Cali Kid Corals

Questions on: Reflective surfaces, lighting, and more

oi, i wish I had more lighting experience to help you out. if I have time I will put together my ghetto product studio again and put a rotifeast bottle I have and see what I can do.

it's notorious for plastics and such to have glare no matter what =/

keep us updated on what you find. hopefully I can get around to trying some stuff out too.

have you looked at fredmiranda.com's lighting / studio forum?
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/board/44

Definitely a good resource. You can also try asking about taking product shots of bottles, I'm sure you'll get a lot of feedback.
 
This is the little light box and hoopty lighting I was talking about :D

301660023.jpg


I'll definitely keep this thread updated as I proceed :)
 
oh darn, that still doesn't work?

hmm, try diffusing the lights on the side and moving them further away... if you haven't already.

put it on aperture priority mode and let the shutter speed adjust itself.

see what happens.
 
What I need is 3 lights. One on top, and two on the sides. I'm shooting some in aperture priority right now and that does help. Funny thing is, I was doing it before I was posting on the net tonight :D

I'm being far too anal about the hot spot. It's just an artifact of what I'm shooting and ther is no total fix like I want. Just like computers don't do what I want, when I want them to :D

I want it now, well, yesterday, and DONE!
 
I'm down to one light, so I'm only doing top down right now :) I'm picking up a few more lights today. I'm also ditching the light box for the most part. The sides reflect on the bottle and cause visual damage to the label. That is far worse the a hot spot on the upper portion of the bottle for me :( So I'm just going to use the back drop. I did some with white last night. White is better for when I have a clear part to the bottle, like Tigger-Pods or Macro-Feast. The grey is better for the rest of my product line.

Here's what I did before yesterday:

TP.jpg


dRF6oz.jpg


dRD6oz.jpg


dPFL6oz.jpg


dPF6oz.jpg


dMF16oz.jpg


Dap6oz.jpg


Here is one from last night:

DSC_04721TP6.jpg
 
I should mention these are post Photoshop. Most hot spots have been removed. Some reflections have been removed as well.
 
They look way better.

Just a question - would it not be easier to flatten/dull the shininess of the caps or do you really want the caps to appear glossy?
 
I would have to spray paint them with a flat white. I'll try that next week when I get a chance to get down and dirty like that :) Thanks for the suggestion :)
 
Knowing the plastic used in our caps, I can honestly tell you no chemical I have access to will haze the surface with out major damage. That's saying alot too as I have access to a lot of chemicals (acids, solvents, etc). The caps are designed to be used with solvents, acids, etc :)

Nail polish itself may work, but do they even have flat white nail polish? I think spray paint is the best idea.
 
The detail of the sanding would show in the pic. I could haze it with some 6000 grit that I have, but I suspect it too will show up in the pick in too much detail :(
 
Maybe using walnut shells, but most of the beads we have here are made out of nearly the same material as the cap :(

I'm just going to drop mit into the spray booth and give it a light coat of flat white spray paint :)
 
Change the settings on your top source of light while using that box rig of your's.

To get a softer source of light, bounce the light into an umbrella to get the lighting to wrap around the cap and the object. Here's a quick shot using 2 flashes (no PS; converted from RAW to JPEG).

articpods.jpg


Shooting into an umbrella you should get better lighting. The above is w/2 SB-800s with omnibounces attached (can't find my Gary Fong...). The one sitting above is pointed at the ceiling. With an umbrella, you'll get a better wraparound. You also won't get the ugly BG and the reflection as in my test shot. The above is just a quick and dirty sample.
 
You just happen to have a full bottle laying around? Nice :)

Your hired, but I pay in coral and fish/coral food :D
 
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