Wine photographed in a rare style -- PROBLEM SOLVED!

[Chri5]

Its a lovely image. I cant stand the taste of wine but this Image makes the glass look appealing.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Chris!

Folks,

I conducted a test shown below and wonder if your thoughts are the same as mine. Please let me know whether:

• One photo looks like wine. If so, which one?
• Both photos look like wine.
• Neither photo looks like wine.

White Background




Black Background

[Chri5]

The white background shot looks like wine to me. The black background makes it look like a yellow blob. Maybe its the black background that is the villain here. Well done for trying.

[Brownbear]

They both look like wine to me, the same, except with the black background the wine appears more golden in colour.

[bnnrcn]

The one with the white BG looks like wine.

[KimC]

To my eye, I would have to say neither would be recognizable as wine. They both have a thickness to them rather than the lightness and transparency of white wine.

[Stagecoach]

Right, just to confuse things Mike my truthful answer is I have not got a clue because I have never looked at white wine in a glass with the intention of forming an impression of how it appears.

So I googled 'White wine in a glass' and looked at many images, I would say 90% of the wine in most of the images 'looks' the same and very similar to your two above. So my thoughts now are is the look determined by the type of lighting that 'has' (loose word) to be used for this type of capture.

What I did notice is that one picture that really stuck out as being different was one that was lit by candlelight giving the wine a very clear appearance.

[JBW]

Mike, for reasons probably not even understood by a highly trained psychiatrist this shot makes me think of Alka Seltzer rather than wine! Then again I seem to have a summer cold so...

[JBW]

Thanks, Chris!

Folks,

I conducted a test shown below and wonder if your thoughts are the same as mine. Please let me know whether:

• One photo looks like wine. If so, which one?
• Both photos look like wine.
• Neither photo looks like wine.

White Background




Black Background

neither

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Mike,

Leaving aside the look of the wine for a moment ...

To me, the issue of the top of the wine shape vs the top of the rim is just a matter of perspective and this is defined by the height of the centre of the lens with respect to the surface of the wine and the top of the rim.

For people at home - try opening the first two threads in separate browser tabs, now click on each so the image comes up in the Lytebox (for each one), now switch between the two tabs alternately; you will note that in the first thread, the lens axis was level with (or slightly below), the surface of the wine, whereas in the second thread, the lens axis is level with the rim of the glass (as near as matters).

Mike, have you tried a vertical position of the lens that allows us to see an ellipse of both the top of the wine and the rim?
I believe it should be possible if the camera and lens is between the two 'extremes' shown so far.

I suggest this because I prefer the reflections in the glass base in the first thread, we lose too much in the second, so hoping half way between might improve things.

That said, when we are viewing a glass of wine on our dinner table, many things are different to what we have here, perspective is radically different, we'd be well above the level of the rim and likely viewing two overlapping ellipses (wine surface and rim), plus the lighting and background would not be like this.

This brings me to the experiment above; my brain is happier to see 'wine' against the white background, although I'm sure this could be changed depending whether we'd viewed the wine in a glass immediately previously and which background that was against. If you just flick between the two images above, after a few times, all you will see is yellow blobs because the brain soon loses the context.

Perhaps fundamental to shooting the glass against a dark background and having a 'bright line' defined glass is that - as you acknowledged in the first thread, this doesn't work for the wine. Hence the need for a composite where, effectively (if I have understood correctly), the wine itself is shot against (aka in front of) a white background. I suggest that's why it seems unnatural to us.

Talking of unnatural, when I tried this type of photography decades ago (with film), I experimented with the subject on a glass sheet, over which was a large piece of black card with a small hole cut to allow a light below the subject to shine up through it. I wonder what this might look like with a wine glass - but am too lazy to try (plus you're doing a great job and enjoying it)


On the adding noise aspect in the second thread; I felt that was too coarse and rather a uniform grey, it didn't work for me, what's in the first image in this (third) thread is better - that's if you added any noise here at all (you didn't specifically say).


My aesthetic feeling on this third shot is that some of the bubbles are too big and I'd have attempted to pop the biggest one (nearest the camera) with a pin to remove it.

So there's a few more things to mull over

Cheers, Dave

[Mike Buckley]

Six people participated in my test of the pair of isolated images of wine against a white or black background. (Thank you to those six!) Four of the six volunteered that something looks different about the wine in the two images. The other two people didn't comment about that. (I conducted the test poorly; when asking if neither or both images look like wine to us, I should have asked if the part of the images intended to be wine appear to be different.) I'll now add that I agree with the four people who believe something looks different about the wine in the two images.

The truth is that there is absolutely nothing different about the wine in the two images. Those two images of wine are extracted from the photo made a year ago shown below and then placed on a uniformly white or uniformly black background. This proves anecdotally for me that there is an optical illusion happening; choosing the type of background makes the image of the wine look different even though it is the same image.

For the record, I also agree with Chris, Binnur and Dave that the image displayed on the white background looks more like wine than the image on the black background.

[Mike Buckley]

Dave,

Thanks for taking so much time with the three images and for making such detailed comments.

Mike, have you tried a vertical position of the lens that allows us to see an ellipse of both the top of the wine and the rim?

Yes, I've done that several times in the past though not with this particular set of images. Keep in mind that the emphasis on these images is to make an appealing photo of white wine on a very dark if not uniformly black background. That's in the context that such a display is very, very rare when browsing photos of white wine. So, when some people felt in the first image that the wine would look more like wine if the ellipse in the top surface of the wine was displayed, I made that change and agree with them.

However, my take in most situations (displaying white wine against a dark background is a rare rather than a typical situation) is that it doesn't matter whether the ellipse is displayed only in the rim of the glass, only in the top surface of the wine, or in both. I have made photos using all three perspectives. The only thing that matters about that to me is that when making a photo of white wine against a black background, the image looks better to me if the ellipse is displayed in the top surface of the wine whether or not it is displayed in the rim of the glass.

I experimented with the subject on a glass sheet, over which was a large piece of black card with a small hole cut to allow a light below the subject to shine up through it. I wonder what this might look like with a wine glass - but am too lazy to try (plus you're doing a great job and enjoying it)

I lit red wine from below to make this photo though using a technique that is different from the one you described. I've also lit quartz crystal and clear glass from below using the technique you explained. I haven't tried anything from below using white wine and I'll do that. You're right that I'm enjoying doing this stuff and learning from my experiments.

On the adding noise aspect in the second thread...what's in the first image in this (third) thread is better - that's if you added any noise here at all (you didn't specifically say).

I did add noise in the first image of this third thread but you would have had to have read one of the many posts in the middle of the thread to definitively know that.

Thanks again for everything in your long post!

[Mike Buckley]

What I did notice is that one picture that really stuck out as being different was one that was lit by candlelight giving the wine a very clear appearance.

Thanks, Grahame! I'll try that and get back to you.

[Wavelength]

Great

[Brownbear]

Would it be possible to see the image of the wine (latest post) with a black background, so we could see them side by side? Only if that is something worthy of your time.

I zoomed in on the shots, and could see no difference likely because zooming in eliminates the background.

[Mike Buckley]

Would it be possible to see the image of the wine (latest post) with a black background, so we could see them side by side?

I'll do it using a rough presentation that doesn't require taking much time but I don't think seeing the resulting image will accomplish anything. It's easier to simply show you the image instead of trying to explain why that's so.

I zoomed in on the shots, and could see no difference likely because zooming in eliminates the background.

Exactly. It's the existence of the background that changes our perception of the area displaying the wine. If you eliminate the background, that area of both images will look the same (because they are the same).

[Brownbear]

Thanks Mike!

Please ignore the request to see the shots side by side... I was just curious and wondering what else this might apply to with natural light.

[Mike Buckley]

I think this is what you requested, Christina, though done perhaps more roughly than you had hoped.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike.

The wine looks the same to me, except for being a richer gold with the black background. Of course this could be just because I'm set on seeing this now. Anyhow, the wine with the black background looks real to me. I suppose this means that I'm going to have to indulge in a glass of white wine in the dark to check it out in real life.

[Dave Humphries]

I suppose this means that I'm going to have to indulge in a glass of white wine in the dark to check it out in real life.

Don't forget to snap before you sip