weekly overbez's 52 in 2014... Week 52 - SUPPORT added... *** FINISHED ***

Delta Skies said:
I'm loving all the elements in this image. ......
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Thank Peter - the thing that makes me happiest about it... is that it was kind of a one shot moment, I had the camera settings right, and managed to not muck up anything else. Had I had more time before poppage occurred I would have definately gone smaller aperture, maybe even lower ISO and tripod, cleaned round the glass and maybe even flash... but never got the chance!

*Sarah* said:
Well done another good week!!:)
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Thanks Sarah, this is when I find it hard, living up to previous weeks and producing something interesting. Pray to the theme gods.. :)
 
overbez said:
......I had to dunk the chap into the bubble mix, as anything dry, will simply pop the bubble, whereas anything wet, (even a knife) can be slid through.



A simple shot of a bubble on a glass sheet, dead simple, but it's finding that extra something that gives me the troubles, the difference it makes though is well worth the effort!
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AhhhhHaaaaaa I see :)
 
Hi ya

Cracking shot , lovely reflection of the window in both bubble & surface , nice to see a non black bg & perfect focus of both bubble & model....top shot mister :clap:
 
Week 5 - Smokey

Never tried smoke art, no incense sticks, don't smoke and don't want to stink the house out.... so decided to go product shot of a lovely smokey single malt. :)

Wish I had a bigger, less scratched sheet of glass though.. :(



Week 5 - SOOC

My trigger's arrived, so this was my first time with proper Off Camera Flash, so was quite a learning experience.

There's a few little area's I'm not happy with - but I won't mention them yet!
 
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Excellent - nice reflections in the base and only a teeny bit of too much light reflection on the fromt of the glass (y)
 
overbez said:
There's a few little area's I'm not happy with - but I won't mention them yet!
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Sonriendo said:
only a teeny bit of too much light reflection on the fromt of the glass (y)
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Yep - that's one of them..... had a similar issue with the top of the label, but developed a second image, and cut out the label from that, overlayed it, and used gradient on a layer mask to bring just the top section back.
 
overbez said:
Yep - that's one of them..... had a similar issue with the top of the label, but developed a second image, and cut out the label from that, overlayed it, and used gradient on a layer mask to bring just the top section back.
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Ahhh yes I can see that now - glass is very difficult to not get flash back and reflection - I'd be damn pleased with this though (y)
 
Hi Graham, lovely product shot you have done really well with all those shiny surfaces, you have the colour of the whisky perfect too :clap::clap:
 
Ah mate that's a great shot, I like the tones of the whiskey and good reflections on the glass. If it had a seamless white BG and the sheet of glass dodged out to make it white (minus the reflections obviously lol), that would finish it off for me (y)

Well done, really nice work.
 
Good thinking Graham, colour looks well against the grey to white bg, very good (y)

Don't know if it was possible, but I keep wanting to see a little more reflection, top of glass and a bit more of the label? :thinking:
 
alsjazzera said:
Hi Graham, lovely product shot you have done really well with all those shiny surfaces, you have the colour of the whisky perfect too :clap::clap:
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Cheers Allan, tried loads of different ways of lighting it, and only ended up with a few small highlights I had to clone away. Nice that it finished up pretty much (slightly better in fact) than what was in my head to start with!

Bobby Gold said:
If it had a seamless white BG and the sheet of glass dodged out to make it white (minus the reflections obviously lol),
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Cheers Simon - gone with half of your suggestions, the glass sheet is now white apart from the reflections, and I also had to dodge the top corners better after seeing it on my phone last night. (y)

Judi said:
Smoke... can't smell the smoke ;)
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Thanks Judi - relevance to theme is assured, see extract from tasting note below.. :) I tried using the flash as main light, and lighting the BG with torches, but that didn;t work, so I went with small LED torch to light the bottle from the front, and then the flash fired at the wall behind to blow that out, but leave the circular gradient behind the glass base, as well as bouncing the light through the liquid from behind.

Tasting Note by The Chaps at Master of Malt
The nose is rich and smoky...... There are notes of cut hay and wood smoke rising with a gentle estery sweetness...... The smoke wafts with notes of seaweed......
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Phil-D said:
Don't know if it was possible, but I keep wanting to see a little more reflection, top of glass and a bit more of the label? :thinking:
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There was a bit more (as seen in the SOOC version), but that made the shot very tall and thin..... hence I cropped some off. Really need a bigger sheet of glass to open up more compositional options.

Set up shot below for interest.....
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Right, sorry Graham, I hadn't clicked the sooc link. Yes, I see what you mean now by the sheet of glass being a little too small :)
 
Yep - had to clone some extra into those triangle bits as it was...

There has been and is going to be a link to the SOOC image each week... Proving useful I think so far.
 
That's a beautiful shot. I like it as it is actually. Clean, sharp and lovely deep colour of the malt. Many thanks for posting the pic of how you shot it. I am impressed at what you can do with flash.

How are you finding the trigger? It looks from the pic as if you just have the one trigger, is that so and how does it work? I am tempted to try OCF but don't know anything about it really. Time for some research I think...
 
Thanks Merc... Flash is a Yongnuo 560 iii (which has a built in receiver, or will fire in (optical) slave mode when it senses another flash. Trigger is a YN RF-603. Manual flash only, not TTL. No problems at all. At £55 from amazon and £12 from HK via ebay I think its great value.

I literally stuck the trigger on the camera, they're both preset to channel 1, set the flash power and zoom, and away you go.
 
Good work all round Graham, ocf for the first time, improvisation on props and some good skills on the photoshop side of things too (y)
I like the image and to be honest never noticed any of the little flaws you mentioned.

Oh and for info, I bought glass from ikea, it is designed for going on top of chest of drawers and suchlike but it makes a great base for this type of photography and cheap as chips as well, which appeals to my Scottishness;)
 
Super image. I'm sure the makers would be pleased to see it. You've really captured the colour of the whisky nicely. Yes it might have been better with an infinity curve but I like the lighting you've given the bottom of the background to set it off against the glass surface.
 
Hi Graham

Smokey - really good image. Good colours and comp, nice lighting and spot on for the placement of the line where the glass meets the b/g. I partic like the larger reflections in the image link - as you say, pity about the size of glass, as if the stripey material was covered then in my view that would be a better shot -
Still it is a cracking image and exudes the warmth of the whisky.

But there is something wrong :thinking: How come the seal on the bottle does not appear to be broken and the bottle appears full and certainly the amount in the glass did not come out of that neck:rolleyes:
Mmmmm, ... hope you weren't drinking cold tea :arghh: :D Or even watering the whisky and trying to replace the seal - it looks a bit scrunched. :jawdrop:
 
blakester said:
I like the image and to be honest never noticed any of the little flaws you mentioned.
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Thanks Iain - little things like smears inside the glass, and bubbles on the surfaces... but I was working quite close in touching out highlights and such like...

Delta Skies said:
Yes it might have been better with an infinity curve but I like the lighting you've given the bottom of the background to set it off against the glass surface.
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Thanks Peter - pure white BG would have been different - not necessarily better, as the etched logo on the glass would have completely gone. Flash should have been aimed a bit higher really.

susiejb said:
:clap: great image....I really like it a lot....very eye catching.
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Thanks Susie

superpippo said:
But there is something wrong :thinking: How come the seal on the bottle does not appear to be broken and the bottle appears full and certainly the amount in the glass did not come out of that neck:rolleyes:
Mmmmm, ... hope you weren't drinking cold tea :arghh: :D Or even watering the whisky and trying to replace the seal - it looks a bit scrunched. :jawdrop:
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Ooooohhhh, that'll be me busted then! I have no full whisky bottles in my house, :(, So a bit of artistic licence employed here. The bottle has to be full to capture the tones in the curve of the shoulders of the bottle, an empty glass sat beside a full bottle simply doesn't work. So... not only was it cold tea, it was also watered down to match the colour of whisky. And the seal was opened, and the cork simply put back on.

This was the video I'd watched a few weeks before that I took inspiration from.

 
Theres nothing I can really add that hasn't been mentioned Graham, but I really like it. Could easily be a product shot and it lit beautifully. I wouldn't be too bothered about a bit too much light on the surface, I think the high key look works well (y)
 
Dark Knight said:
Thanks for the set-up image as well... helps lots of us out to see how you did this !!!
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You're welcome... nice to know you can get 95% of the way there with a very basic setup - two boxes, cheap mini tripod, LED torch, bedroom wall, black tablecloth. Going forward, I can see how to get that last 5%, but feel backgrounds, a special, "photography only" sheet of glass, softboxes / diffusers make it unreachable at the moment.

Doing the best with what I have is where I'm at!
 
Gorgeous image. (y)

and yes .. thanks for discussing your methods, I wish there was more of that on here.

Doing the best with what I have is where I'm at too!
 
Brilliant Work Graham (as always) and thanks for sharing all your tips and techniques with us....I like how clean and sharp this looks....makes it look really sophisticated.

Guess my only small crit would be the unsymmetrical / off centre highlight curve on the background behind the subjects (y)

Oh...yes, and the matching branded glass is a classy touch.
 
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Tissue paper stuck to a cardboard frame makes a great diffuser to turn your flash into a softbox. ;)

Anyways, I just wanted to say how much I was impressed by your bubble shot, great stuff mate! (y)
 
JasonGlyn said:
Guess my only small crit would be the unsymmetrical / off centre highlight curve on the background behind the subjects (y)
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Cheers Jason, flash was to one side, guess if I'd have tilted it, it might have been more level, but I was aiming for a behind the bottle centre. :)

blondie606 said:
that's a cracking shot , no crit at all from , love everything from the lighting , the warm tone of the drink , the smidge of reflection....super product shot mister :clap::clap:
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Thanks Lynne, it doesn;t taste as good as it looks though - as it's lukewarm tea!!

Brian_of_Bozeat said:
Anyways, I just wanted to say how much I was impressed by your bubble shot, great stuff mate! (y)
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Cheers Brian - nice to know you;re keeping your eye on what I'm up to. (y)
 
Week 6 - Mineral

Can't say that I'm loads excited by this one, Is actually rock salt, on a granite worktop in the bathroom - giving not much room to work.... I wanted to pick up the sparkles in the granite but it didn't work.

So here we go...



Week 6 - SOOC 1
Week 6 - SOOC 2
 
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Hi Graham, i sort of like it but not sure about the composition :thinking: cant put my finger on why just seems a little unbalanced
 
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