• The first way is to watch how the task gets done by a pro and then to try to reproduce something similar yourself.
• The second (by efficiency and speed) way is to invent your own way to do the shoot, trying different techniques and gear until the desired result is achieved.

Will you agree or is this only me learning like this?

Lets talk about the first way: when you go to a workshop or masterclass to see how the master does his magic:-)

I attended a workshop only once and hosted just a few of them, but it was enough to see how much people are wasting their valuable time (and money) with a photographer they are trying to learn from.

I so often hear something like this:

What aperture and/or shutter speed is used for the shot? What is the ratio between the light sources? Etc, etc.

Now tell me this: why to ask about exposure settings, if those are applicable only to that particular shot (or even particular camera angle)? A ratio between the lights? If you see the outcome of each shot, there will be a visible difference between the lights, this will give you an idea where is more powerful light. Why do you need the exact f-stop number, if it only works for that particular shot?

The main idea, IMO, is to learn how a photographer uses the lighting. Technique itself is not as important, as you will eventually create your own. Understanding what each light and light modifier is doing to the scene and how each one is affecting the picture is the most important thing to know.
Such knowledge is gained with a lot of experience and time, and this is what you better learn from a master.

Wedding, event or portrait photographer has to know many other things besides the lighting (sometimes those things are even more important than lighting). Things like how to talk and entertain the model,etc
However, in product and food photography, how good you are with the lights determines how good you are as a photographer.

My advise to you: instead of “what“, ask “why“:

Why do you use this light source there? Why with such and not such reflector? What about diffuser panels? Will they work better?

Sometimes it turns out that the photographer uses this particular light modifier simply because this is what he has, but any other will work as well.

Or opposite: there is a very specific reason to use that particular modifier, and replacing it with another will change the image dramatically. Knowing this will give you a much better idea on how the lighting have been built. When you know and “feel” the light, lighting setup will pop-up in your brain within seconds after you see the product you are going to photograph.

Gear is another thing to ask about: tech specifications of the shoot will help you to get the right gear without spending much time researching what gear will fit best each application.

This advice applies to any kind of photography, but most of all to product and food photography.

Enjoy;-)

~Alex

Related posts:

1. Our first photography workshop: Studio lighting for fashion photography

I always glad to host any of my good friends in the studio: I can always test new gear or learn some new technique while working with them. This time I eventually got an opportunity to test my DIY battery power pack (aka Vagabond II I’ve assembled recently) in real life situation, as we planed to do several informal shot outside of the studio.

After we were done with formal  (most boring for me, not much formality left in my brain part of the shot in a studio, I took 3 Paul. C Buff monolights outside, on our backyard. It was close enough to use an extension cord to power them up, but the idea was to test my DYI Vagabond.

Two WL X1600 units and one  AB400 were used. The power settings was close to a maximum: I was shooting at 1/250 sec F8, ISO100. At such exposure ambient light did not play any significant role in that shade under the trees.

The lighting setup for the outside shoot :

on location lighting setup DIY vagabond II alienbees pack

This was the idea: to get the photos looking like they were done in-studio, with this little surrealistic stage-like environment (imagine in-studio photo with a real pine tree and grass). When several people (including me) looked at the photos,  “Alise in Wondeland” came into mind. (None have seen new Barton’s movie yet, all was coming from childhood books, I guess:-) The first several shots was really surrealistic, as lens got immediately fogged in Atlanta crazy heat and humidity (you can see some halo around a model on this setup shot as well:-)

I had WhiteLightning 64-inch Silver Parabolic Umbrella mounted on AB400 (number 1); because of umbrella’s silver finish I’ve used least powerful unit there: it will have enough power to do a job.
Beauty dish with 30º honeycomb grid  was mounted on WL X1600 (2): grid reduces light power by several stops, BD has a white finish, which requires more flash power.
The last unit, WL X1600 (3) was used to highlight a tree behind with standard silver 7” reflector attached.

The DIY battery pack (4): It was working as advertised! Having more than 1000 WS connected to it, with shooting rate of one shot in 2-3 seconds, it did not have any issues with the heat, despite sauna-like humidity and 90º F outside.
The inverter was warm, but nothing extraordinary. The shot was going on for about 45 minutes, about 100 shot total were made. Recycle time was faster then I expected.

Few photos from this set, we have tweaked a color a little

Model portrait studio light on location by atlanta photographer

Vagabond II diy test location alienbees

Atlatna photographer location portrait using studio lights

Genia has worked on a new post-production technique (I really like the look, and, most, the amount of details it showed at full resolution), there will be before and after images on our post-production blog in a few days.

Update: More photos, and, most important, all of them “before and after” is on PerfectPhotoBlog now: Before and after images from the photoshot.

I was almost done with the post at this point. However, during the final review, simple and useful (I hope:-) thought came to mind: why not to show a lighting setup and few images of a studio part of the shot? Personally I do not think there is anything interesting there  but… Most of the photographers around shoot people, right? I would say there is about 10 people photographers for each product photographer in a pro world, even more  people photographers in a semi-pro (100:1?). So, if this info may be interesting, why not to post it?

Here we are, the studio setup and outcome:

Studio portrait lighting setup by Atlanta photographer

(1): The same parabolic umbrella  on AB400 , (2) WL X1600 through gridded strip box, (3) AB 800 with BeautyDish and 30ºgrid attached from the top,  (5) WL X800 on a background through 20º spot grid, (4,6) WL X1600 as a hair light:strip box form the left, 30º grid on a 7” standard Paul C Buff reflector on the right. A lot of lights, as I usually have:-)

This is a first time I was using my new studio stand, and it was very good experience. You can’t even compare it with a regular tripod.. so much it is different. I like it a lot. The best use of it, of course, a product photography. If i shoot people, I have camera in my hands on my legs: you can’t beat flexibility of such setup:-)

The results:

Studio portrait atlanta photographer

This one was post-processed (top) , below one as-is form a camera:

studio photographer portrait senior promo Atlanta

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
• Studio camera stand (manufactured by Fatif, now discontinued), similar to this one.
• Canon 580 EX, EX II and 430 EX Speedlite strobes
• Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS L
• Canon Right Angle Finder

Lighting, light modifiers and accessories:

• Paul C. Buff Lighting: 3×1600WS
• AlienBees/White Lighting reflectos with various honeycomb grind
• Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander 16 channels remote control with CSR+ receivers
• Adobe Lightroom 3 as a remote capture solution for tethered shooting
• DIY battery power pack by AKELstudio;-)

Exposure specification: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F7.1, ISO 250

Update: More photos, and, most important, all of them “before and after” is on PerfectPhotoBlog now: Before and after images from the photoshot.

Would be glad to hear your opinions:-)

~Alex

Related posts:

1. Spring in Atlanta: blooming trees, beautiful girls and a photographer:-)
2. DIY portable power system for Paul C. Buff monolights: Vagabond III?
3. Atlanta Photographer studio lighting workshop: a video

Fatif studio stand:
Old, by still strong as my red pepper Ukrainian vodka I brought 8 years ago and still haven’t tried: about 180 lb heavy, 8 feet tall, it feels like an WWII cannon:-)

I was looking at this type of stands for a while on eBay (was not ready to spend the money for new one: a good camera studio stand cost somewhere from $2.000 to $21.000).
Why so expensive? I was wondering before I got mine, now I know why: so heavy, so solid built and so much easy to work with in a studio comparing to my Manfrotto tripod, it is  definitely worth its money.
I was lucky to get mine form (many thanks) Tony (TonySmithStudio.com) for a fraction of it’s original cost. The shipping from Miami to Atlanta cost me more than 50% of the price I’ve paid:-)

Have you ever sit in a tank? Ever drove one? Imagine you have  a small one in a studio: move it around (I’d have to remove the rest of the carpet in the studio), aim  on a target, park and shoot.
There is no way I can accidentally hit this stand it and move the camera off from its target. I can easily break my leg, yes…  but no way I can loose camera’s focus or composition anymore:-)

I remember how frustrating it was when I accidentally hit one of  tripod’s leg while shooting super (3x lifesize) macro: the whole composition was ruined in a fraction of a second. Now, with such studio stand it won’t be a problem: it has more then 2 times smaller footprint than my tripod, it is easy to move it when wheels are engaged, and it solid when locked.

Here it is:

Fatif studio camera stand

Camera can be lowered from few inches from the ground up to a ceiling in a couple of seconds. Counterweight is inside, so even my wife can do it without much effort:-)
To move stand around, base should be lifted (see below): hidden wheels gets engaged and the whole thing can be easily moved. When base is lowered, all 180 pounds is on the floor, nothing can even shake it.

Fatif studio camera stand base

I a going to mount laptop on arm, opposite to a camera, already ordered Wall Mount LCD Arm.

Fatif studio stand, camera arm

Now the second toy: Lenovo W700ds professional workstation from IBM.

Lenovo w700ds dual monitor notebook akelstudio equipment

(tech details of the shoot are below)

It look nice on a picture, but still the monster: Two screens:  17” (1900×1200,   wide color gamut (72% Adobe® RGB)  and 10.6” (768×1280) retractable one. I could even get a Pantone Color Sensor + WACOM Digitizer w/ Stylus integrated into it, if needed! I do not need it, as this is my only photography workstation, all photography post production being held by  desktop workstation.

8 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 memory, Intel® Core™2 Extreme QX9300 (2.53GHz, 12MB L2, 1066MHz FSB), dual HDD: 128Gb SSD + 320Gb 7200RPM drive, Windows 7 x64 pro.

Love this machine! With system drive on Solid State Drive,  it simply flies! (for those who does not know: SSD disk use the same technology as flash drives: meaning no spinning disks, which leads to much fast seek read/write times.)
It also has the best (IPS based) LCD matrix, something you can’t easy find on a laptops. Even macbook pro does not have such good screens.

Speaking of Mac/Apple: I do not know why, but for some reason Mac treated as a professional tool for photographers. It is almost “must have” if you do photography, right? (I’ve never seen photographer using non-mac computers before, except me).

Honestly, I will never understand this:-) It is like using Leica cameras for professional photography (especially in-studio): no doubt Leica has really nice and solid cameras (same as Apple computers or monitors), but there are much more professional and convenient cameras for professionals, right?  They are less stylish, true: you can’t beat Leica here (same as Apple).

For me functionality is the most important thing I need from my gear. I need hi-end functionality and usability to do a stylish photography, not the opposite. This is why I do not use Apple: prefer functionality over the style, prefer to pay for the functionality and freedom of what tools to use first, style is a secondary … I apply this rule for all my gear:-) This is the reason  why I did not buy the latest lenovo W701ds series: for a half of it’s original price ($4800) I am getting 99% of the performance and functionality: top of the quad core processors are very close to iCore 870 series, the rest is quite similar.

Now, back to my Lenovo.

Instead of highlighting a keyboard, it has two LED lights on the cover: when turned on, they lighting up the whole workspace: screen, keyboard and a table around. May look strange at first, but it is much easier for my eyes to work in darkness this way. I’ve tried, I’ve compared with only keyboard highlighted laptops, and I like it better.
See how it looks  in a darkness, two LED on top are ON:

Lenovo w700ds dual monitor with lights on

Well, not in a really darkness:-) I was using the same technique as I had for a recent LED lamp shot : no modeling lights for studio monolights, dark studio and 30 sec exposure. This way I’ve got combined exposure from a strobes and laptop lights in one shot.

Just in case you’ll be willing to see a lighting setup for this shot: I liked first photo of the notebook: considering  only 5 min was spent to  setup the lights, no Photoshop, everything as-is off the camera, it does not look bad. I especially like that curved reflection on a screen: diffuser panel are the best for the task:-)

Akelstudio photography atlanta lighting setup diagram

3 light sources: Paul C Buff  beauty dish through the diffuser from left-front, softbox from the right, stribbox on the right-behind. Simple and efficient:-)

Must say that for the dark studio shot (second image of the laptop) I’ve turned off left light to avoid that reflection on the screen.

This is it:-) Would be glad to hear your opinions.

~Alex

Update (8/31/2010): got a support arm for a laptop, now the whole “photographic workstation” is almost done:

Laptop mount on a camera studio stand

Related posts:

1. Tilt-Shift adapter in studio test review: EOS 1Ds mounted on a large format system camera

I can’t say that it was an easy task for me: being born introvert and quite shy guy, I do not feel comfortable talking to more then 5 people at once. Doing a live broadcast, when I do not see immediate reaction on a people faces makes thing even more complicated for me. I was really afraid that I can’t open my mouth when time will come, but one shot of good scotch whiskey 10 minutes prior the broadcast fixed most of my emotional problems:-) And, once I started to talk, it was easier and easier to move forward.

We got about 20 attendants average, and, what most important, the number was increasing  during the masterclass: a good sign indicating it was not boring:-) several people joined us after 6 PM: time zone calculation is not the easiest task, I know:-)

Now, the results:

Live masterclass water photography

Again water, again apples.. (got a nice collection of them for a stock:-)

But this time, thanks for  good questions from participants, we got some interesting test, comparing canon speedlight and Paul C Buff lights. I’ll get back on this later.

Technical stuff:

I was using three Canon speedlights, set to be slaves on manual mode,  ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter mounted on a camera to trigger strobes.

Why speedlights, not Alienbees or White-lighting monolights? This was one of the questions I’ve got from the class attendants.

The answer is simple: because of short flash duration. Speedlites at 1/8 -1/4 power will produce something around 1/10000 sec (may be even shorter)  flash, while the shortest flash from Paul C. Buff monolights is 1/2000 (according to CyberCommander) on AB400 at full power.

And we need a very short duration when working with water splash. You’ll see the difference between 1/10000 and 1/2000 later in this article.

BTW, 1/2000 for a AB400 does not seem to be correct number for me. Looking at the images, I feel it is more like 1/800 sec. May be 1/2000 on t.5 method? Not sure.

Also, must say that CyberCommander (at least mine version of it) is  really giving me hard time. Even working with lithium batteries (they said it may be due to luck of current), it lose flashes, lose setup, reboot itself, all this several time per photo-session.  I like Paul’s products, but this one seems to be a beta version.

The lighting setup:

Lighting setup for water photography masterclass by alex koloskov

3 Canon speedlight were used:

Number 3 (see below), Canon 580 EX II,  from behind through white diffuser reflector panel and 10º grid with color gel, creating spot on a 2 stop translucent white background. 1/8 power.

The strobe form the right,  Canon 580 EX was used with Paul C Buff beauty dish with 30º grid ( grid was needed to reduce lights spill on a backdrop diffuser panel: it should be black around the spot). 1/16 power.

I was using DIY adapters (recipe was originally found here) Watch the video, you’ll see what i am talking about here

Left strobe (Canon 430 EX) was on 80mm zoom at 1/64 power.

Same setup in real:

Akelstudio live masterclass: working with water splash photography lighting setup

As you’ll see on the video below, we were throwing water from below-behind to that apple, creating splashes.

How to throw and what to use for it is what you should figure out yourself. I can only tell that the shape of that little cup does make a difference.

The same setup was used for only water splashes:

Workshop - water splash photography

Thanks to Louis Dina, who raised question about a difference in duration between Paul C Buff lights and speedlights, we did a quick shot with the same setup using Alienbees and WL monolights.

Will it be the difference  really visible, and can we still use Paul c Buff monolights for such photography?

I did not plan to do such test, but now I glad we did it: we got predictable, but quite impressive result.

First, I replicated the same setup using 3 monolights: 1xAB400, 1xAB800 and 1xWL1600. See the whole and 100% crops:

Long duration strobe: Paul c buff lighting (old)

100% crop:

Long duration strobe: Paul c buff lighting (old), 100% crop

As you see result is far – far away from acceptable. That thing is too slow for such photography.

Then we tried to use the shortest Paul C Buff strobe (I did not receive my Einstein units, so this is not an option for me for now), AlienBees AB 400, set at full power alone. According to CyberCommander it has 1/2000 duration of the flash impulse.

The result:

long flash duration example: ab400 at full power

80% crop:

long flash duration ab400 full power 100% crop

This is a little bit better, photo has less motion blur. But still, is not acceptable (at least for me) to use such images anywhere…

Just for comparison, full and 100% crop of one of the best images from the class:

hort flash duration, canon speedlites

90% crop of the same:

short flash duration with canon speedlites 100% crop

Hope it is self-explainable test:-)

A full length video from a masterclass. Please enjoy:-) This is our first and last free video from the masterclasses. I am planing to keep LIVE masterclasses to be free: want to be sure everyone who interested can watch them.
However, a compiled full-length video will cost some reasonable amount of money. This will help us to keep  LIVE masterclasses free, offsetting the cost associated with broadcast and video production.

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
• Bogen 055 XPROB Tripod with 405 geared head
• Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
• Canon 580 EX, EX II and 430 EX Speedlite strobes
• ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter
• Canon 100mm F2.8 macro IS L

Lighting, light modifiers and accessories:

• Paul C. Buff Lighting: 2×1600WS
• AlienBees/White Lighting reflectos with various honeycomb grind
• Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander 16 channels remote control with CSR+ receivers
• Adobe Lightroom 3 as a remote capture solution for tethered shooting
• Westcott Illuminator Reflector Kit 6-in-1 – 52″ diffuser panel

Exposure specification: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F7.1, ISO 250

As usual, I would be glad to hear your opinions here:-)

Enjoy:-)

~Alex

Related posts:

1. Masterclass (LIVE!) is scheduled for Saturday, 7th August at 5PM Eastern time.
2. Water in product and advertisement photography: episode two released!
3. Water splash photography (water splash with berries and apple)

The main  difference between softbox and diffuser panel is how the light is spread on the “working” surface: good softbox is suppose to produce even flat light on its front screen while diffuser may have very different pattern, depending on how we highlight it. What does it mean for me when I shoot some glossy, especially dark glossy object? The reflection from that light.

Reflection will be very different: softbox always gives sharp-edged square while diffuser panel can produce very uneven, gradient filling. Gradient is the key: it can be round, square or linear, whatever I need to show on the object.

Below is the example images I’ve got while shooting line of cosmetic brushes for Anisa International. Managed by Anisa Tewlar, company makes high-quality cosmetic brushes and accessories, I am really glad to work with them.

Top-down shot of the black glossy brush, done with two softboxes on each side of the brush:

Cosmetic product photography lighting setup softbox

The result:

Softbox reflection example

Do you see? Both softboxes is completely visible on the brush, and while it is not looking bad, the whole picture can be misleading: It is not quite understandable is it a reflection on brush or brush has such white inserts? Also, this is not the best way to show the shape of the brush handle… Think how this image will look on a small catalog insert or on the package.

Now, let’s add a translucent diffuser panels between the brush and softboxes ( I was using both panels from Westcott Illuminator Reflector Kit 6-in-1 – 52″, but any other will work just fine).  I’ve lowered the lights and moved them away from the table, knowing it will be more spread on the diffuser:

Cosmetic brush lighting setup using diffuser panels

Now we have an additional media to project our light, and this way it is very easy to get a nice gradient light on the diffuser. This is exactly what I want to see on the brush: a smooth gradient reflection:

Diffuser panel reflection example

Gradient light gives us a very good idea of a cylindrical shape of the brush handle, a very nice dark edge around glowing panels makes image even more appealing to the eye.

This technique can be used with or without sofboxes, for any relatively small object. On the video below I’ve switched from sofboxes to a spot lights (original 7” Paul C. Buff reflector with a honeycomb grid) aimed to a diffusers with a sharp angle, creating a linear spots on it.

Here are few more brush sets from the same lighting setup (with diffusers):

Green set of brushes

Diffuser panels on a set of brushes

A little video tutorial from the photoshot:

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
• Bogen 055 XPROB Tripod with 405 geared head
• Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
• Canon Right Angle Finder
• Canon 100mm F2.8 macro IS L

Lighting, light modifiers and accessories:

• Paul C. Buff Lighting: 2×1600WS
• AlienBees/White Lighting reflectos with various honeycomb grind
• Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander 16 channels remote control with CSR+ receivers
• Adobe Lightroom 3 as a remote capture solution for tethered shooting
• 2 panles from Westcott Illuminator Reflector Kit 6-in-1 – 52″

All shots were done with: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F13, ISO 100

~Alex

Related posts:

1. Product Photography: shooting hi-end pens with lighting setup and how-to do tricks
2. Watch photo shoot: advantages of using tilt-shift camera adapter
3. Water in product and advertisement photography: episode two released!

Below is one of the images from this photo session:

product photographer atlanta sexy looking boot

How to  make something regular to look outstanding? Deep shadows, more blacks (if we shoot dark object), as much texture as possible and insane sharpness is the key to success:-)  Converting to our boot, the idea was to show the maximum of a texture on the boot, adding some deep shadows where it is possible.

This is why intense directional light sources were used from both sides: sharp landing angles of the light beam produces shadows on every surface unevenness, showing off the texture. The main light was from gridded softbox, low power, just enough to soften a deep shadows. Fixed-zoom macro lens was used to preserve the sharpness of the texture.
Look at the photo below, 100% crop: Canon 180mm F3.5 macro lens at F10 is the best for such job!

100% crop details example of product photography by AKELstudio

Setting aperture to F10 on 180mm lens produces relatively (to the object) shallow Dept Of Field (DOF), exactly what was needed: Shallow DOF gives more volume to the object.

The lighitng setup:

lighting setup diagram for product photography,Atlanta, GA

3 and 2 are AlienBees B400 through 20° grids, main light (more like a fill light due to significantly lower power then hair lights) is WL 1600 through a gridded softbox. The shoot was done on a Manfrotto (Bogen) shooting table, black screen behind the boot.

For the reference, below the catalog image of the same boot, done few month earlier. The lighting was relatively similar, but softer (see the lighting setup). Plus, white background did not create that dramatic look as a black one can give:

catalog product photography example atalnta ga

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
• Bogen 055 XPROB Tripod with 405 geared head
• Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
• Canon Right Angle Finder
• Canon 180mm f3.5 macro L

Lighting, light modifiers and accessories:

• Paul C. Buff Lighting: 1×1600WS, 2×400WS
• AlienBees/White Lighting reflectos with various honeycomb grind
• Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander 16 channels remote control with CSR+ receivers
• Adobe Lightroom 3 as a remote capture solution for tethered shooting
• Manfrotto (Bogen) shooting table

All shots were done with: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F10, ISO 100, Custom X-rite Color profile created for this studio setup.

Related posts:

1. Studio lighting setup for a uniform catalog: Refrigiwear photo-shoot
2. Shooting for uniform catalog: in the studio and out
3. Product photography lighting: It is simple when you know how.

We were lucky to find a great food stylist, Nan McCulloch (www.nanmcculloch.com), she helped us a lot with the whole concept of the shoot, along with the styling for each dish.

Photography for a restaurant menu

Food photography for a WingCity2City restaurant

Now, the lighting:

Lighting setup was relatively simple: I used, as usual, as many lights as I can fit around the product:-)  Always prefer to have  maximum flexibility and control in that area.

The lighting setup for this food photoshoot:

Lighting setup diagram

Lights 1 and 2 (both WL X1600) worked as main and filler lights, switched by the changing power ration between them. The most important lights were numbers 4 and 5 ( AB B400) with a little “filler” help from a Beauty Dish (number 3, AB B800) from top-behind: They were giving this tasty glare for the wings I was looking for.
Number 6 (WL UltraZap 800, one of the oldest units in the studio) was to highlight the background.

In general, I’ve used a combination of very intense directional lights (all lights except 1, 2 and 6 had 10 or 20 degree honeycomb grids) with soft (through soft-boxes) fill lights. This way I’ve got contrast and full of details photos, but still bright and simple  (remember the idea of the shoot).

Few more real images of the lighting setup:

Lighting setup, front view

The same thing, left side view:

Food photography lighting setup, left side

Now I start to use X-Rite ColorChecker Passport tool: was very easy to create a custom color profile for a studio lights, now I do not need to use that white balance picker for each my studio set.
Highly recommend this to all who care about correct colors:-)

The composition:

For a food shots, blurred background (usually) is a good thing: it helps to focus on a main piece of dish (chicken wings), while showing some other “appropriate” stuff on a background: still visible, but not distracting.

Must to say I do not like that type of  food shots where only tiny line of the dish in a focus: it may look nice first, but not sure if you ant to see something like this in a restaurant menu. We want to see what we’ll eat more clearly:-)

So, to make background blurred, I’ve used long focus lens, 180m f3.5 macro  from Canon. However, DOF should be deep enough, therefore F11 aperture was set.

food and drink restaurant menu photography

For this one (above) I’ve added one more spot light, only to highlight through the glass with intense directional light ( 10 snoot was used)

Many thanks for a great stylist, Nan McCulloch: she had great taste and professional feeling of how to arrange everything the best possible way, as well as exceptional coordinator’s skills. Thank you, Nan!

More photos from this photoset with before and after images is on our Atlanta retoucher’s blog. This mouse-over before and after photos are always  among the most popular topics there:-)

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
• Bogen 055 XPROB Tripod with 405 geared head
• Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
• Canon Right Angle Finder
• Canon 180mm f3.5 macro L

Lighting, light modifiers and accessories:

• Paul C. Buff Lighting: 2×1600WS, 2×800WS, 2×400WS
• AlienBees/White Lighting reflectos with various honeycomb grind
• Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander 16 channels remote control with CSR+ receivers
• Adobe Lightroom 3 as a remote capture solution for tethered shooting
• Manfrotto (Bogen) shooting table
• X-rite Color checker

All shots were done with: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F11, ISO 100.

~Alex

Related posts:

1. Kitchen for food photographer: small, but shiny and new!
2. Mexican food, shooting for mexican restaurant. Food photographer.
3. Food photography with Shirley O. Corriher.

I like to shoot products, working quietly in the studio, putting all my skills and creativity to get job done. There are three major types of product shots we are dealing with:

1. Sometimes ugly prototypes, where post-production and retouching may take ten times more efforts than photoshot itself. They are good challenge to work with, and it helps a lot:-)
2. Regular off the shell products, with shape and finish that can be very straight forward to shot or require hours of complicated setup built and very precise lighting to be done right.
3. Designers products, which are very unique and usually very interesting to work with.

In this article I’ll  show our recent photoshot with a third, most enjoyable to work type of product.

I am talking about the photo-shot we had recently for Doug James (StudioDoug.com). He brought very interesting and unusual products of his studio to be photographed: LED tabletop lamps along  with other cool stuff.

First lamp:

Atlanta product photographer image example

The requirement was to have all of them done on a seamless white background, therefore Manfrotto (Bogen) shooting table was used.

A little tricky part was to capture lamp’s own light: Each one uses a few hundreds of LED, and combined with the colorful beads it gives amazingly beautiful  light.
However, LED was not powerful enough to match the power of few hundred watt second strobes (I do not think that such powerful  LED exists at all), so we did this:

After we were done with regular shots with lamp off (1/250 sec shutter, F10 ISO 100) we turned off all the lights in the studio along with modeling lights for all moonlights used.
Then, shutter was set to 1/20 of a sec, exactly what  a 2° spot camera exposure meter suggested for a lamp’s LED head to be expose correctly. No other parameters was changed.

Mouseover on a shot below to see how it looks with 1/20 sec, turn on the lights!

On/Off lights example by changing exposure

tabletop lamp photography lighting tutorial example

Timehead man ?

Time in the head

The lighting setup:

Product photography lighting setup diagram

The lighting setup is quite simple : Medium-size softbox from the left  for the man light, right with a  strip box as a fill light. This can be easily reversed by changing light ratio, sometime it better for other side to be lighter (like we did for  this clock guy: fill light become a main (by increasing the power), and main became a fill light.
Beauty dish on the top mostly  for filling the background.

The hair light on the right is for a lamp’s head only: I did not want to be any edge on the lamp body.  Background light is to make it brighter and for overall brightness control, not relaying on a reflected light here.

Now, the most interesting part.

This is not what we do often, but this time I’ve asked Doug if we can use one of his lamp to create more dramatic and creative image, something to catch people attention. This shot was not a part of the original requirements, but something we will do for ourselves.

He agreed, and we did it: not only a producing an amazing photo, but also got a video behind the scene tutorial explained on how we did the whole shoot.
I really like this: we got a great image for the portfolio, gained experience and also created a video tutorial, all from the same shot!

Dramatic look of the same product:

Dramatic lighting of the tabletop lamp

The lighting setup:

The lighting setup for a product photography

Because of the shape of this lamp I’ve decided to use main light (2 AB 800, 30° grid) directly from the bottom, through the glass table.

Fill light from the left (1, WL 1600), only to add little shiny marks on a lamp’s head metal cap and the bottom. Hair light (4 AB400 through 20° grid) was used to get an edge on the lamp’s body, head was not exposed by it.
Number 3 (WL 1600 20 º grid) was for the background, to create a halo-like spot coming from a table..

This shot I’ve explained a lot in the video, better watch it and I’ll feel free of typing all this here again:-)

Before and after images of the lamp from our retoucher on post-production blog, check them out: you’ll like this!

Camera gear:

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
• Bogen 055 XPROB Tripod with 405 geared head
• Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
• Canon Right Angle Finder
• Canon 180mm f3.5 macro L and Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L lenses

Lighting, light modifiers and accessories:

• Paul C. Buff Lighting: 1×1600WS, 1×800WS, 2×400WS
• AlienBees/White Lighting reflectos with various honeycomb grind
• Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander 16 channels remote control with CSR+ receivers
• Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta 2 as a remote capture solution for tethered shooting
• Manfrotto (Bogen) shooting table

All shots were done with: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F10, ISO 100, Custom WB 6100K

~Alex

Related posts:

1. Product photography lighting: It is simple when you know how.
2. Product Photography: shooting hi-end pens with lighting setup and how-to do tricks
3. Lens and lights for super macro photography: surgery on a shooting table