Lighting problem

I've been having a go at more product photography. I'm really bad with lighting for this kind of stuff and would appreciate some help. My normal forte is events where I just use a single flash and a stofen - that works out just great. Products is where I need the help.


Here are two images. The setup - my XT on a tripod. Curtains are closed allowing ambient light to filter in and illuminate the scene.

One shot has a black felt background from Michaels. It's not really, IMHO, black enough. To the naked eye it looks a little purple. The other has the same black glossy paper sheet used for the bottom of the one shot but curled so that it forms the background.

My problem is that I want the background to be jet black. I might be able to achieve this with flash (I have 4 speedlights and an STE-2) but I'm betting that a small halogen desklight setup is the way to go.

Comments and suggestions please...

Hi Rhys,

Do this at night or use a large room. You need separation from your background. Over expose your subject and when you bring it down in PS, the background will be totally black.

Now are you intending to have the room reflected in the bottle? If not, that needs to be black too!

Asher

This is a little better. I think though that I need better light control than I can get using daylight or my flash. I need to be able to see what I am illuminating. To that end I think I might try to find a couple of halogen gooseneck lamps.

Rhys- Great start with the equipment you have on hand.
Reflective objects like glass are some of the most challenging products to do well. They reveal every aspect of your lighting, and if you can learn to do it right everything else will be easy. The glass itself is reflective and transparent, so you can reflect a large soft source from the side or top to create a highlight that will separate it from the background, this is sometimes called "white-line". If you light it from the back the flatter parts will brighten or you will see through them, and the curves of the glass will darken in proportion- "black-line". Try putting a light source behind and leaving the shutter open longer in combination with your flash (you may need to soak the label off the back). The front label will benefit from some directional lighting to give it a graduation and shape. As you found with Chambord bottle a big soft light makes gold shine well.
Good luck, have fun. Light is all about direction, quality (specular to diffuse), and color. Amount, we can manipulate withe shutter and aperture.

Dave

I found this to be a very helpful resource, not too in depth or sophisticated but that suited me!

http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/HowTo_page.htm

Jewelry and glass/silver photography is among the very hardest photography there is!