How best to shoot a brown beer bottle?

Any chance on a donation of a case of this new beer for R&D AND a photo shoot?

bucket772 wrote in post #5822507
Any chance on a donation of a case of this new beer for R&D AND a photo shoot?

Here too pls!

Depending how dark the bottle really is... One trick I have learned is to cut out a shape slightly smaller than the bottles profile and cover it with foil. Place it behind the bottle so the camera cant see it. The shiny surface will reflect through the bottle giving it some punch that a white background cant. The beer in the bottle will keep it a nice amber.

Mark1 wrote in post #5823192
Depending how dark the bottle really is... One trick I have learned is to cut out a shape slightly smaller than the bottles profile and cover it with foil. Place it behind the bottle so the camera cant see it. The shiny surface will reflect through the bottle giving it some punch that a white background cant. The beer in the bottle will keep it a nice amber.

To get a little more sophisticated with this trick, you can put a sheet of white paper on the background behind the bottle. Then, put the camera on a tripod, get the composition you want, and then take the camera off and replace it with some variety of light. Now the outline of the bottle should show clearly on the paper: just trace it, and then cut the shape out and discard the rest of the paper, leaving that paper cutout in place. This, of course, is only an issue if you want to photograph a light beer on a dark background. If you're using a white background, then the white shape's already there, and then some

bucket772 wrote in post #5822507
Any chance on a donation of a case of this new beer for R&D AND a photo shoot?

Contivity wrote in post #5822645
Here too pls!

Hahaha! You are all welcome... grab the next plane down to Brazil and come enjoy some nice homebrew Brazilian beer! My friend dropped at my home 2 cases of his bottled beer and many nice beer cups with his logo on it. And of course, I'm doing this gig for free... as in 'free beer'!

Mark1 wrote in post #5823192
Depending how dark the bottle really is... One trick I have learned is to cut out a shape slightly smaller than the bottles profile and cover it with foil. Place it behind the bottle so the camera cant see it. The shiny surface will reflect through the bottle giving it some punch that a white background cant. The beer in the bottle will keep it a nice amber.

bieber wrote in post #5823370
To get a little more sophisticated with this trick, you can put a sheet of white paper on the background behind the bottle. Then, put the camera on a tripod, get the composition you want, and then take the camera off and replace it with some variety of light. Now the outline of the bottle should show clearly on the paper: just trace it, and then cut the shape out and discard the rest of the paper, leaving that paper cutout in place. This, of course, is only an issue if you want to photograph a light beer on a dark background. If you're using a white background, then the white shape's already there, and then some

I'll definitely try it out! He basically wants some images without caring too much about the background. My cousin is a PP expert and he'll be doing some work on it too. I just have to make his life easier getting rid of all that unwanted specular reflections.

Here's are my results from last night's gig. I used my 5D and Sigma's 50mm f/2.8 macro on a tripod. Shot in manual mode at ISO 400.

As an example of how hard shooting glass can be, the first image is an example of all the specular reflections that could end up on the bottle if I'm not careful. I shot the pictures in my living room cluttered with junk. It was shot at f/2.8 just to get a quick metering.

The second image is a more serious attempt after trying many different lighting variations. I could not get rid of the small light spot in the bottle as can be seen here. I set the aperture to f/8 to get good DoF and adjusted the shutter speed accordingly to 1/8s.

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Here are two more shots with filled cups. I hope it is good enough to water your mouths! The "33" beer was exceptionally great! Please feel free to comment/criticize/prai​se!

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Last but not least... my improvised studio. The red backdrop and table cloth were my bed sheets. The backdrop was taped to my glass windows. Some foam sheets were placed strategically to prevent unwanted reflections and create nice borders on the bottle. The 580EX was just a transmitter (i.e. it did not fire) to the 420EX on my right side at an off-angle to avoid the glare on the bottle's label. Unfortunately I could not get rid of some hot spots on the glass. It will have to be PS'ed later. Since this is only for web use, the quality did not have to be the best.

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IMHO, you can try bounce lighting instead of direct. Meaning, the light is coming the flash to a reflector and then bounced onto the bottle. If you direct a light toward the bottle, you will see a hotspot no matter how you diffused the light.On the other hand, you can always use photoshop to clone out the hotspot. Hope it helps.

I tried a shoot-thru umbrella but that didn't work because the umbrella got 'imprinted' onto the bottle. I also tried using a diffuser screen in front of the flash and that helped a little but also showed a little on the glass bottle. I did not try a reflecting umbrella... I also tried lighting only the background but using direct flash, and that also caused a hot spot. I tried putting the 420EX to the right side pointing into the foam reflector, but I didn't like the results (deleted the images unfortunately). I have yet to find a perfect setup. I gotta start reading more and studying the links above better. Thanks for your input.

I don't like the blanket at all! If they are going to remove it then ok. But you should never have something like that as a floor. Hard surface is best.

Shoot at 100 ISO. Its not moving, So why such a fast ISO?

Only 1 of the three cards looks to be reflecting any light on the bottle.

If you dont have a way to fire the flash that is on the camera, if you take it off. Remove the Stofen and point it to the left and have it bounce off the cards. This will soffen the light. As well as remove the hot spot in the center of the bottle.

Glass is hard. Take some time and play with everything you have there. Change the positions and relations to each ohther. You will get it. But most importantly you will learn!!!

bieber wrote in post #5823370
To get a little more sophisticated with this trick, you can put a sheet of white paper on the background behind the bottle. Then, put the camera on a tripod, get the composition you want, and then take the camera off and replace it with some variety of light. Now the outline of the bottle should show clearly on the paper: just trace it, and then cut the shape out and discard the rest of the paper, leaving that paper cutout in place. This, of course, is only an issue if you want to photograph a light beer on a dark background. If you're using a white background, then the white shape's already there, and then some

Back in the film daze we did what you are saying, now you only need to put a reflector behind the bottle and paint in the result in post if the camera is on a tripod. We used to use a gold foil for this, again not really needed for digital since you can also change the color in post. An overhead light source works best for this.

Flag the bottle from the left strobe
Keep the shutter speed at sync speed and see what you get, especially with the cold bottles.

And move the non-background panel a bit to the front.

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5841949
Flag the bottle from the left strobe
Keep the shutter speed at sync speed and see what you get, especially with the cold bottles.

And move the non-background panel a bit to the front.

The left strobe (580EX on camera) does not fire. When I did try direct frontal flash, I got a very obvious hot spot. I tried to flag it but instead what happened is that I ended up covering the light needed to light the scene. You can see the small piece of black cardboard on the that I used for that. I tried pointing the 580EX to the ceiling, but I got TWO hot spots instead! Diffusing the 580EX make the hot spots larger.

The shutter speed was determined as follow. I did a full auto shot which resulted in f/2.8 and 1/60s at ISO 400. Since I wanted f/8, I lowered the shutter speed to 1/8s. In retrospect, that was a beginner's mistake, because the bottle is not affected from this change (it's illuminated by flash), only the darker background is. Hmm... if I tried the shutter speed at sync speed, I think I would only blacken the background more... is that desirable?