
Re-worked
Cropped it differently and tried to even the background light a little bit. The original is a few pictures down.
View On Black
Setup shot
Strobist:
- Two SB-800's pointing up at white background, each at 1/32 power.
- Clear plexi-glass placed atop white foamcore on table.
- Two pieces of black foamcore hanging on each side of the subject for edge definition.
- 105mm lens @ f/11 and 1/250, triggered with SU-800 in hot shoe.
- Remote cord attached to camera.
I dropped a piece of ice in the glass from a distance of about 6 inches above the glass and held the shutter down. The camera was in high-speed continuous shooting mode so I was able to select the best version of the splash. In the glass is some sort of berry juice I bought at the supermarket that tastes too sweet.
The problem with bright field lighting is that it only really works with empty glasses, or glasses with water. As soon as you start adding anything with color or of substance, the setup used for giving the glasses edge definition fails in lighting the remaining subject. This shot works to an extent because the juice is splashing out of the cup, so it is allowing light from the background to seep in. This is normally a pink-ish color, but it ended up looking blood red due to underexposure from the problem I just described.
Note to self: next time use one light. Having two can cause uneven lighting of the background which can be seen in the original.
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Uploaded on Jun 30, 2009
13 comments

Dark Field Lighting Experiment
I'm not sure I'm happy with the reflections in the glasses. Refining the Dark Field technique seems a little more difficult than the Bright Field setup because if you're not careful about your background placement, (and size of the black background), things can go haywire. You run the risk of incorporating other reflections from the room. I think, with practice, I could eliminate this completely, but getting there requires work.
Here is the setup:
- One SB-800 hitting a white backdrop at 1/8 power.
- 3 feet away from the white backdrop was a black piece of foamcore.
- 2 feet in front of this was a table with black foamcore and clear plexi-glass.
- 4 to 5 feet away from the glasses was the camera and lens.
Fairly simple setup!
> View On Black
> View the setup shot here
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Uploaded on Jun 28, 2009
6 comments

Dark Field Lighting Setup
- One SB-800 hitting a white backdrop at 1/8 power.
- 3 feet away from the white backdrop was a black piece of foamcore.
- 2 feet in front of this was a table with black foamcore and clear plexi-glass.
- 4 to 5 feet away from the glasses was the camera and lens.
Fairly simple setup!
See the result of this setup here.
View Large | Original
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Uploaded on Jun 28, 2009
3 comments

Bright Field Lighting with Liquid
View On Black
Setup shot
Strobist:
- Two SB-800's pointing up at white background, each at 1/32 power.
- Clear plexi-glass placed atop white foamcore on table.
- Two pieces of black foamcore hanging on each side of the subject for edge definition.
- 105mm lens @ f/11 and 1/250, triggered with SU-800 in hot shoe.
- Remote cord attached to camera.
I dropped a piece of ice in the glass from a distance of about 6 inches above the glass and held the shutter down. The camera was in high-speed continuous shooting mode so I was able to select the best version of the splash. In the glass is some sort of berry juice I bought at the supermarket that tastes too sweet.
The problem with bright field lighting is that it only really works with empty glasses, or glasses with water. As soon as you start adding anything with color or of substance, the setup used for giving the glasses edge definition fails in lighting the remaining subject. This shot works to an extent because the juice is splashing out of the cup, so it is allowing light from the background to seep in. This is normally a pink-ish color, but it ended up looking blood red due to underexposure from the problem I just described.
Note to self: next time use one light. Having two can cause uneven lighting of the background which can be seen here.
All rights reserved
Uploaded on Jun 28, 2009
11 comments

Setup
The shot:
- Two SB-800's pointing up at white background, each at 1/32 power.
- Clear plexi-glass placed atop white foamcore on table.
- Two pieces of black foamcore hanging on each side of the subject for edge definition.
- 105mm lens @ f/11 and 1/250, triggered with SU-800 in hot shoe.
>> Resulting image here.
View this Large | Original Size
All rights reserved
Uploaded on Jun 28, 2009
3 comments