Ed's Apple Wine

Not used to shooting glass with studio lights. Please feel free to

make suggestions and critique. Thanks!

i can see the traces of your work.....

Nice stately arrangement. I like that the first bottle is a bit more forward. Getting rid of all the glare is tough with glass, but you know that.

I shot this inside one of those EZCubes (see picture). I might try having the lights a lot further back; they were right next to the cube for this shot. Oh, and the one bottle is actually taller than the others; there were probably 3 different styles of the clear bottles, as we recycle wine bottles.

Okay - first of all, another delightful wine bottle shot. :-) I really love these. Keep 'em coming (only after you've done more distorted flowers!)

 

Secondly ... thank you so much for the description and the PHOTO of your studio setup. Some day ... some day I'll have enough space to do some sort of studio. It will be the day that I move to Colorado ............. Until then I'll have to work with Els' method ... white printer paper and a macro lens. LOL!

Nice shot, look great!

When we get back from our trip, I'll have to take a picture of the mannequin in front of the backdrop so you can get an idea of how that looks. I always appreciate seeing how a shot is done. Thanks for visiting, Lou Ann and Jason!

Nice idea and a beautiful result, Kim! Best regards, Ruud.

I don't know a great deal about lighting but I think I would prefer this with more shadow, maybe a more directional light. Does the wine taste as good as it looks?!

Thanks for visiting, Ruud and Colin. Colin, when I get back, I'll play some more with shadows, etc. I want to try and get rid of the glare from the glass, too. The wine IS very good; it's been aging since last October and now has been bottled.

This is a very nice shot for glass (round object) on white background with your simple set up & your equipment. It is interesting to see the reflect...."bottle inside bottle" of the front two. Best regards.

Thanks, Thinh - I'm sure there will be more coming after vacation. :)

Very good composition,exposure and light,Kim.

Have you given any thought to a different background color? I'm wondering how this would look against black or royal blue...maybe something to compliment the golden color of the wine and make it glow...or, maybe using a light from below the bottles, like sitting them on a light box so that they glow from within...just thinking out loud...not sure how this would work out, but curious anyway :)

 

Have a fun and safe trip to Canada!

 

Leslie

Yeah have a safe trip - we'll keep an eye on the place ......

Ken, don't make me tell the mother-in-law on you! I think last time you had her up a tree, but she retaliated! Thanks, Leslie and AK. Leslie, I plan to play a whole lot more when I get back. I think you can order a lot of different backgrounds for the "cube", so I may get some other colors. Only have white right now.

First off, good choice with the yellow and green:) I went with yellow and black. You know, they'll even change the color for a small fee.

 

Regarding the glare, it's all about using as much backlight as you can. Then, use as much black and/or white foam board to as necessary to control the light hitting the front of the glass. At least, that's what I do.

Thanks for the advice, Jamie. I did this series quickly and then packed up my studio lights and camera equipment for the trip, so didn't experiment much. Yes, it's all going with me to Canada and back. :)

I like how you overlapped them - it gives much more richness to the golden juice

Very nice colours and light in this comopsition Kim.

Seems the EZCube isn't as easy as the advertising alludes. I bet you might prefer images of these bottles that were shot on the black background using white flats/panels to bounce the light off of, just out of sight on each side of the black background. That way you get transluscent bottles (shows the liquid color) and nice highlights which trace the outlines of the bottles in pure white. As you've no labels, you don't need a main/key light in front to illuminate any branding. If you're interested, I have a wine bottle label (I've done a few of them as I'm pretty close to wine country) and it might be fun to supply you with a photo image design you could tweak into your own. Let me know if you're interested? I feel like the whole shot is kind of soft but it might be what you were after with an image like this? Call me old fashioned but I like the look of the clean bottle without a modern label to gum-up the works! PS- I really like the Distorted Flower Series too!

I'll be playing more with the bottle shots with studio lighting when we get back, Philip. This was just a quick try with the new EZCube. I'll have to try your idea, too. Ed makes his own labels for his wine, using an old photograph of his grandfather, taken in 1926, when his grandpa was 19 years old. I just like to grab the bottles before the labels go on! We have about 80 bottles of Cab-Merlot to bottle when we get back, so I'll be trying red wine next. What kind of lighting do you think I should try with those? The liquid will be quite dark, compared to this apple wine.

I'd still try to do the black background, max your lights (if flash) for watt-seconds and try two exposures with the D100. Don't change anything else, one for the liquid and one for the bottles and their highlights. Then layer the two resulting images in PhotoShop and flatten the resulting composite after both layers have been adjusted for hue, contrast, saturation etc. they way you want them. Bet you can come up with some pretty interesting stuff? You may have to use a semi transparent mask (adjust opacity) where the two bottle images overlap on the highlights to keep one or the other as you like it. Hope you're having a great vacation time! Oh Canada...