Alright, Let's Do This Again. (aluminum foil, glass tables and shiny things..)

I really have no idea why I stopped posting stuff on this blog. I will just charge it to laziness, and yeah, lack of drive. It happens, sometimes. With that being said, this will be a very, very short post. I didn't take lots of BTS shots on the day because I really didn't know that I would be reviving this blog. Besides, I will be posting the youtube link where I got this awesome, awesome trick.

Anyway, let's do this thing again. On to expensive sparkly things!

It is very rare that I get out of this studio for a photo shoot. Usually, products are just sent to me and just shoot it on a white background, and then I pass it to our graphic artist and then call it a day. This time it was different. I needed to go on location and shoot these rings, which were to expensive to transport to our office so I had to be there and shoot.

This was not my first time to go there. I would be shooting the same rings that I shot a year ago, and I only found that out the moment I got to see the rings. Imagine my surprise.

But. The night before, I was scouring the internet on how to shoot rings, and I stumbled on a technique that required aluminum foil! Two posts ago, which was last January, I was pondering on the idea on how to use aluminum foil in product photography and here it is! It was exactly what I was looking for.

The setup.

Setup was really simple, just watch the link below for the detailed explanation. I just added two foam boards in front of the rings so that the white of the boards will reflect on the rings. The camera was in between the boards, I just forgot to draw it above.

I used a Canon 18-135 f3.5-5.6, at 135mm, with 1/125 shutter speed. 400 ISO.

Basically, you just need to put a light on top of glass, put it next to the rings, put crumpled foil on the background, put two reflectors and voila!

Here's the final product!

 Sidenotes:
- I will really update this blog regularly from now on.
- Macro lenses are damn important for my line of work.
- One light, yo.

Youtube link:




Cheers guys!

Diapers and bottles.

Finally!

After being busy over the holidays, I now have time to post another entry on this blog. These shots were taken last December, but I didn't really have enough time to update this, so there.

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I remember watching something from youtube on how to shoot bottles inside the studio. So when I was tasked to shoot these bottles, I immediately tried the things I learned.

Diapers.

The "super absorbent" things inside a diaper are sodium polyacrylate which are VERY water absorbent. When these things come to contact with water, they become these crystal like substance that can be used as "ice". 

So, why not just use real ice?

That's simple, ice melts. Fast. And when inside the studio with hot lights flashing all around, it would be such a pain to use the real thing.

So we substitute it with diaper guts to make life so much easier and for the shoot to be relatively mess free.

Like so.

Now on to photography.

It was a simple set up really. We have two illustration boards, one on the back of the subject, and one on the  right side. 

I put a folder beside the subject to catch and reflect some light from the big soft box on the right.

A snooted strobe was on the back of the bottle to illuminate the juice inside of the bottle.

And a bare bulb gelled strobe hidden behind the illustration board on the right. This is to give background color depending on the flavor of each juice.

I tilted the camera because the shots needed for livingsocial's website needed to be on landscape. This way, I can put more of the bottle in the shot so not to waste space.

Now on to the messy part.

I had to put the "ice" on the bottle via chop sticks at first but got tired and put it by hand. Which was very, very messy.

The camera was set at f9.5, 1/180 and iso 100 at 50mm

Then we take the shot! A little post work and we are done!

Sidenotes:

- I also used a spray bottle with water inside to create water droplets

- I actually need another strobe to light the label

Happy new year people!