Mandarin oranges

[Chataignier]

An indoor project because it's raining. Taken with my much loved Canon 50mm f1.8 on the Fuji X-T3.

[Manfred M]

I do like this shot, David.

The mandarin oranges with their leaves still attached make for a wonderful subject. The bright reflections on them work well and give them depth. The use of the glasses is good as it adds a nice dimensional layer to the overall piece.

I would have to guess that you are using a a combination of natural and artificial light here. The textures on the backdrop need to be a bit more subtle. The reflections on the glassware is a bit distracting.

When I shoot glassware, my images are often composites as I will light the glassware separately (and individually if there is more than one glass) to control the reflections. I will assemble the final image in Photoshop. This is one reason I use a tripod with a geared head to ensure nothing moves between individual shots. This is a trick I learned from a professional food photographer.

[Chataignier]

Interesting Manfred. The lighting was a single spot (continuous) with a 60 x 80cm softbox on the left, slightly behind the subject to avoid lighting the backdrop and at around 30° angle above the subject. Shadows softened with a silver reflector on the right. No significant natural light, shot in a darkened room. The rectangular highlight is of course from the softbox.

I had not thought about lighting the glassware separately. As I was using a tripod (exposure around 250mS) this would have been possible. I'll give it a try next time. However, where would you place the light to avoid the reflections ? The small glass is curved in both planes so there is bound to be at least one place where the angle of reflection includes the lens even if the light is right above the glass n'est ce pas ?

I suppose I could use a VERY large diffused source such as a bed sheet lit from one or more softboxes... Getting complicated though.

[Manfred M]

What is confusing me are the reflections in the back glass. There seems to be a tree with branches there. The front glass shows the reflectors.

I can tell you how I would start, but until I did some testing, I'm not sure how I would fine tune the image. I would probably start with a lighting setup that looks like this and would photograph just the glassware by itself. Depending how well that worked, I would then add the oranges and light them this way and would also try some front lighting like you have.

[Chataignier]

Yes, that's what I thought might work, large diffusers indirectly lit by soft boxes so that there are no recognisable sources to reflect. I'll give that a try next week. Thanks for the tips.

As for the strange reflections in the back glass, I think at least one is light from the reflector already modified by passing through the front glass.