Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Wine Bottles

we set up a shot over there using some very expensive pro photo gear there was some questions in the in the chat room I understand while thats very expensive dear laser dome that could be anything those could be alien bees they could be those little off brands you could buy on ebay with you know unpronounceable names for one hundred nineteen dollars it doesn't matter it's just light it matters before you scatter it yes I really I love my pro photos I love the light that comes out of my pro photo when she's put it in a soft box so once it's in a soft box it's not a soft box whatever you had is now scattered into a soft box trust me it doesn't make any difference anymore you put a beauty dish on it doesn't make any difference anymore reliability all that stuff we're not talking about about quality of life quality light now is the last thing that touched it the beauty dish for the soft box over the material so over here we're going to do a shot kind of a fun shot of some black wine bottle...

s but we're going to do this with very inexpensive equipment speed lights the speed like we have mounted up here as my main spee light uh is a quant array something or other it's a quant array and qet it cost me twenty two dollars on ebay matter of fact I was twenty two dollars in nineteen dollars shipping so uh uh it's that's pretty cheap right twenty dollar light is pretty cheap that's our main light my other two speed lights that we're using for this are also one saloon with pro one twenty on one's alumal pro one sixty these air not an expense not expensive but I'm using them on optical okay optical triggers my triggers I'm using up here the calm lights there were going to get some calm lights away today they're just a little radio triggers here in their fifty dollars for the pair so not a lot of money here we're not using pocket lizards or whatever they are expensive poppers and stuff we're using fifty dollars triggers twenty two dollar light and one of my lights is so broken that you can't bend it yeah so we're covered there so when it comes down to is it's not the camera and it's not the light and it's not the brand of the stuff that you use is what you do with it up here that matters what's the old saying the best part of a cameras six inches behind the lens you know it's up here a good retirement take a good photograph with pretty much anything my friend charles went to a tulip festival with his iphone wow uh sorry those are really great shots I don't care that they were done on an iphone and you're shooting hips thematic right so you shooting full boat full reds five holden's yeah that's one thing I like about that particular things you can't shoot the full red's file the prince heir astounding from it it's not a camera it's not the model of the year it's the light so here we have a ten dollars shower curtain frame this and we got a couple of wine bottles wine bottles are a monster to shoot because they have and this these particulars that vertical here but they have this little guy right here we can light the vertical lighting into this gets to be a challenge so way started with kind of a back light were going I haven't laid this shot out yet hadn't thought about it would be kind of a coop thing with you guys we got to wine bottles and brett let's go with the fifty fifty for me bring these guys right out about here and we're gonna lower our back we're gonna get rid of the back and make it kind of a window he said I'm saying take it down there so we just see that way this's photography isn't it the height of the stand is exactly high enough that leaves one inch of tape showing at its lowest point yes of course of course why would it be otherwise huh built just for built in just for us yes it is so on bring my meter over too when you get a chance brett so when we try to do here is uh kind of chimp this in a little bit kind of play with it see what the shots look like um ten guys back there I'm gonna low I'm gonna change this to j peg only and please please please god don't let me forget to change it back like I did last time I went out and shot a whole bunch of wonderful images on medium j peg yeah yeah it was great okay so trying to find something in here that's gonna be a nice reasonable shot let that we got a lot of light coming from back there it's kind of a sexy looking shot go with fifty here on focus focus focus didn't work cool let's go with that that could be your style that stuff's a lot of focus on going for the impressionist joint yes yes so we can see right now the challenge is that these things provide we're back lighting in here for a little bit of a kind of ah fun look but look at these bottles nothing absolutely nothing in worse speculator that's that light speculator that's that like those lights are adding nothing to this exposure trust may but the reflections air so bright because their point sources that they're in this shot we are shooting out two point eight at a fortieth which is why this thing's blowing out take a meter reading of these of the light right here uh I'm getting I'm getting one point oh not that much light at that shutter speed so we don't have really any light happening here it's not lighting the bottles up we're just saying the reflections so we want to create something where we see these bottles not compositionally to the gap between the bottles as bad it's worse to do this actually separate him and do this because then they're not related way wanted to relate it just sort of in their own space kind of thing someone I kind of do is put one slightly in front of the other one so we could create a unit and right we'll go with the white cards now we're going to reel something real simple we don't have anything lighting up these bottles so what we're gonna do is we're gonna create the light for the bottles you said I'm saying so I'm going to change my eyes so here up so I can do something other than two point eight so you two point I go four five six so I go I s o to two hundred for four four hundred for eight yeah actually want to do is take this take this one off think this one every right into the shot from here way go now let's try it and see what that does to this bottle for one thing it's killing that light over there so we don't see it anymore the reflection but now we're starting to get something that kind of looks like a wine bottle starting to see some shape to it we now know that those bottles around before didn't really no way kind of you know we knew their wine bottles so we know they're around but we lived in so there was no clue on the photograph but there certainly is a clue in the photograph now isn't there since there is a highlight here in a dark side there we know from being humans that they're round secondarily we've got also a nice shape see what kind of disappears right up here on this part of the picture kind of disappears right up here and we've got that crazy little line this becomes a choice do you want to leave it for do you not some clients some tires will leave it let it break there sometimes you don't let it break there that becomes an issue for you it's the stylistic there's no rule okay rules are like madge is there are no rules in this you can do what you want let's grab that other piece of white card bret just bring the card will just hold it there because we can because angle of incidence angle of reflection take this and put it right over the top and closing in that gap we will fill in that so bread if you hold it just like that we'll fill in that top because that bottle's now reflecting white card and there we go but it's doing it terribly isn't it yep it's doing it is doing what it's supposed to dio but it looks terrible because it's not following up this it's starting to scoot over here that's not gonna work way have to find that point where it does work is they're a little short stool can I settle nothing apple box would be great oh sorry about that with the right so I looked through the camera and have brett move that to where I can see it all right let's try it there good better better better now we just have a little bit here coming over but we can see its too far back so now split the difference exactly this is just this is why we should tell her I can't do both I can't put it on the screen and shoot tethered but you can see what we're doing this is sort of a slow tethered process you know if we're shooting teller that'd be ok now moving this way until we know what lock it in and then we lock it in a much better okay so that's what that's mounted their uh maybe people peace of gaffer's tape got it while I'm talking way wiring not shooting live this life with a live view so you can see because we're actually going we're actually making these shots rather than we can't know it was we can't see this live you ok a little less the nuances of the light because of the ambiance in here we really need to see the flash and so that's way go gaffer's tape becomes our friend now we want to add another line on this side of the bottle and by the way can you see why umbrellas don't work umbrellas aren't gonna give us that clean highlight coming down the side of this wine bottle just not gonna do it getting all kinds of reflections in those bottles are way break this guy open to brett was uh go ahead and get this guy going here you're working with additional challenge here with the video lights where if it's somebody in their studio if I'm in my studio there it's pretty darn right it's pretty dark in fact that was we have skylights in the studio saying you know you can close them or you can hit the switch and they open up I was working in this studio and shooting a picture of something to some jewelry and had this beautiful hot spot in the back of the jury it was just great and I take the shot wouldn't be their crap my flash isn't going off you know fix with when I was doing I was using real low and I have two point oh not much light in the flash but it's the skylight open and the skylight was giving me a great shot when I was looking through it and I turn off the skylight make the shot on an open sky and of course there wouldn't be their old age just really sucks all right so we have just a simple little wine bottle thing going here now how can we make this more dramatic well one thing that you could do for bottles and things is to shoot up at them becomes quite a more majestic kind of thing you see a lot of beer ads and things in the the beer bottles going up because in our minds it's more majestic so let's use live you too chimp this in here we go that's kind of got some flare going on in here now we're going up into that background look at that that's nice way got a totally different feeling to these bottles now because of the angle angles are so important when you're doing this everything you do changes the angle that's a much different shot than this much different feeling for your client's product they both good certainly I'd be happy with either one of them I could definitely make the shot either way but they're different shots aren't they totally different feeling in it where you put your product in the point of you could be huge these guys are valleys are our school presentation boards so uh science fair stuff so some of you have never seen them before and some of you are really well familiar with these air science fair things you put your stuff on there folded up take it and stick it up on your these guys are worth their weight in gold in your studio first of all you photography your people photographers check that out uh wings right um and then for us we're going to use it this way because it provides I highlight all the way around that bottle I don't have a set of questions set up question yes sir can you use two of those on either side and put your poster board on top and make yourself like a tent yeah you know you could you know yeah in fact I'd probably try that at some point if I was doing this shot for a client I'd be trying to tent approach sure uh black bottles are unique kind of a different feeling tools so let's try this shot again from down here and shooting up into that right there get it straight all right don't wait yeah now these things shot is totally different than the last two we did because now way have filled all the way around ueno there black bottles lens flare wear little purple spots on my picture way know that they're there around because we have these highlights and we have this really kind of fun thing happening but what kills with shot do you see what kills the shot it gets complex at one point it was like what the hell is that way don't know what that isthe weaken kind of understand the if you guys need to move come on come on yeah move it's it's fine we'll uh we'll make it work here this complexity here leaves us wanting to know what's going on so that's kind of a fun shot with the flare and everything maybe our client would or would not want that this is the kind of shot that I would continue to make it out this kind of shot I think I would put in my portfolio because it is different it is a little bit more uh because I'm doing a lot of things with flair my people shot some flair in him now and everything maybe I would add something like this this might be kind of fun now how do I find the exposure for it well we can meet her and stuff but we're also sitting in the studio and we have polaroids that are at our convenience so waken just polaroid it in that's how I would do it course company polaroid is going we're not in business anymore issue art goofballs way go right there on dh will take it down and down and down and down I go with you I'm just showing the app I'm taking my aperture toe a smaller smaller aperture I'm just running the exposure down so now we're getting much less flare at the top are are our shar highlights are a little bit different we still have this complex idiot top hello thank you very much you can see you know got all the way down to almost nothing and still they show right got some flair in there too was that there's still some flair here yeah just a little bit huh what is this by the way you see this right here this part here what is that wall of bob it's the back it's this part of the scrim lighting up that part of the bottle angle of incidence angle of reflection the bigger your light source behind your subject the more it will tend to wrap around and so that's what that's doing that is that part of the of the scrim that is that part of the scrim reflecting the bottle this part of the bottle doesn't reflect it because by the time you got to that side of the bottle there is no scrim to reflect angle of incidence angle of reflection is coming out to here so how do you have your speed like that I think I have it at like one half for something one crap I can't read it wow what a power I don't I don't use any more than I need why didn't want like one I went power is great because it recycles really fast you sought by bang bang bang right through right doesn't use it my batteries I'm not s o eight hundred and I'm shooting at f that last shot was that f eight have faith so what the heck else do I need you know yeah so let's try a different approach to the wine bottles let's try something a little bit more dramatic so this is kind of their sitting up let's try something where we take thes two wine bottles for shooting jewellery does this section is well correct sure yes thank you e all right okay so let's take our wine bottles and go for a little bit different sexier tighter mohr graphic approach unless wine bodily approach right let's take these things off here let's lay our wine bottles down on a neat surface let's uh well pick out some tiles over there that you think I look good for a wine sorry let's see what we've got we're gonna lay him down and we'll lay our wine bottles down one helper like whatever mort the white tile never want the brown time we could have like a girl fight all you know done one of the first photos you ever cooked for me was a picture of the bottle and you were like someday keith we're gonna teach you how to take pictures of bottle you're right harry let's get four of them uh we're gonna ladies tiles out thank you very much what's up take him right on the edge is there so they don't move all right now we're putting this together we're putting this together with the grout lis look to it so they're really put right together but you can grout them if you'd like um anybody having any idea how to grout them without making a floor out of him and drowned in a tube but that's ground so you just cemented them together never to be taken apart again for use what's two faced two faced and if you want to get a gritty look to it out a little bit of that sand you aquarium white sand into the toothpaste and just grout away and you khun smooth and clear up your your tiles they look great and then when you're done you just clear off clean off the toothpaste and no one would ever know if you need brown grout at a little food coloring to toothpaste and make the brown ground so you can thank you who frosting wouldn't work in my studio because I'd be like eating it off the way that I go out and get another couple of things of frosting all right and we need that tape again because we're gonna take these guys just like this let's take that one back here so it doesn't roll this way and I also use soft cotton gloves a lot which I'm not using here today and just grabbing the bottles I'm thinking I don't wanna do that give oils and stuff in your skin you won't see him the camera well especially when we skim light back across it on and then this one over here tape it right back up under here make these things so they don't pick it up let it go okay okay maybe you know it's not a level table that's why he's trying to roll off that way way go mad about okay for this kind of shot we want it's really kind of get in close and make something graphic something fun this is more of an editorial shot something that you would see um in a magazine for selling the sizzle you know but we need a little piece of his right under here like this it won't show like a little water bit chewing government government good gum wall supply there that would be really cool having your studio gum wall surely the internet it is now asking what kind of government does don stuff that last with people coming like you know grab the gun away from you and throw you in the back of the man that stuff like everything alright so we get this kind of thing into position and we start to play with our composition I am not looking at lighting on this I'm just going to try to get a shot I'm probably gonna go back to the white angle I'm almost sure I will go back to the white angle coming in here like this just play with until I seen a white angle's gonna work better interesting interesting yeah school with wide angle I need more drama thank you you okay we look at our background looking our picture what was the first thing that comes to mind it's over exposed right it's terribly over exposed we just don't have any any uh detail on that on that uh tile that we'd liketo have so I'm going to kind of come on we go much better on dial it down again we're now at f eleven like that way go so that's kind of a composition kind of fun editorial composition that we're talking about you know maybe wine in the wine country we've got a couple of bottles of black bottles we don't know what brand is because we're not selling the brand so now we have to do something with our light obviously our light is not in the right spot because we really don't see any kind of nice light across these bottles we really want to see that we're gonna bring this thing over the top but again this is our little an expensive huh scream that we made on we'll bring it right up right up front about their we'll take this up and shine it just like this make you know make it a me here it's really yeah make sure okay let's see you talk about how many how many feet what's the distance is right now it's about two feet and I'm actually wondering if it's too close because it might give me a hot spot so I need to see that what's that to do a test here yeah this is kind of giving me a hot spot no not yet let's see it let's see the shot first well I don't know what we're gonna do with it like that cross makes it look like is that I'm getting a pole I feel it is tighter here getting a really tight poll on those two guys right there right so how do we get rid of that let's see what we can do steamer defuse it before it gets there right here brothers got it refuse it before it gets there like that now way don't have that that cross anymore but we also don't have enough brightness to make it so because this killed some light we've got to change our exposure up but that's part of the thing that's still probably too low and brett we're gonna have to get this up or either have that or have you hold it when we're doing this shot so we can actually pull the frame out that we created like this so then we can take this same we can actually hold it out over the set when we need it yeah do you do a lot of the product and still life handheld there you normally set up on tribe no I'm normally on a tripod it's helped al hunt for the shot free hand but when I'm shooting I'm normally on a tripod because once I've got the shot the rest of it I'm just going to be finessing in and around what I'm doing so let's uh well we can boost the power on this up once to figure out that break to loosen those up a little bit okay so I was one one eight before I'm gonna go to a half power put that up there john working that close how many millimeters is is your speed light set out fifty fifty yes okay yeah I'm trying to get as much coverage as possible no let's bring it he's got to be in front of you right there and we'll take our shot on there we go much prettier and look how soft double defused highlight double diffused highlights will soften on the edge because they're being young being driven over now I am looking at the shot thinking okay this not looking too bad in here but this is looking terrible it's just not interesting got to create some interest they're part of it might be to add a white card down the side of the bottle so that the bottle is not going off into black over their angle of incidence angle of reflection which means we need this white card to be back behind the bottle so it comes back to us way go right along here but see that really bothers me that little black line really bothers me I do not like that because it's like I've lived my bottle but I've gotten sloppy right at the edge of the bottle I've decided tow let it go and let it just revert back that's not good enough I got enough for me and I got enough for my clients so we need to get this thing back farther back to about there because that's what it's doing it's going off the table you clear that table or make sure that it can clear the table before it gets back there on bread it is still clearing the table at the top it's that right there yeah you could hold that that's great that's what you need is you need an assistant who's actually willing to do all these connection things here we go he was probably good with the old tenant tvs no way getting a little ahead still getting a little edge here we need to figure out what that is it's not coming from over here it could be coming from the table itself back there play this down on the table I think this is kind of ah kind of indicative member of someone earlier asked me what the angles were to do this you see that there is no rule you just can't do it that way on dh that's what it wasit was actually the table back there the black table reflecting into the top of that bottle and yeah ready and here we go way have shot right there wait look our bubbles sea air bubbles in the wine this is this's not bad in here this isn't bad but I really like to see that a little more now look at this right here what is that shadow it's a reflection because this is a very very shiny surface so what we're seeing on this surface right here see how bright it is what is that that whole tile is being reflects reflecting our screw and where this bottle is it's negating that tile that shiny tiles act that dark area is actually the bottom of that bottle where there's no light reflecting back on the tile pretty cool gives us lots of things to work with the shatter is a shadow is very faint right up in here there is a shadow but not much of one because look at the size of this light source compared to this subject what we're seeing is actually the the material itself so how do we block that off well grab this over here it's just a piece of small foam core going more hands brother we'll use waken take this since this is a reflection down here couldn't we give it something else to reflect something like alright would you like me to hold it for you I have irene come up and hold it just just like like that I arrange us there so it it's on there if that worked yeah little bit darker over here because we negated it but we also have to be careful that we don't get this board into our wine bottle so it becomes a give and take can we fix everything sometimes no way have to fix what we can good good uh we're going to swing this toe a sidelight was bringing over on this side probably makes more sense uh we're gonna side like the bottles real quick so you can see a uh a different approach to it a little more of a traditional sidelight on we'll just take this one off here on you go down that way and we'll just come back that way I'm just gonna leave it just like it is I'm just gonna come around on your side like this and I would tilt it up right there let's get right up next to the table way can I want stands that float that's what I want to just get rid of this gravity thanks so much of these problems would go away maglev huh meg loves yeah you know what I'm talking about all right here we go so we're gonna bring this in kind of kind of like this now this is where where you put your your items is so important and brother I just realized we've got those things that thing under the table we have to wheel the table out because I want these tiles to be at the back of the table why who wants to tell me why why would I want them back here because if they're up there no matter how I shoot it I'm going to shoot tiles and black table I don't want to shoot black tape I just want to shoot the wine bottle on tiles someone bring the tiles all the way to the back just watch thank you very much way want to do is watch don's camera tumbled to the ground yeah wait what about quarter bench left lip over so we're pretty sure we got it covered right there right there okay take it down and I go through lots of gaffer's tape you will to a painter's tape or even masking tape for stuff like this you don't have to use expensive gaffer's tape you just need to make sure it doesn't move did somebody say use and it comes in handy as I get those little and he said that's oh yeah yeah using the museum party that they used to all right let's bring it out brad pregnant right back and so we have that right back there and we put our wine bottles right here and our stroke is going to go back here about three feet the reason is way wanted to spread out as much as we possibly can before hits that canvas and I'm going to put it at this point I want to put the little zoom guy on hoops mode at the wrong one where is my little zoom here we go zoom thirty twenty four twenty four millimeters back about here this's okay so this is a receipt yeah I think I think waking up with the flash coast to standby no I put the fight bump the flash on too um slave whichever one these things is one thing I do um maybe maybe I knocked it off the trigger till question maybe while you're sure absolutely yeah when it gets quiet asking questions okay great so a question from pauline f wass uh should the horizon line being the image at a certain percentage of approach minister an angle when should the image not have a background horizon simple answer to that is when you don't want it simple answer your horizon is going to be a big part of your shot we're gonna pull out this afternoon after break we're going to pull out a perspective control lens and show you why tilt shift lens is so important for doing this kind of work because with perspective control ends we can actually eliminate the horizon just get rid of it altogether so for this one we're going to go with a little bit of a foreground here uh and of course we need much more power one one half power so I'm just gonna bump my eyes so up here and down down five six way too bright and huge problems in the shot huge problems on the shot who sees problems what is that the tile reflecting back in how do we get rid of the tile reflecting back in drunk close we have to get lower than the bottle's reflection of the tile we need to come down so low on the picture like this we're okay brett hundred millimeter lens way have to come down so low in the picture that the angle of incidence angle of reflection removes the town a little bit at the bottom we're not going to get rid of it all it's not gonna always go away because these bottles can you see what they do with the bottom they do this they turned down so it's always going to reflect what's around it he wouldn't even know we'd have well no no because at some point these bottles are always going to reflect what's that their base because there they're curved down to pick that up all right and one hundred millimeter lays questions by the way we got some questions I bet we do oh yes we do uh cannon geek is wondering how would you go about lighting the product from the bottom up how I would what how would you go about lighting the product from the bottom of um I don't like that look it became really popular on a forum a couple of years ago this is how you like beer cut a hole in a florida of the thing and put a thing through the bottom no that's not how you like beer it looks like it's being lit from the bottom it's brighter too darker but how you would do it you'd have to create literally create a hole in the tile and put a light up from bottom that's that's there's there's no easy way to do that that's just what you do so you know you can get these door now you get uh you had to put door handles and doors had to cut that round hole so you can actually go down to home depot and get a saw that fits on a drill that's a perfectly round saw and you khun drill holes and they're pretty much the same size is wine bottles of beer bottles and stuff put that down into your plexiglass your your surface and then put a scrim light up through the bottom if you like that kind of look that's how you do it no it's not magic it's just a drill yep we are when I get this right here and brett can we put a white card vertical over here just hold it there we'll get this shot and we'll move to the jewellery and put that card halfway so it's half of it's behind the no no no don't open it to soothe turn around the other side okay yeah it's the only thing I don't like about their tags no right on the side and come in a bit tighter right there and then back out when I tell you okay you're good you're good right there way got the wine bottle shot so now we're gonna have missile highlight up one side nice smooth highlight down the other side and notice that we moved it back behind the bottle because we move it back behind the bottle at some point this becomes a real speculator right and gives us a little bit bright edge to see that bright edge that is where this thing is lighting up thiss and the the essence the brightness of it is coming back right on that edge it's one of the reasons why you shooting people if you want to do hair light with people you can actually if it's five point six to the front you can actually hit five point six fromthe back you still have hair light it's still brighter from the back than it is from the front because at some point it's going to hit your shoulder and about straight into the camera so you're always gonna have a rim light back there even if it's a stop less in your front light and the same thing with here that's just a card and yet look how bright that linus