Wine shooting-lighting tips...

[eco_bach]

Have an upcoming gig shooting a low budget 30 second promo for a friend that owns a wine shop with a retail store presence. I've never shot wine before but really want to make this piece sing! Hope to get some nice CU's, perhaps even some overcranked footage if I can justify renting a NEX-FS700. Can anyone reading this suggest any good lighting- shooting tips regardless of what camera(s) I may be using?

 

[paulherrin]

diffusion... or cgi

 

[eco_bach]

Is there any reason why I wouldn't add diffusion in post?

 

[Christopher Barrett]

The sexiest way to light liquids in glass is with really big soft sources from the sides and towards the rear. Even a pair of foam core flats could serve you well (just make sure to light them evenly top to bottom). Avoid any sort of frontal lighting on the product.

Experiment with lighting beforehand. Play. Have fun.

 

[eco_bach]

Thanks! Great information

 

[RobertP]

You mean wine bottles? Chances are, the bottles will be dark and reflective, which is much easier than translucent beer bottles!

The last time I shot a wine bottle for a stock photo image using strobes, I used a 36x48 inch softbox very close and to the right of the bottle, and a 42x78 inch frame with white reflective fabric on the left side. The left light source (the frame with fabric) needed to be larger because it was further away.

Basically, you're photographing the reflections of your light sources, so you'd want to use large rectangular sources, as I mentioned above.

Make sure your light sources are positioned close enough and in a way that the highlights (the reflections of the softbox/frame) travel from the bottom of the bottle, all the way to the top of the bottle.

But wait! The position of your camera also matters. The position of the camera in relation to the light sources has a direct relation to the way the highlights will "behave." For example, if you have softboxes close to the bottle, but the camera is too high above the bottle, the highlights will travel from the top to the middle of the bottle. If you have the camera too low, like below the surface of the table, they will travel from the bottom of the bottle to the middle (or maybe it's the reverse, lol). I'm sure you already knew this.

If the bottle is translucent with a light background (like, white backdrop with light being shot at it, or just something bright behind it), use black flags to create "negative highlights" (that's what I call them, lol) on the sides of the bottle (black outline around the edges of the bottle).

If the bottle is translucent and you MUST have a dark background, consider cutting out paper/board in the shape of the bottle and placing it behind the bottle, and shooting a narrow beam of light at it to illuminate the bottle, or use a glass table, with a white foam board on top, and cut a little hole in the foam, place the bottle on top of the hole, and shoot a beam of light up through the bottom of the bottle.

This all depends what color the glass is, and what color the liquid is, what color the background is, and whether the background is dark, or bright.

Hope this helps, good luck!

 

[paulherrin]

Is there any reason why I wouldn't add diffusion in post?

i meant on the lights... and if you want diffusion in front of (or behind) the lens), which really wouldn't be a bad idea, i'd probably go ahead and shoot it that way. it really depends on your style and the brand and what you're doing with the images so i can't tell you anything except to tap into creativity. technically - it's mostly about reflection management, though you can do some cool stuff lighting the liquid and glass itself. sometimes it can look cool to have a nice natural-light reflection of a window and you may or may not want to augment that with some warmer light. generally speaking, the environment you put it in is most important. could be in a still life, could be floating in a river, or in an icebox on an outdoor table... wherever.