Swirling Wine – Behind the Scenes

[yelvertoft]

It’s been a while since anyone has posted a “Behind the Scenes” description in the Flash Photography section, so I thought I’d remedy the situation.

For my Swirling Wine Shot, I wanted a still life image, with movement, if that makes sense. To freeze the movement of the wine I knew I’d have to use flash with a backlight to give life and light to the wine in the glass.

The basic setup was two cardboard boxes, one low and squat, one tall and wide. These were placed on the table with about 4-5 inches between them. A reel of white paper was draped between then and up the side of the taller box to give a white backdrop to the image. In the gap between the boxes, a cheap basic flashgun was placed, set to output at full power. This flash was fitted with a (Chinese clone) Stofen diffuser and a simple remote “peanut trigger”. You could probably buy a flash, diffuser and trigger off ebay for <£25 for the lot. This provides the backlighting/uplighting and is the light that will shine through the wine.

A sheet of glass, taken from an old picture frame, and painted matt black on its lower face (known as “Rudra glass” here on WPF) was placed on top of the squat box. This is the base on which the wine glass is placed.

Above the whole setup is mounted a Metz 58AF-1 flashgun, firing into a 36” bounce brolly. The brolly provides top lighting for the scene, diffusing shadows and giving balance to the lighting, without the toplight, it would look very harsh. The Metz provides the trigger for the remote peanut on the lower flashgun.

The Metz is hooked up to the camera using a simple, single contact, remote flash lead. Hotshoe to PC contact (and vice versa) leads together with PC contact leads are available for pin money compared to brand specific dedicated remote flash cables. Ebay or 7day shop are good sources.

Either side of the sheet of Rudra glass, are two vertical sheets of black card, these sheets give a black reflection to the sides of the glass stem. Without these, the stem has no definition and the stem disappears against the white paper backdrop; they give the edges of the bowl of the glass additional definition.

The camera was set to “X” mode – flash synch mode. This is essentially setting the shutter speed to 1/180th, the fastest the Pentax K10D will synch flash and allowing the aperture to be varied to adjust the exposure. Most importantly, this mode prevents any pre-flash trigger from the hotshoe. Any pre-flash pulse (i-TTL or E-TTL in Nikon or Canon speak) would cause the remote peanut to be triggered before the exposure was begun. You’d have to read your camera’s handbook to figure out how to stop pre-trigger flash on your specific model.

With an empty wine glass in place, the Metz was set to manual power mode and set to a low power level of 1/16th to simply act as a trigger for the remote peanut without significantly affecting the overall lighting. The aperture on the lens was adjusted until the backlighting from the remote flash between the boxes was right to illuminate the backdrop and give the desired effect.

Once the uplighting had been set by adjusting the lens aperture, the power level of the Metz was adjusted to give the right balance to the toplighting. This was eventually set to ¼ power.

Once the lighting had been setup, it was simply a case of keep pouring/repouring until the right swirl was captured.

Picture of setup, with closest black card removed for clarity, shown below.

Link to final image.
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...9295&ppuser=34

Hope this gives someone an idea to try a bit of experimentation with flash. Get stuck in, it costs nothing with digital.

Duncan

[John Hallas]

Thanks for posting that Duncan. When you say 'keep pouring/repouring' do you mean replacing the same wine or adding new contents to the glass as previous contents had been used for essential sustenenace during what was obviously an arduos task

[Gidders]

Great write up Duncan - thanks

[yelvertoft]

Originally Posted by johnnybike

Thanks for posting that Duncan. When you say 'keep pouring/repouring' do you mean replacing the same wine or adding new contents to the glass as previous contents had been used for essential sustenenace during what was obviously an arduos task

I don't know if I dare post this.........

Mrs Y had glugged back the thick end of a bottle on the Firiday night, I found a generous glassful sitting in the bottom of a stoppered bottle on Saturday morning. It wasn't brilliant wine to begin with, and after sitting with so much air in the bottle overnight it would be pretty undrinkable. The best use for it was as a photographic prop. It was the same wine going backwards and forwards. The essential sustenance had already taken place the previous night.

Mrs Y did comment as she was pouring that she hadn't expected the wine she'd left to be put to this use.

[Mrs Yelvertoft]

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

I don't know if I dare post this.........

Very brave

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

Mrs Y had glugged back the thick end of a bottle on the Firiday night, I found a generous glassful sitting in the bottom of a stoppered bottle on Saturday morning.

Seem to remember two glasses being poured!

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

It wasn't brilliant wine to begin with

Have to agree with this!

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

The best use for it was as a photographic prop.

Agree again, must remember to buy a better class of wine

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

It was the same wine going backwards and forwards.

Don't I know it...I was the one doing the pouring. The dining room smelled like a very bad brewery by the time we had finished. Still, it was worth it in the end.

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

............... Hope this gives someone an idea to try a bit of experimentation with flash. Get stuck in, it costs nothing with digital.

Duncan

Excellent behind the scenes of a BRILLIANT shot Duncan.
I had a bit of a chuckle about the title of the original flash thread when I read your image write up, and I can see that you are definately having FUN.

Don

[andy153]

Thanks Duncan, great write up & thanks both of you for leaving enough in the bottle to inspire such a great shot - I'll have to start practicing - I suppose the real secret is how much you leave in the bottle for the shot