Garry Edwards
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So, this is our first challenge. It's a very simple example of brightfield lighting, where the subject is lit by the background.
It’s as simple as it gets, because everyone here can do their own version, with this very simple subject and very simple lighting – although of course you can do it differently, and better! We'll see how it goes and may find ourselves with more difficult challenges later.
Let’s start off with the final image. Real-world, we would all do some computer work, matching the background colours, and density, getting rid of the join line, doing some retouching to clean things up, and using the distort tool to square up the distortion caused by looking down on the subject – but we’re not carrying out computer work on these challenges, because doing so can hide the faults that we want to show.
If this was a product shot then of course the glass cup would have been new, perfect and thoroughly cleaned, but this cup, which serves one of my three personal addictions, is far from new. The printing probably sums me up, but I’m told that it has something to do with Harry Potter and isn’t about me
My sole light source was my computer monitor, it was too high off the computer desk so a couple of other coffee mugs and a bit of white plastic were needed to raise it up, as you can see in this setup shot
A bit of card would have done just as well, the choice depends on whether or not we want a semi-reflection.
I shot this at f/16, to get acceptable dof, at 1600 ISO, maybe not perfect for my camera, which as you can see isn’t quite Nikons’ latest offering, but as you can see, it’s OK. The shutter speed was 1/20th second, which was OK as the camera was mounted on myscaffolding set tripod. If my camera can shoot with this low level of light then so can yours . . .
So, I started off with an empty cup, a good starting point because if the shot wasn't going to work then any problems should be solved before adding the contents.
And then added the coffee
And then added the milk. This type of shot always needs far more milk than usual, because the finished result always photographs very dark
This is actually supposed to be cappuccino, but getting it to look right is beyond my capabilities and I certainly can’t make a pretty design from the froth.
I thought it would be nice to show some steam, but real steam is pretty much impossible with coffee from a machine, short of then boiling it in the microwave, so I took the usual lazy way out, catered for one of my other addictions and blew some smoke into the shot. This really needed a drinking straw and another person, but I had neither
So, over to you!
Please photograph a similar subject, using whatever approach and whatever lighting you wish, and explain and illustrate your choices. This is designed to be a useful lighting experience and not a critique thread. I don’t care if people want to make critical comments about my own post, but please don’t be critical of other members, just show us what you can do, with SOOC images.
It’s as simple as it gets, because everyone here can do their own version, with this very simple subject and very simple lighting – although of course you can do it differently, and better! We'll see how it goes and may find ourselves with more difficult challenges later.
Let’s start off with the final image. Real-world, we would all do some computer work, matching the background colours, and density, getting rid of the join line, doing some retouching to clean things up, and using the distort tool to square up the distortion caused by looking down on the subject – but we’re not carrying out computer work on these challenges, because doing so can hide the faults that we want to show.
If this was a product shot then of course the glass cup would have been new, perfect and thoroughly cleaned, but this cup, which serves one of my three personal addictions, is far from new. The printing probably sums me up, but I’m told that it has something to do with Harry Potter and isn’t about me
My sole light source was my computer monitor, it was too high off the computer desk so a couple of other coffee mugs and a bit of white plastic were needed to raise it up, as you can see in this setup shot
A bit of card would have done just as well, the choice depends on whether or not we want a semi-reflection.
I shot this at f/16, to get acceptable dof, at 1600 ISO, maybe not perfect for my camera, which as you can see isn’t quite Nikons’ latest offering, but as you can see, it’s OK. The shutter speed was 1/20th second, which was OK as the camera was mounted on my
So, I started off with an empty cup, a good starting point because if the shot wasn't going to work then any problems should be solved before adding the contents.
And then added the coffee
And then added the milk. This type of shot always needs far more milk than usual, because the finished result always photographs very dark
This is actually supposed to be cappuccino, but getting it to look right is beyond my capabilities and I certainly can’t make a pretty design from the froth.
I thought it would be nice to show some steam, but real steam is pretty much impossible with coffee from a machine, short of then boiling it in the microwave, so I took the usual lazy way out, catered for one of my other addictions and blew some smoke into the shot. This really needed a drinking straw and another person, but I had neither
So, over to you!
Please photograph a similar subject, using whatever approach and whatever lighting you wish, and explain and illustrate your choices. This is designed to be a useful lighting experience and not a critique thread. I don’t care if people want to make critical comments about my own post, but please don’t be critical of other members, just show us what you can do, with SOOC images.
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