobe on camera firing or just acting as a trigger? You'll get better contrast if all the light is coming from the off camera strobe. Second, you are probably getting some fill from the white wall to camera left; either hanging a black cloth on that wall or pulling the setup out into the middle of the room will improve your contrast as well.
The on camera flash was firing. I will reshoot tonight. ;-)
Nikon Shooter
It's all about the moment...
Nikon Shooter
It's all about the moment...
And here is my final shot on bottles. This is the best that I can do with my current equipment..
Thoughts?
Nikon Shooter
It's all about the moment...
I beg you for permission to draw these pictures. I know the photographs are your righful property, but I would like your permission to draw them on 19 x 25 black paper in black and white and color. If not I will understand. Thank you in advance. BTW - I had my glass bottle drawing stolen with the rest of my portfolio (my best work) a few years ago and it has been really hard for me to find good subject material to draw again. If you would like to see some of my work I could send you some emails or website - I put one together - the link is below and I will be updating it often. Please reply, Thank you so much
http://artechie.angelfire.com/Drawings
I don't know if this is legal or not. I can't show my set-up because I took this outside of a shed that I spotted when out looking for something to photograph. The shed wasn't worth a shot, but the bottles were just sitting there on a shelf outside. No lighting except for the sun, and no reflectors or anything used. I did shoot wider than this, but cropped it for composition. I did pop the color in the green bottle.
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
...this shot was a bit of coincidence. Actually, I had a really bad day, and was out in the garden, with the bottle standing on the wall and sunlight shining through it. Worth a try, I think, and I'm quite delighted by the result.
Taken with Canon Macro 60/2.8 and a 30D.
#1
#2
#3
#4 - Setup Shot
#5
#6
#7
Thanks for the assignment and ideas!
What was your HK setup? the same without the gobo?
Hopefully I am not too late but I am going to work through the monthly and weekly assignments over the next few months.
I saw this and had some time to give this a try.
I will start with my reflective attempt.
I was not happy with the outcome of this and would like some input to improve so I can try again
The shot was at 50mm f13.0 for 1/125.
This was the setup.
The flash was at 1/16 and shot through a piece of parchment paper that is hard to see. The best shots had the foam board reflector opposite the flash on the same plane as the square sides of the bottle.
I was much happier with the refractive result with the same bottle.
Again shot with the 50mm at f13.0 at 1/125.
Here is the setup.
Used the white foam core to hold up the parchment paper diffuser. The flash was at 1/32 and snooted to control the light better.
I also used the same setup to shoot a cruet filled with olive oil. I was very pleased with this result.
Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. I would like some input to reshoot the reflective shot again to get the desired result.
http://www.ohiohikerphotography.com
Facebook
Flickr
While we're waiting for Ken to give you an in-depth feedback - your setup pictures are not showing...
http://www.ohiohikerphotography.com
Facebook
Flickr
is that most people are posting their set up photos! It is wonderful to see the behind the scenes shots and creative uses for everyday items.
With the budget running dry right now for new equipment, it's good to know that there are some alternatives.
Keep up the great work and the creativity here and hopefully I will have something to contribute soon.
www.springkeisphotography.com
Set up.
Had to remove the Pozies and rearrange some things to get this, first attempt.
New set up. Not showing the 430 EX behind and to my left set at 1/64, just to light the label a little more.
Here are my bottles. I am assuming with the transparent bottles and the colors I shoudl be able to get some good pics.
While I applaud your desire to become better in shooting galss objects, I must honestly say that you seem to be underequipped for task
Hardly recommended: get Da Book (Light: Science and Magic), start reading and start collecting some props. They don't have to be expensive, in many cases a trip to the local OfficeMax and $10..$20 for a set of white and black poster boards should do the trick. Lack of strobes can be compensated by the household lights, but in that case you should be ready for long exposures = solid tripod.
Good luck!