Getting started with lighting.

[john isaacs]

I've been playing with photography for a good part of my life - mostly Nikon, shooting mostly wildlife and stuff that didn't require a flash.

My attempts at flash photography have been haphazard at best. I've always had a high end Nikon flash to accompany whatever body I had. Currently I have an SB-900 sitting in one of my camera bags.

I usually carry a Leica Q3 (without flash) with me, and I'll snap whatever seems appealing. I captured some images a few months ago at a local vineyard, posted them to Instagram - and now the owner would like me to shoot some of his product for a wholesale account he's trying to land.

I would LOVE to help out - I'm just not sure where to get started. The owner told me he's tried his own hand at doing product photography and he's getting shadows - I know enough to know I'd have the same problem with my Z8 and the SB-900.

Do I have any recourse other than telling him to find someone more experienced ? If I could learn, I may not be of help for his current offer, but could help in the future.

I suggest you check out some of the YouTube videos on how to shoot wine bottles. Determine from the owner what characteristics he wants in the picture pertaining to shadows and highlights/reflections/background. And then go out and buy the gear you need to get the photo you want.

I've done some product and a lot of food photography. And I have strobes and speed lights that are radio controlled, and soft boxes and strip boxes and reflectors and diffusion sheets and so on. I don't need all of it for any given shot, but I have what is needed for many different styles.

The key here is, how sophisticated does the owner need the photos to be? Once you find out, you can do the research and determine what you need and how to use it.

 

[MikeInOr]

Ask the customer to send you some links to photos of bottles of wine online that he would like his photos to resemble. Once you have an idea of what he wants you can try to reproduce it with his labels.

I have a feeling the customer doesn't know what he wants... "but will know it when he sees it". I.e. Impossible to please.

 

[Mike Lemuck]

Tried this at camera club and found wine way too dense. It works far better with colored water.

 

[James Pezzella]

Another recommendation in this thread suggested using a light tent. I searched on Amazon and found what appeared to be inexpensive and capable options. The light tents I saw appeared to be large enough to hold a good number of wine bottles (36” wide), and had replaceable backdrops and built in lighting. I reached out to the owner who mentioned that he found something similar in his basement. I haven’t heard anything since (there goes my chance to combine two of my favorite things - photography and wine ).

I’ll have to stop by the winery, do some tastings, and talk with the owner…

Thanks for your advice!

 

[James Pezzella]

The owner found a light tent in his basement (someone else in this thread suggested the same). When I suggested using a light tent (and sent a few options I found on Amazon, the owner eventually replied that he found one in his basement. I’ll have to stop by for a tasting (or two or three), and find out how his attempt at photography worked out….

 

[kli]

Product shooting of reflective things can get pretty deep and intense. Reflections are all about the angles of the light, the surface, and your lens. Think of it a lot like bank shots in pool: angle of incidence=angle of reflection. If you want to not have those reflections in the shot, you have to angle the light away from your lens.

But if you want to see how someone in a home studio space does it with speedlights, I'd recommend finding Dustin Dolby's workphlo youtube channel, particularly the ones on beverages in bottles:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0-akbOIiaA

He shows not only the shooting setup, and adjustments to lighting, but also his post-production process.

His gear isn't particularly exotic, and he often only uses one flash in a stripbox with reflectors but his secret weapon is a small plate (which natchhe sells on his website; but you could easily DIY a solution for yourself), so the bottle isn't on a big table, but can be surrounded both above and below by lighting from all sides. This gives you a lot more options than a light tent which tends not to offer a lot of working space, or a regular table which can block a lot of lighting options. Most of this is illustrated in the first video on that list.

He's using, iirc, YN-560IV speedlights. But if you're purchasing today , a better option would be the $65 Godox TT600 or, if you're feeling spendy, the $130 TT685 II-N / $230 V860 III-N / $260 V1-N if you feel you also want a TTL/HSS capable speedlight to use on-camera for event/family shooting as well with on-camera bounce flash (again, think like bank shots in pool; or think "where would I put the softbox if it had to be along a wall or ceiling?" and then point the head of the flash thataway.

But what the Godox speedlights buy you over your SB-900 is built-in radio remote control in Godox's X system (which includes not only 9 models of speedlight but also manual studio monolights and battery-powered TTL/HSS location strobes and the lights can work cross-brand in TTL/HSS as off-camera lights). But you can also attach a $40 Godox X1R-N receiver to the SB-900's foot and remotely fire/control it from a Godox X system transmitter (e.g., X3-N) on your camera's hotshoe.