Lighting Setup for 1800 Silver Tequila
Below is an image of my lighting setups for tequila. While you may have seen this on Instagram, this post will provide a bit more insight into my setup and approach that wouldn’t fit into the IG Caption.
This shot was created for a color collaboration I was part of on Instagram. The color; silver. That is why you see the metallic effect on the backdrop of this shot. That was added in post, in Photoshop.
The shape of the bottle makes a huge difference.
This was not an easy bottle to shoot. The sharp edges of the bottle made life fairly difficult for me, but I am quite happy with the outcome of the shot.
Let’s get straight to the setup.
Notice all the paper on the surface of the backdrop, and all around the subject? That is because this bottle, with its sharp edges caught everything. The only way to not have random elements show up in the glass was to literally surround it with white paper.
It probably took over an hour to finally get enough of the surface covered to only require minimal work in Photoshop to hide any table edges within the glass bottle. That is mainly because I couldn’t figure out why I was seeing the edge within the bottle at all. No matter where I thought it was coming from, I was wrong.
Positioning
The bottle was setup to be a few feet away from the back wall, or diffusion paper. This was done so that less light would hit the back wall, and make it appear more gray.
It wasn’t going to end up completely in the dark, however, because it was still surrounded by light, and there was a third light behind that back wall of diffusion paper to create the halo you see in the final image.
Strip Soft Boxes.
Normally for bottles you will have two large strip soft boxes lit on either side the bottle, slightly behind at about a 45 degree angle on the side, facing out towards the camera , ever so slightly. In this case, again because of the angles of the bottle, and the halo setup in the back, the lights were not positioned exactly like that.
The left soft box was more parallel to the bottle, since the halo was on the left. The right soft box was much further back, lighting through the side of the bottle, which was a straight rectangle
Setting it up like this allowed more balanced lighting.
The Halo.
Behind the back wall of diffusion paper was a speed light with a white bulb modifier to create the light that radiates behind the bottle. This was the last piece to complete the effect.
The backdrop, and final pieces of the shot.
This was shot in phases. First, the entire image was shot using a silver, almost mirror-like backdrop that the subject and props rested on. This was to add to the overall silver effect that I was trying to create. Second, the bottle was shot on its own, before the lime, shot glass, and silver measurer (forgive me for not knowing what that is called) were added to the scene for the final shots.
The lime had some putty under it to hold it up a bit higher as it ‘leaned’ against the shot glass filled with water.
The three additional props gain that softer look because of all of the double diffusion in the scene.
Shot on Canon EOS 80D
F/14
ISO 100
SS 1/250
100mm Macro Lens
Both Speedlights double diffused with large Strip Soft Boxes: 1/4 speed at 60mm zoom
Speedlight modified with white bulb: 1/16 speed at 105mm zoom