The Best Part of the Workout - C&C (BESP)

bazooka

No longer a newbie, moving up!
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I have a desktop wallpaper of Tony Horton (of p90x fame) curling a dumbell and I knew I'd like to recreate that someday. With the BESP assignment to do a beverage product-type shot, I knew it'd be awsome to work that into the background to give the product a link to what it's used for... working out.

This shot took a few hours to get setup the way I wanted it, and even then I felt really restricted by the crappy clamp lights and space I had to work with (more on this later in the "What I learned" section).

f/4
1/20
ISO 640
50mm *1.6
(Tamron f/2.8 17-50mm)

RecoveryDrink1.jpg


The only thing that bugs me about the shot is that I blew out the details in the powder. I think this is a result of the light being about half the distance from the powder than from the jug.

This was a tough shoot. I took about 30 posed shots, which required me to run back and forth between each one , engage the timer, run back to the spot, pick up the weight, pose, repeat. I was sweating by the end.

PP included healing out stray powder particles, a few wrinkles in the fabric, trying to regain some of the detail lost in the powder, and healing out the back edge of the table which was only slightly visible.

This was my first product shoot and I learned lot! Here are some things I learned.

1. TRUST the histogram. If it shows clipping, then something is clipping! Don't trust the LCD!

2. White walls and concrete floors create major light spill which is hard to control. I had to rummage through the house to find anything black and relatively large to lay around the scene to prevent reflections and to get the background completely dark around me.

3. Aluminum foil does not make a good snoot as it reflects light at the end in every direction.

4. Light control in a dark scene is critical.

5. Can never have too many c-47 clips.

6. Diffusion paper on the end of a snoot makes the snoot worthless as it just rediffuses the light in all directions.

Feel free to make suggestions on what I could have done to imrove the shot! Thanks for checking it out. :hug::
 
It's obvious by looking at your result that you didn't just throw this together. Some people on here could learn from your example, including myself. Thanks for posting your experience for everyone.
 
Nice picture..

You may want to look into a remote for your camera timer..
 
The label has a purplish hue to it. I will say that the kicker light for the jug is a flourescent bulb, whereas the key light is incadesent. I do agree that the purple color is distracting though... maybe I should shop it out.
 
Dude I loved the picture, but the blew out powder bugged me too... So I fixed it. =D
242sgb9.jpg
 
First off, congratz for setting the bar high for the rest of us on this project. Nice concept and pretty well executed. Here's my 2¢... I'll work back to front.

The light reflecting off the flats of your dumbell is really harsh. You could turn them slightly to remove the glare while still showing its prominence and intregal nature to the subject. I also think that if you had placed a reflector between you and the table, you could've bounced some light back onto you. This would have lifted your back and left arm out of the shadows and help alleviate that floating body feel. I think your DoF is spot on, but still would like to see some connection with your torso.

On the front objects, kinda the same with another reflector aimed at them for background separation, particulary the jug and glass. I would remove the hotspots on each caused by your lighting.

Not much else to say except well done.
 
Thanks! The powder is actually not yellow unless it's wet. It's actually quite white. I added a touch of yellow in PP to try to get some detail back.

Kundalini, I tried multiple angles with the dumbell and this was the only one where it actually looked like a dumbell. The others it was almost invisible.

I was actually trying to cut out the bounce-back from the floor so I put a black cover from my trunk to cut the fill light because I felt it was too much. However, realizing that the foreground is a bit overexposed, I could probably remove this without throwing too much light on me. Also, converting from .tif to .jpg, a lost quite a bit of detail on my torso as the blacks compressed.

I do see how the glass and jug, especially the glass, are getting lost in the black background. I wish I had an extra light or something to throw some backlight on it. I'll see what I can come up with. I'll also try to remember to remove the hotspot on the glass and jug. I did quite a bit of adjusting of the light, subjects, and camera to get most of it to disappear. I was really trying to do my best with the lighting and flagging and composition so I wouldn't have to "fix" anything, but I guess with the crappy homemade studio I've got to work with, I may have done all I can. Yay for photoshop! :D
 
Ok, I am impressed. You put a lot of effort into this and it shows. Great job.

To nit-pick, I agree with bringing a little more light to the figure in the background. You seems to be kinda floating. I personally would like to see just a little more space between the subjects and the edge of the frame. I think this just gets down to personal preference. *shrugs*

Looks like you really had to do some experimenting with lighting. I have always felt it's a good thing to learn and try to do stuff without the "proper" equipment. It builds problem solving skills, and you learn stuff you can use in the future.

:thumbup:


I played around. I like playing around.
Hope you don't mind, Bazooka.

RecoveryDrink11.jpg
 
Last edited:
Wow, I love the edit, that is really awsome! I didn't even consider portrait. Yet another "thing learned" to put on the list. :) It addresses the feeling of everything being spaced out too much which I kind of felt earlier on. It seemed like the scoop and powder were just out there with no real solid tie-in to the rest of the shot. This version DEFINITELY fixes that. Maybe I'll do a reshoot with this recomp in mind.
 
A good job overall, I just have the following gripes - I think it would have worked better as a product advertisement shot without showing the powder itself, just the glass and container (and you obviously). this is definitely a personal preference thing, but I just feel that if it was a 'professional' shot used for advertising they would keep the powder out of the shot. Second, the stuff in front would have been better on a table or similar flat surface, a blanket makes no sense for the product, if you get what I mean? Third, the lighting on the container could be better, mostly just the shadows around the top rim and bottom left and bottom right from the glass. A bit more frontal/slightly camera left light would have been ideal here. I do of course realise that you working with what you had which I congratulate you for, it can be very frustrating. Overall a very nice job! Hope you appreciate my c&c :)
 
^That's cool how Bitter made the lines work. I could see that in a magazine ad for sure.
 
Thanks Fokker, it was really tough to get it to just look like this. You would probably laugh at the stuff I had to work with... I was even using a frying pan as a flag. Vehicle headliner material for one of my snoots. The surface of the table is actually a black velvetine... not really a blanket, but certainly fabric - it was leftover from a poker table I built. I was thinking about using just bare plywood, but I was afraid that the brightness of it would be to distracting. I also considered using a brick or two in the shot... something that reinforced 'toughness' but was also worried about distraction, or maybe not being able to tie it all in.

I have a foldable reflector coming in today which would help with the shadows around the glass and the strange lighting of the jug. I still haven't decided if I'm going to reshoot for sure or not.
 
Hey fellow P90x'er ;) great idea and nice shot.. I noticed that there was a portion of your backdrop not fully thrown into black to the back side of you in the upper right portion of the frame, not sure if its a big deal or not.
That stuff truly is the best part though:D.. didnt like it at first but I love the stuff now... I gotta re-order some! Hah.
 
Thanks j, I don't see it on my uncalibrated crappy monitor at work. Thanks for catching it for me.
 

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