Photographing cocktails and glassware

[JBPhotog]

Your results will be what they are with the gear you are using unless you can manually expose, set the white balance accurately and use lights of known quality. The fact you are mixing flash with LED constant lights will make the job of perfecting white very challenging. I see three distinct highlights which indicates you are not diffusing your light source. There is also a great deal of pixelation in this sample, is this your phone photo?

I would suggest you look for samples of what you are trying to achieve and then deconstruct them. FWIW, A soft box from above and to the back does a nice job of shots like this to illuminate the coloured drink contents and add some highlights to the crushed ice reflections. Front lighting will kill any sparkle and deaden the colours.

 

[thesun]

Here is a pull back and a closer shot of some of the lighting options I have available. The two LED lights can be warmer or cooler within a certain range. I've ordered a grey card to help set the exposure. My (really crummy) Youngno ring light, an old Promaster flash (which has a little strobe-triggered doohickey that lets me fire it when another flash fires) and my Canon Speedlight 580 are all possible...I don't currently have any umbrellas or other such lighting gear. This area has light from two sides. If the corner of the MyStudio background is 12 o'clock, there's light at 1 and 5, natural daylight that can range quite a bit on cloudy days or be very bright and too direct on sunny ones. Part of the trouble is that this is the dining table, so I have to set up and take down quickly to ensure this doesn't get spilled on or wrecked by other household members.

There is also an indoor light above this setup, just LED 60watt bulbs.

I have generally tried to use the small LED lights shown to eliminate dark shadows.

As far as the other photo, it only let me upload a thumbnail, not sure why. That probably explains the pixelation.

I have also been reading the Strobist blog. It is not impossible to invest in additional gear but I'd love to find that I can make good use of what I have here. Perhaps with a simple handmade bounce board or other such tool? If I have the remote strobe-trigger for the Promaster, do I need a transmitter setup like Strobist suggests?

Thank you all again for the comments, suggestions, and help. I really appreciate it. I find that the lighting is such a different world than what I'm used to, landscapes and outdoor shots, that this is really a challenge. I feel like I SHOULD have enough gear to be able to get much better results, so it's probably that I'm doing things wrong rather than that I don't have equipment.

Any thoughts about making better use of this would be fantastic.

 

[paigew]

@thesun


There is also an indoor light above this setup, just LED 60watt bulbs. Turn it off!

I have generally tried to use the small LED lights shown to eliminate dark shadows. The LED lights are creating a huge problem for you with shadows. I would not use them right now.

In my opinion you should look into a one light setup for these. This is easy to do and will produce good, professional results.

I think you should take advantage of the natural light. I know you said it was either too dim or too bright, but i'd love to see how it looks anyway with the set up like I show below. Depending on how bright it is, you can move your backdrop closer/farther to the window. If you don't like the results of this, I would then try to use your on camera, bounced speedlight.

 

[thesun]

Hi @paigew -- thank you for the suggestions!

Really appreciate your taking the time. I can turn off the indoor light, and of course not use the LED small lights. My natural light source varies so much though that I'd love to be able to consistently set up lighting that will eliminate the need for shooting only when it's 2pm outside and sunny (or 4pm and cloudy, etc.). Is there a way to set up the flashes that I currently have to produce a nice, shadow-free, well-lit photo?

When you say "on camera bounced speedlight," we're meaning bounced into a card? An umbrella?

As always, thank you for the help!

 

[paigew]

Hi @paigew -- thank you for the suggestions!

Really appreciate your taking the time. I can turn off the indoor light, and of course not use the LED small lights. My natural light source varies so much though that I'd love to be able to consistently set up lighting that will eliminate the need for shooting only when it's 2pm outside and sunny (or 4pm and cloudy, etc.). Is there a way to set up the flashes that I currently have to produce a nice, shadow-free, well-lit photo?

When you say "on camera bounced speedlight," we're meaning bounced into a card? An umbrella?

As always, thank you for the help!

I'm sorry I didn't realize you needed them consistent each time you shoot. Is there a reason for this? Sometimes moody light can add to your product. Even with your current set up you are getting varied light from that window.

When I say bounced I mean bounced on a wall or ceiling.... Is there a specific shot you are trying to replicate? Or are you just wanting a nice clean white backdrop and a well lot shot? With bounced flash you can overpower the window light to keep it consistent.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

[thesun]

Hi, @paigew -- again, thank you. My specific situation is that I often need to shoot a cocktail, made usually in the evening. I'm looking for a photo that just highlights the drink, makes it look lovely and attractive. "Moody" doesn't quite work for me. I often want to cut the entire background out and just use the drink with a transparent background, too. If you think bouncing the flash off the (white) ceiling will be enough, that's great. Very simple solution! I will try that. Maybe that's all I need to do.

 

[paigew]

Hi, @paigew -- again, thank you. My specific situation is that I often need to shoot a cocktail, made usually in the evening. I'm looking for a photo that just highlights the drink, makes it look lovely and attractive. "Moody" doesn't quite work for me. I often want to cut the entire background out and just use the drink with a transparent background, too. If you think bouncing the flash off the (white) ceiling will be enough, that's great. Very simple solution! I will try that. Maybe that's all I need to do.

Try the ceiling and see what kind of shadow you get. You might need to light the backdrop separately to achieve the look you want.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

[thesun]

Thank you, @paigew -- for "lighting the backdrop separately" what's involved in that? It is a thin opaque plastic. Would I set flashes up behind it?

Very best...

 

[paigew]

Thank you, @paigew -- for "lighting the backdrop separately" what's involved in that? It is a thin opaque plastic. Would I set flashes up behind it?

Very best...

If you want a super bright no shadow background...cut/pasted look...yes you would light your backdrop separately by putting your flash behind the subject and lighting the backdrop so you can overpower any shadows. It might be hard with such a little backdrop. You will need to play with it. You may be able to get it bright enough with just a bounced flash.

Can I see the final result of the drink cut and pasted onto a new image? ...or what do you do with the transparent background?

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

[thesun]

Hi @paigew Sure...Here's one of the shots that worked really well. This is actually taken with my Samsung GS6. Then I adjusted the white balance to get the exposure to what I was looking for, then used paths to draw around the drink, and turned everything to transparent. Then flattened the image so it was all white. I think partly this worked because it wasn't a stemmed drink, so the shadow was easier to deal with. I probably could have removed it entirely but it works as is.

 

[paigew]

Looks good! Let me know how it goes with the speedlite.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

[JBPhotog]

I would suggest you get yourself a soft box to mount your Canon speedlight in and use it as described in my earlier post. I have taken your set up and included suggestions as to softbox placement, you will also need two white bounce cards which you can place to bounce back the soft box illumination on both sides of the glass. If you are shooting above as in your example, you can butt the two cards together at the front and shoot over them. Your flash can do slave triggering and you can use the builtin flash in your camera as the trigger, make sure you deflect it so it does not influence the subject, a small white card or tin foil attached to the front of the camera will suffice.

Its nearly impossible to write in text the exact placement of the softbox but you get the idea form this mockup.

 

[thesun]

@paigew Here's a photo I did last night, with the Canon 7DmII and the Promaster and Speedlite at angles on the side. It was dark so no option for natural light. I think it came out well, but I still had to do a lot of path creation to lift it off the white yet still-had-shadows background. And you can definitely see (like on the upper side of the hat pin) where the path drawing wasn't round enough and it looks cropped. I'm hoping to have a white background white and non-shadowy enough that I can just freehand draw around it and lift it off. So far, it's about 20-30 mins of photo editing per pic to get it looking like this and I still don't really like the result.

Here's the original (reduced, unfortunately, as this won't let me upload the full image):

 

[thesun]

I would suggest you get yourself a soft box to mount your Canon speedlight in and use it as described in my earlier post. I have taken your set up and included suggestions as to softbox placement, you will also need two white bounce cards which you can place to bounce back the soft box illumination on both sides of the glass. If you are shooting above as in your example, you can butt the two cards together at the front and shoot over them. Your flash can do slave triggering and you can use the builtin flash in your camera as the trigger, make sure you deflect it so it does not influence the subject, a small white card or tin foil attached to the front of the camera will suffice.

Its nearly impossible to write in text the exact placement of the softbox but you get the idea form this mockup.

@JBPhotog Thank you for the suggestions! And the diagram is helpful, too! I confess, and with apologies, that I didn't quite understand what you were describing in the earlier post. One, you say "shooting from above" -- is this the source of the light? Because I don't want to restrict myself to top-view-only shots of the actual drink...in fact, while that would be okay once in a while, I think it's not ideal except as a "salt sprinkle" among shots that are various angles of 45 to 0 from the side. I think this shot with the raspberries shows how I might do most shots. Which wouldn't be "above" but rather from the side.

But if you mean to be placing the flash above, then yes, definitely I could try this.

For the two flashes you've shown that are on the side, these would be behind pieces of paper or other such diffusers to reduce glare and reflections, right?

Lastly, when you're using the term "softbox" you are talking about something placed over the flash itself, or do you mean an enclosure with one side open that's made with translucent fabric sides? It seems there are two terms for this word, and I want to be sure I'm envisioning the right thing. It would be relatively easy to create a diffuser for a flash that's held above the drink. Is that what you're meaning?

Thank you again for taking the time to suggest and draw that diagram. It's very useful. I'm sorry to be such a newbie that I'm still unclear as to some of the terms that probably I should already know by now.

 

[JBPhotog]

I would suggest you get yourself a soft box to mount your Canon speedlight in and use it as described in my earlier post. I have taken your set up and included suggestions as to softbox placement, you will also need two white bounce cards which you can place to bounce back the soft box illumination on both sides of the glass. If you are shooting above as in your example, you can butt the two cards together at the front and shoot over them. Your flash can do slave triggering and you can use the builtin flash in your camera as the trigger, make sure you deflect it so it does not influence the subject, a small white card or tin foil attached to the front of the camera will suffice.

Its nearly impossible to write in text the exact placement of the softbox but you get the idea form this mockup.

@JBPhotog Thank you for the suggestions! And the diagram is helpful, too! I confess, and with apologies, that I didn't quite understand what you were describing in the earlier post. One, you say "shooting from above" -- is this the source of the light? Because I don't want to restrict myself to top-view-only shots of the actual drink...in fact, while that would be okay once in a while, I think it's not ideal except as a "salt sprinkle" among shots that are various angles of 45 to 0 from the side. I think this shot with the raspberries shows how I might do most shots. Which wouldn't be "above" but rather from the side.

But if you mean to be placing the flash above, then yes, definitely I could try this.

For the two flashes you've shown that are on the side, these would be behind pieces of paper or other such diffusers to reduce glare and reflections, right?

Lastly, when you're using the term "softbox" you are talking about something placed over the flash itself, or do you mean an enclosure with one side open that's made with translucent fabric sides? It seems there are two terms for this word, and I want to be sure I'm envisioning the right thing. It would be relatively easy to create a diffuser for a flash that's held above the drink. Is that what you're meaning?

Thank you again for taking the time to suggest and draw that diagram. It's very useful. I'm sorry to be such a newbie that I'm still unclear as to some of the terms that probably I should already know by now.

As you can see from your examples the raspberries are looking dull, this is due to front lighting and why not spritz them with some water to moisten them up?

The two white cards are just that white bounce cards they are not diffusion for flashes.

You could use a sheet of diffusion above the subject and aim the flash through the diffusion, we call this a scrim.