How best to shoot a brown beer bottle?

I've been trying to shoot a brown beer bottle for a friend of mine who is starting his beer business.

I've set up a small table with a nice blue sheet from wall to table top forming a nice infinite blue background. I placed the bottle on the table, my 5D with 50/2.8 macro lens on a tripod with 580EX flash set as master, a 420EX as slave on a tripod to the right of the bottle. Note: I shot in my living room.

I noticed that when I shot with the 580EX pointed to the ceiling (2.5 meters) I got a huge hot spot on the beer bottle. When I pointed it directly to the bottle, the huge hot spot disappeared.

Here is my problem: I am getting annoying reflections on the bottle, that is, my living room, tripod, piano, sofa, etc. behind me is "imprinted" in the bottle's reflection. I also notice two small flash spot on the bottle.

Do I have to shoot in a clean empty room with black/dark boards all over the place to clear out the nasty reflections?

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

You're just going about it completely wrong for shooting glass. What you need to be doing is lighting the background, not the bottle. Typically, you'll do either a dark field glass shot, where the background is black, and then you light a bright white border around the background out of view, so that it reflects in the edges of the bottle, or bright field, where you light a bright white background, with a black border around it to reflect black in the edges of the bottle. Then, if you want, you can put some specular reflections on the side of the bottle to show form more, but you really have to use a softbox: anything else will look weird, because the reflections will show the shape of the light modifier you use perfectly.

Also, if you really want to learn to light glass, metal, and so on, Light: Science and Magic is the book to read

Have you read this?

http://strobist.blogsp​ot.com …/pretty-shiny-things.html

A light tent would help

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5815689
A light tent would help

It most certainly wouldn't, I'm afraid. A light tent is a solution for metal: for glass, it does exactly the opposite of what you want to do, and completely obliterates any edge definition.

bieber wrote in post #5815809
It most certainly wouldn't, I'm afraid. A light tent is a solution for metal: for glass, it does exactly the opposite of what you want to do, and completely obliterates any edge definition.

Very true. I tried that and all I got was the light tent's white fabric plastered all over the bottle's brown glass exterior!

bieber wrote in post #5815436
You're just going about it completely wrong for shooting glass. What you need to be doing is lighting the background, not the bottle. Typically, you'll do either a dark field glass shot, where the background is black, and then you light a bright white border around the background out of view, so that it reflects in the edges of the bottle, or bright field, where you light a bright white background, with a black border around it to reflect black in the edges of the bottle. Then, if you want, you can put some specular reflections on the side of the bottle to show form more, but you really have to use a softbox: anything else will look weird, because the reflections will show the shape of the light modifier you use perfectly.

Also, if you really want to learn to light glass, metal, and so on, Light: Science and Magic is the book to read

Thank you for this important tip! Will try to find the book as well.

jm_usmc wrote in post #5815639
Have you read this?

http://strobist.blogsp​ot.com …/pretty-shiny-things.html

No I haven't! Thanks for the link!

edit: and from the pictures, it shows exactly my problems!

bieber wrote in post #5815809
It most certainly wouldn't, I'm afraid. A light tent is a solution for metal: for glass, it does exactly the opposite of what you want to do, and completely obliterates any edge definition.

I never said to light the bottle from all sides.

I was reding this yesterday, maybe you can try this

http://www.diyphotogra​phy.net …-table-top-studio-project

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5816195
I never said to light the bottle from all sides.

Vell, that's kind of the point of a light tent. It doesn't matter how many sides you light it from: to get edge definition in glass, you need to have a distinct contrast between the background, and the area directly outside the background, and trying to light the bottle is never going to achieve that. Remember, glass is transparent, so the only type of reflections it will ever produce are specular. You can throw all the light you want at it, and unless it's coming from the family of angles that produces specular reflection, it's just gonna go right through it and move on to somewhere else. Generally speaking, that somewhere else is the rest of the room, which subsequently shows up in the glass reflections, as the OP was complaining about initially.

bieber wrote in post #5818533
Vell, that's kind of the point of a light tent. It doesn't matter how many sides you light it from: to get edge definition in glass, you need to have a distinct contrast between the background, and the area directly outside the background, and trying to light the bottle is never going to achieve that. Remember, glass is transparent, so the only type of reflections it will ever produce are specular. You can throw all the light you want at it, and unless it's coming from the family of angles that produces specular reflection, it's just gonna go right through it and move on to somewhere else. Generally speaking, that somewhere else is the rest of the room, which subsequently shows up in the glass reflections, as the OP was complaining about initially.

Again, you're assuming I'll backlight the bottle. There's more to using a light tent than to light ALL of it.

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5818651
Again, you're assuming I'll backlight the bottle. There's more to using a light tent than to light ALL of it.

If you really wanted to, you could light just the sides, and if you could somehow keep all the light off of the back of the tent, you could get some edge definition for a dark-field shot. But unless someone was forcing you to use a light tent, there's no reason you would actually want to do such a thing, when you can produce superior results with less equipment. Light tents are nice and all, for some subjects, but trying to use one where there's no need for it, just for the sake of using a light tent, is just silly...

Also, to the OP, a quick Google search for "Lighting Glass" turns up a pretty decent tutorial. It's not nearly as thorough as the treatment in Light: Science and Magic, but certainly a good start

Let me add another recommendation for "Light: Science and Magic."

Contivity wrote in post #5818076
I was reding this yesterday, maybe you can try this

http://www.diyphotogra​phy.net …-table-top-studio-project

Fantastic tool! It will make a great combo for my DIY lightbox!

bieber wrote in post #5818688
Also, to the OP, a quick Google search for "Lighting Glass" turns up a pretty decent tutorial. It's not nearly as thorough as the treatment in Light: Science and Magic, but certainly a good start

This is a great link explaining the nasty specular reflections and how to use it to one's advantage!

Thanks to the both of you!