New tutorial on lighting wine bottles

Garry Edwards

Garry Edwards

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Garry Edwards
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There's been quite a lot of discussion on here recently about lighting glass in general and wine bottles in particular, so here's a new tutorial for you all to complain about:)
http://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-blog/11/tutorial-lighting-a-simple-wine-bottle/#.VkIU6b8l-hE

I've adopted the simplest approach, Brightfield Lighting, and as that in itself isn't enough when the passage of light is blocked by solids such as labels, I've added strip softboxes too.

Right now I'm trying to find time to finish another one, this time on lighting a much more complex whisky bottle
 
Excellent that. Thank you.
Now to adapt it to work using just flash guns and a (just the one) flash mounted softbox.
That will be a challenge!
 
Good link and not something I had even considered shooting but what the heck, i'll give it a go at some point.
 
mickledore said:
Excellent that. Thank you.
Now to adapt it to work using just flash guns and a (just the one) flash mounted softbox.
That will be a challenge!
Click to expand...
It's a bit more work with just flashguns, but you'll get there. The flashgun-mounted softbox won't be as evenly lit as my studio flash-mounted one, but that just involves a little bit of work in PP. And without strip softboxes, you'll have to improvise either by bouncing light off of bits of white card, or by using home made diffusers.
 
Garry Edwards said:
It's a bit more work with just flashguns, but you'll get there. The flashgun-mounted softbox won't be as evenly lit as my studio flash-mounted one, but that just involves a little bit of work in PP. And without strip softboxes, you'll have to improvise either by bouncing light off of bits of white card, or by using home made diffusers.
Click to expand...

Thanks. A bodge job is the technical term. I'm good at bodging!!!
 
Another great resource thank you Garry, we do appreciate your efforts.
 
A very good tutorial, makes it clear what lights are needed and what each one does.

I hope you enjoyed the wine afterwards.
 
A no bull straight to the point tutorial that makes me think I'll have a go at something I have never done before.

Cheers Garry.
 
Thanks for the comments.
The next one in the series (related) is nearly finished and will be published on Monday, it's slightly more complicated but still do-able by everyone, and it's a bottle of JD.
Ambitious I know, but the target is to post a new one every week
 
You mention in the video about lighting the label, which you do to an extent with the strips, but would you use another light maybe a girded snoot or similar onto the label to pick it out as such?
 
cosmix3 said:
You mention in the video about lighting the label, which you do to an extent with the strips, but would you use another light maybe a girded snoot or similar onto the label to pick it out as such?
Click to expand...
No.
I didn't feel that I needed to with this particular bottle, but if it was necessary there are various ways of doing it, depending on both equipment and inclination...
1. A focussing spotlight. These very expensive toys are perfect for the job, they have movable shutters that can create the exact shape of the label.
2. Home made version of the above - a sheet of Cinefoil with the shape cut out, suspended only just out of shot and lit with a flash fitted with a honeycomb, as distant as possible.
3. Just do it on PS.

A gridded snoot would never do it, the light pattern is far too coarse and variable, and the shape's wrong too.
 
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