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Rohan Cooke

member since: 6/24/2004

Still Product Photography

How would shoot cold bottle drinks, and what camera setting would you recommend?

6/26/2006 8:46:54 AM

Jagadeesh Dev
BetterPhoto Member

member since: 11/30/2005

This is totally up to you, Rohan. I suggest you try many, many different lighting situations and camera settings. Trial and error, I think, would be best in this situation, as there is no prescribed pre-setting (that I know of) to shoot those products. I will say, though, that I would use very intense lighting as to make the most out of the beads of sweat on the bottle.

Editor's Note: By the way, BetterPhoto now has an Introduction to Product Photography online course.

6/26/2006 9:04:26 AM

Oliver Anderson
BetterPhoto Member

member since: 11/16/2004

Make sure you try different settings because I was playing around with my Canon and just noticed they have a setting on there for photographing TVs evidently. I guess a lot of people like photographing TV or they wouldn't have built this setting into the camera...Man those Canon people think of EVERTHING.

6/26/2006 9:14:54 AM

Roy Blinston
BetterPhoto Member

member since: 1/4/2005

Cold bottle shots as with many "product shots" are best done with surround lighting (including underneath). Therefore, a light table would be very useful. Alternatively shoot on a glass table covered with a thin cotton drape/tablecloth or similar. Small aperture to catch the glints on bubbles etc (f8 or f11). Some say a torch or thin beam extra light source gives added sparkle, though I personally haven't tried it yet.

6/27/2006 10:08:19 AM

David King

member since: 9/12/2004

Rohan, this can be a fun subject. Here is a quick example I recently shot for a demo to a lighting class of the type of subject you mention. It has the bottle laying on a light table. Under the bottle is blue construction paper with cutouts for the bottle and shapes to allow light to shine through the ice cubes that are spread around the bottle. A large soft box overhead and to frame left provides general light and then about four other smaller lights are brought in to provide the specific specular highlights. Finally, a series of small silver reflectors are positioned to provide light on the gold parts of the label. The "sweat" on the bottle is glycerin. It took about two hours to rig the shot but that included time to talk through each step and show how the concept was built a light at a time. The camera (an older Fuji S2 Digital) was on a studio stand with the arm swung out over the set. Focal distance was about 12 inches with the Nikkor lens zoomed to 59mm. It was lit with a total of about 2400 W/S of strobe power so the lens could be stopped down for depth of field to f38. The composition was designed to leave room for type to be set as for a sample advertisement.

Hopefully this will provide some ideas as to ways you can go with the subject.

David

6/27/2006 10:45:49 PM

Michelle M. Peters
BetterPhoto Member

michellepetersphotography.com

member since: 3/29/2006

Oliver----I hope you were just kidding about the 'TV' setting! We all know that is the 'time value' setting and it controls the shutter speed. Perhaps you haven't had your Canon very long??? Good luck!

6/28/2006 4:56:14 AM

Oliver Anderson
BetterPhoto Member

member since: 11/16/2004

No, Michelle but I'm ready to upgrade to the 1Ds MarkIII when it comes out because I heard it gets direct TV and may even have a Microwave setting...let's see Nikon beat that.

6/28/2006 8:47:53 AM

Jagadeesh Dev
BetterPhoto Member

member since: 11/30/2005

See, just another reason why Nikon is better - Canon has to add all those frills to sell the things....

6/28/2006 8:51:49 AM

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BetterPhoto Q&A Category: New Questions

BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Questions