Flushed
ISO 200, 50mm, f/1.7, 1/60sec, +2 EV, IS on
It’s quick and easy to get studio quality lighting in your home with almost no additional expense. Here’s a quick look behind the scenes of this photo:
As you can see, all I did was set up a couple of white boards on the kitchen counter under a fluorescent light. I learned this trick when I was Design Director at Griffin Technology. Most of the pre-2007 product shots were done this way on a cubicle desk using the fluorescent light under the overhead storage bin. I’m happy to say that today Griffin employs a professional photographer and has a full photo studio.
For this shot I dialed in +2 EV exposure compensation to adjust for the all-white background. By shooting RAW I was able to simply click the white balance eye dropper tool in Lightroom on the white background to dial out the color cast of the fluorescent light. I pushed up the exposure an additional +0.83 to get the high key look I was going for. Other than that, all I did was tweak the Vibrance a touch and added a bit of sharpening.
Here’s another composition using the same set up:
By the way, the subject of these photos is the wonderful Corbières Domaine De Fontsainte Gris de Gris 2007 rosé imported by Kermit Lynch. This is one of my absolute favorite wines. It has a unique combination of dryness and intense fruit flavors. I picked it up for less than $10 at Kroger. Real men drink rosé ;-)
December 13th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Great idea…well done. How do you have time for this?
December 13th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Jim- If you’re asking how I have time to set up and take this picture, well that is easy. This took less time than putting on my coat and heading outside to find something to shoot ;-)
If you’re asking how I have time to create this blog, well that’s a bit more complicated. I’m currently on break between semesters. My plan is to hit the blog hard over the next few weeks to get it up and running. Then, when school starts back in January I can maintain it with a post a day, or so. Check out my personal blog for more info about my return to school and what all’s going on there. Thanks for stopping by!
December 15th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Robert — I meant how do you have time to do everything else (family, school, etc) AND be able to do this great-looking tutorial website. I was asking in more of an “I am amazed” kind of way, not literally.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Jim, two words: Christmas break. :D
Thanks!
December 18th, 2008 at 6:50 am
First of all congratulation for such a great site. I learned a lot reading article here today. I will make sure i visit this site once a day so i can learn more.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
[...] all the “studio” shots for this post were shot on my kitchen counter. 0Digg [...]