Turkish Hookah

jands · Feb 27, 2011

My wife and I wanted to buy a Hookah for display for some time now. We finally brought one home, and I couldn't resist taking some shots of it. Admittingly, I first tried this with a black backdrop with just my SB-600 as the light source, but that didn't work out so well. So I turned on some lights and swapped the black for white and produced this. Would love to hear comments and critique.

EXIF:
Shutter and Aperture: 1/80 @ F13
ISO: 160
Lens: 18-105mm 3.5-5.6 (VR)

Setup:
I used two pieces of white poster board. I placed one of them flat on the surface holding the Hookah and tapered it against the wall, creating a curve. The other board I taped on the wall overlapping the bottom piece, slightly.
For lighting, I used a SB-600 fired through a 13" white umbrella, positioned camera left. To help fill in the shadows and make the backdrop brighter, I used a 105 watt compact fluorescent through another umbrella, camera right.

Post-Process:
I sharpened the image a touch, and brightened up the background as it was kinda of grey.

AverageJoe · Feb 27, 2011

This is a good product shot, but beyond that there's not much to say. What is the intention of the photo?

jands · Feb 27, 2011

Honestly... practice. My intent was to make it look like a product shot. I figured this was the best way to show off the Hookah and I wanted the practice. I'm definitely open to other suggestions though.

AverageJoe · Feb 27, 2011

jands said:
Honestly... practice. My intent was to make it look like a product shot.

Then I think you hit it spot on. If you wanted to you could take it one step further by offering your customers close up detailed shots.

tyler_h · Feb 28, 2011

You mention background as kind of grey... shooting in A? cause if you just use evaluative metering and the white background is a fair portion of your picture your camera will adjust it down to grey... manually expose if you didnt this time. Will give you better control over the final image in this controlled environment.

inaka · Feb 28, 2011

Looks like a really good job to me.
Nice tones and solid sharpness.

jands · Feb 28, 2011

AverageJoe said:
Then I think you hit it spot on. If you wanted to you could take it one step further by offering your customers close up detailed shots.

Thanks! I'll have to play around with it, I appreciate the suggestion.

tyler_h said:
You mention background as kind of grey... shooting in A? cause if you just use evaluative metering and the white background is a fair portion of your picture your camera will adjust it down to grey... manually expose if you didnt this time. Will give you better control over the final image in this controlled environment.

I actually shot in Manual, but I must admit I have a hard time grasping getting white to be white and black to black. I mean, I think I understand WHY white turns out grey, but other than throwing more light at white, I don't know how to fix it.