My favorite photo of this decanter

[Mike Buckley]

This is definitely my favorite photo of this decanter. I'm now happy to return it to my friends so they can actually continue using it for enjoying wine. (What a novel idea -- using a decanter for wine instead of photography! )

Setup
A medium continuous-light lamp is placed behind the subject, shining through a large circular diffuser and around a background of black foam core. The tabletop is transparent glass. A small continuous-light lamp placed underneath the tabletop and partially blocked by a flag shines through diffusion material. That combination from below provides the bright red tones of the wine. A strip soft box with a speed light set to 1/16 power is against a panel of diffusion material at a 45-degree angle. That combination creates the gradient reflection on the right side of the decanter. A flag with a rectangular opening in the center is placed in front of the camera lens to eliminate flare.

[Shadowman]

Nice lines.

[TonyW]

This is my favourite of your decanter pictures too. Not that the others are bad, of course.

I have been reading in The Book about lighting set-ups like this. Is the fact that the top edge of the wine shows only at the back due to the flag above the bottom light?

It would be interesting to know why the thickness of the glass on the sides shows only above the level of the wine. My hypothesis, which could easily be wrong, is that the wine stops the internal reflections from the inside of the glass.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to John and Tony!

The Book

Ahhhhhhh. The book!

Is the fact that the top edge of the wine shows only at the back due to the flag above the bottom light?

I actually don't know. It's difficult for me to accurately describe the position of everything, but the flag is above that lamp and is suspended parallel to the floor. The reason for the flag is to prevent awful reflections of the light source from appearing in the upper portion of the decanter. The light from that lamp was lighting the bottom area of the scene too brightly, so I placed the diffusion material on top of the flag extending over the lamp farther than the flag with the idea that it would knock down the brightness of the light in that bottom area by at least one stop. That happened. Surprisingly, the angle (I'm awful at determining angles!) of the brightly lit diffusion material also brightly lit the edges of the wine.

Ironically, I had planned to brightly light the wine in a second capture that I would have then merged with the first capture. When I came upon this method of brightly lighting the wine completely by accident, I was able to make the photo using just one capture.

It would be interesting to know why the thickness of the glass on the sides shows only above the level of the wine. My hypothesis, which could easily be wrong, is that the wine stops the internal reflections from the inside of the glass.

Your guess is better than mine. Notice that the gradient that I added also stops a little above the level of the wine. I have no idea why. That's especially puzzling because I did a lot of trial-and-error experimentation when I first began using the gradient in photos. So, it's only in a certain situation that I would expect the gradient to be displayed all the way to the bottom of the decanter. Despite that I used that situation in this scene, the gradient is displayed only on part of the decanter.

I don't care about unexpected outcomes so long as I like them and fortunately I like this one that you mention. Even so, it would be ideal if I could plan with great certainty how everything is going to appear. I'm nowhere near close to that yet.

[Stagecoach]

This is definitely my favorite photo of this decanter.

Pretty easy to see why Mike, impressive.

[purplehaze]

This is gorgeous, Mike. Thank you for your description of your set-up, but I confess I wish it were accompanied by a picture. I am full of questions, like how large is that piece of foam core relative to your subject, that the light is able to wrap around it?

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Janis and Grahame!

Thank you for your description of your set-up, but I confess I wish it were accompanied by a picture.

Understandable! However, my makeshift studio is so small that it's not practical to photograph the setup. Add to that photographic issue that almost everything in the photo would be black except the white circular diffuser and you understand that photographing the setup would be difficult. Everything is black by design because using a black environment is the easiest way to prevent unwanted reflections in the glass.

how large is that piece of foam core relative to your subject, that the light is able to wrap around it?

The size of the background piece relative to the size of the subject is unimportant in this setup so long as the background is larger than the subject or at least larger than the part of the subject that I want to be included in the image. Instead, the important issue is that the size of the background exactly fills the frame, no more and no less, regardless of the size of the subject. In fact, the background and camera are positioned first. The subject is then positioned farther away from or closer to the camera because of how much I want it to fill the frame, how much of it I want to be in focus if not all of it can be kept sharp, what I want the appearance of the bright lines to be, and the like.

So, given the limited size of my makeshift studio, I almost always use the same size background piece, which is 14" x 21", the same aspect ratio as my camera sensor. All of my subjects are smaller. Otherwise, I would need to devise a larger background piece.

It is purely dumb luck that I devised that size when I set up my studio. That size is ideal for use with the size of the subjects I typically photograph, allowing me to keep most subjects entirely in focus using a 35mm lens on a 1.5 crop camera while filling the frame with the background.

My circular diffuser is 40" in diameter. However, instead of using that I can instead bounce the light off a white wall (the only wall that isn't black in my makeshift studio). So, if I ever need a larger background piece for whatever reason, I can always bounce the light off the wall if the circular diffuser is too small.

Confusing, I'm sure. I'm not as good at explaining this stuff as I would like to be.

[John 2]

That's quality Mike. Very nice indeed.

[deetheturk]

Wonderful capture Mike!

[Rebel]

That is a very nice shot!

[Rita]

Beautiful and very impressive.

[Brownbear]

Absolutely beautiful, and one of my favourites, too. (for the especially beautiful lines/highlights) But the lighter version of this decanter (pouring wine with the spray) is my personal favourite of this set, at this particular moment.

[Texas Dave]

My favorite as well.

[terrib]

This is really nice. I love the bit of red and the gradient reflection on the right.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks for the kudos, everyone!

[Bobobird]

I meant to read that book that got you started but the outdoors has always prevailed. Since lots of wine has flowed and lots of glass broken, maybe not reading it was the right thing to do. I would never have the patience to work the models as you have.

Excellent (nay, perfect) job here.

[Mike Buckley]

I would never have the patience to work the models as you have.

I would never have the patience to wait for the right bird flying the right direction in the right speed in the right light, all the while braving unbelievably uncomfortable temperatures and wind that you endure as you do. That's not to mention the travel time to and from the places you have to go to.

It's abundantly clear that I won that argument.

[purplehaze]

Confusing, I'm sure. I'm not as good at explaining this stuff as I would like to be.

Au contraire, Mike, your explanation is quite clear. I should have in fact asked "how small was your background", as, unless I have totally misunderstood, the light behind it was wrapping around it and helping to light your subject. So your background was doing double duty as a flag? Having re-read your post, I think that is the case, and obvious as the idea should have been to me, it wasn't until you explained your set-up. I will have to try that when the occasion presents itself.

[Mike Buckley]

Janis,

You are correct that the background is acting both as a flag and a background.

If you have the fourth edition of Light: Science and Magic, that is thoroughly explained including diagrams beginning on page 165. The explanation includes the setup involving the background, lighting the subject with a light source larger than the background, the order of setting everything up, the effects of moving the subject closer to or farther from the camera, the flare and how to eliminate it, and the physics of light that make everything happen.

Speaking of the background, I chose black foam core instead of high-quality felt. That's because I wanted to light the background and the foam core reflects more light than the felt. If you look closely, you'll see a very slight gradient in the bottom of the image where the background is just a bit lighter than in the rest of the image. (You may need a profiled and calibrated monitor and you may need to use Firefox to see it.) That's because I lit the background ever so slightly. I wouldn't have been able to produce that effect using felt (I've tried unsuccessfully).

Another interesting twist about the background is that I could have used a bright white background instead of black and it still would have produced a black background. That's because any subject that has no light being reflected off it appears black regardless of its color when light is being reflected off it; a white card in a cave with no light appears black.

[Kaye Leggett]

Another beautiful photo. Your set up information hides well the amount of time you must have spent on this and doesn't mention how you chose the wine or its volume in the decanter !!!