Excellent bottle photography tutorial

[rpcrowe]

I really liked this well-done video tutorial on shooting a bottle of Scotch whiskey. The gobo on the focusing spotlight lighting the label, the use of small reflectors behind the glass and bottle (to illuminate the liquid), the use of tracing paper and the flagging of one of the lights so that it doesn't spill over on the background were 4-things that I took away from this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIm-SZHKOW4

I wonder if a photographer (if a strip light softbox was not available) could flag a softbox at each side to mimic the results of a strip light?

[Rob Ekins]

Excellent!

Thanks for sharing.

[Loose Canon]

I watched this video a while back before I shot my Single Barrel bottle Richard and was impressed as well. In fact checked out another tutorial on an actual Single Barrel shoot. I'm starting to really dig this stuff! It gets incredibly complex!

Good question regarding the flagging of a soft box. I have wondered myself. I have a couple of strip boxes but have wondered if I could flag them to make them slimmer if need be. I haven't tried it yet but probably will at some point and that would be the only way I know of to find out. I'd say you could get away with it especially if you fire them behind some diffusion panels.

One thing I wondered about with Mr. Taylor's final shot was the somewhat large shadow on the product label produced by the glass. I guess it depends on personal taste or Client preference but one thing for sure is that the product is King and nothing should get in the way of that! If I were an art director for the scotch maker I might have to call this into question.

I'd love to have some optical modifiers but so far have not been brave enough to even source them, much less price them!

[rpcrowe]

A frosted shower sheet can make a large diffusing panel. Color might be a tad askew but, that could be remedied - even if you needed to place some shower sheeting in front of your other lights.; then adjust the overall balance for the shot...

One thing that I have noticed is that the distance between the diffuser and subject AND the distance between the light source and the diffuser are two independent variables, as far as softness of the light is concerned. It appears that the further away the light source is from the diffuser, the softer the light will be. That is only logical since a light further away will cast a larger size light on the diffusing material.

I have to do some tests of this.

[Loose Canon]

And somewhat conversely Richard you can also control the light/reflection by angling the light source to the diffusion material. That’s how I have been able to control the size of a strip reflection so far and not had to flag it to make it a thinner light source.

If you accidentally have a strip box laying around you can put one edge against the diffusion material, angle the box away from the diffusion panel, and get a hard reflection on that bottle on one edge of the reflection that gradually gradates away from that hard edge.

Turn the box around and point it the other way and you will get a thinner light source as more of the light misses the subject. But you also get into controlling spill (flagging) when you start angling lights away from and toward the subject.