photographing alloy wheels: Does this plan sound ok?

[velonoir]

Hi all,

So I have a friend who works at a wheel refurbishment and powder coating business, they have just started doing diamond cutting and hydro-dipping and I asked if they were thinking of getting some good quality photos to showcase their work.
Turns out they are and he asked if I might be interested in doing some shots for them. I'm happy enough with lighting portraits and so on but haven't really done much product type work. I have an idea of how I'd light them but was interested in your opinions.
Either on a white or black paper back ground I'd have the wheel angled about 30deg to the right hand side in relation to me. The key light would be shooting across the angled face of the wheel from the right, perpendicular to the angle I'm shooting from, so the camera, the wheel and the light trace a right angle triangle layout.
I was thinking of having another light slightly off to camera left to put some fill light into the shadows, exposing them about a stop or two lower.
I was also thinking about having a speedlite with a snoot to shoot from behind and to the left to add some controlled rim lighting to pick out the edges. I'm not sure about whether to light the background as that'll depend what color they would want it to be.
I should say I've got access to two bowens Gemini 200s, 5 nissin di622mk2 speedlites, umbrellas that can either be shoot through or silver reflected, some reflectors, stands etc. I could maybe get hold of a few soft boxes if push comes to shove. I'm not sure whether to go for soft lighting for a more subtle effect given the subjects are all pretty shiny anyway, or harder light to make them really striking?
I'll be using my d700 but wasn't sure whether to use an 85mm f1.8, my 80-200 f2.8 or maybe using something wider and shooting from slightly below to enhance the size/dominance of the wheel through perspective.
Any thoughts or experience would vr appreciated.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Forget about the background, that's best cut out later.
I think my starting point with this would be the biggest possible softboxex fairly
Square on, to produce diffused specular highlights, a honeycomb on a standard reflector to create emphasis on the shape and another softbox on the other side, to mitigate the effect as required.

 

[velonoir]

Thanks, I'm not sure I'll be able to get large soft boxes or not, would shoot through umbrellas be a reasonable alternative if I can do the shoot in a large or open space to mitigate the effects of light spilling everywhere?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Thanks, I'm not sure I'll be able to get large soft boxes or not, would shoot through umbrellas be a reasonable alternative if I can do the shoot in a large or open space to mitigate the effects of light spilling everywhere?

No, an umbrella won't do for this. Apart from the light spill, the light would be too uneven and the spokes would show in the reflections.

 

[velonoir]

Thanks again Garry, I have access to a couple of 60x80 soft boxes, probably not as big as they should be for this but I'll just aim to get them in as close as possible. Your feedback is very much appreciated.