Any Photographers?

[DM Nathan]

Anyone in here a photographer? Wether it's professional or just as a hobby..I'm just freshly getting into it. Got myself a nice camera, some books, and a goal to take some really nice professional pictures of many mixed drinks. :p

[donuts222]

woah..are you serious, this was the last place i would think to be asked that...yah im an aspiring professional...i actually am going to school for it and ive been doing it for several years....you can check out my stuff if you want

www.flickr.com/photos/michaelgodek

[DM Nathan]

dangggg, you're pretty freakin good! maybe you could help me out with some questions from time to time about aperture and the likes..not fully understanding that yet. :p Hard to get the drink crisp, but I think most of my problem is I need more lighting.

[donuts222]

thanks alot i appreciate it

yah sure man, id be more than happy to answer any questions you have...you can e-mail me if you want or if you have aim you can im me...

gsus.rocks@gmail.com

[Infinity]

Hobbyist here, like to do pictures of flaming shots, layered shots, and martini's.

[DM Nathan]

HOpe you have an easier time taking pics of drinks then i'm having. I think I finally had it all figured out, then a bulb on one of my lights blew..found a spare, then found out the tiny glass fuse busted too, now i'm trying to hunt one of those down. lol.

If you have any tips on taking pics of drinks with a perfectly white background, let mek now!

[donuts222]

to do a white background you need to set up strobes facing the background...that will blow out the background and give you the white you are lookin for

[DM Nathan]

unfortanately I can't afford a strobe set up at the moment, I am using constant light..and it's really tough, but possible.

[Stigster]

I got some drinks photos here [http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/stigand/DrinksAndCocktails] if you're interested. They're all taken at the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Oslo, Norway during club hours so lighting was less than optimal. Still I'm quite happy with the outcome.

Equipment used:
Nikon D70
Nikkor 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED DX
Nikon Speedlight SB-800

-The Stigster!

[DWH]

Nathan,

I am in the process of setting up my studio now. I also bartend part-time. The club I work for is going to let me come in and take pictures of drinks later when it slows down. We get more event bookings than anything else. I use hot lights or constant light sources the same as you. I prefer them over flash for still shots. The drawback is that they are hot.

As a general rule of thumb food photographs are back lit with reflector fill. If you would like to see some really good examples go to http://www.christinapeters.com/. She has foods as well as drinks in her on line portfolio. Just about every one f the photographs was made with a single soft light source.

You might want to consider in investing in some sculpted lucite "ice cubes" for your cold or iced drinks. The glass will not sweat and leave a water ring in your set. Another little trick I have found is to purchase a white shower curtain and light it from underneath to get the high key background favored for most drink photographs. After the curtain has hung for a while to get rid of any fold marks lay it out over a piece of clear acrylic and then curve it up to a crossbar to get a seamless affect.

Finally, experiment with how the light falls on the subject. Pointing the light directly at the subject will give and entirely different affect than pointing the light off axis to the subject. The off-axis method will be softer. Experiment by turning the reflector bell back and forth until you find the "sweet spot".

Good Luck,

Dave

[DM Nathan]

Hey dave,

Thanks a ton for your pointers :) I will definetly give it a whirl. Do you have any suggestions on the camera I should be looking for to do such a task? I will need it for crisp pics of the drinks with a white bg and nothing else really. I've tried alot of cameras out so far, and havent' found one yet that does what I need it to do.

Nathan

[DWH]

Nathan,

I am going to make a couple of assumptions from your earlier posts in this thread. First, that you do not want to do this professionally and second that you want to have total control over what you produce. If I am wrong then I will gladly accept correction.

All of the camera manufacturers make great SLR cameras. Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus to name a few. Single Lens Reflex is the only way to go to get total control over what is produced. Nikon and Canon are probably the two most recognizable names in small format photography. Both of them make consumer, high end consumer, pro-sumer, and professional cameras. Each step up offers more control than the previous camera body.

I suggest you go to a good camera store and try them in your hands and see how they feel. Nikon makes the D80, D200 and D300. Canon Makes the 30D and the 40D. A lot of my fellow photographers will buy a pro grade camera as their primary camera and then will buy one of the above models for a backup camera. One of my friends shoots most of her jobs with a Canon 5D and then has a 30D as a backup.

Some of the things to consider are how the camera feels in your hands, whether it is a full frame 24mm x 36mm sensor or smaller and lens line. If the camera does not feel comfortable then shooting can be a struggle. With a full frame sensor a 50 mm lens will be a 50mm lens. Putting a lens made for a full frame sensor on a camera with a smaller sensor changes the effective focal length of the lens. Camera manufacturers are starting to produce lenses for cameras with smaller than full frame sensors. A 50mm lens on a full frame Canon usually becomes an 80mm lens on a Canon with a smaller sensor. All of the big manufacturers have great lens lines.

I cannot emphasize how the camera feels in your hands enough. When my sister-in-law was shopping for a good SLR the thing that made her decision was the size of the Nikon D80 over the Canon 30D. Her husband has larger hands and the D80 felt better when he picked it up.

Now, what do I use and why? I have tried to be objective up until now. I use a Canon 5D. Some call this a pro-sumer camera and others call it a low end professional camera. At 13.1 mega pixels it offers the clarity I am looking for in the images I produce. It is also a full frame sensor. The thing that helped me make my decision is that Canon is the only SLR manufacturer producing their own digital SLR cameras. Nikons are manufactured by either Fuji or Toshiba I forget which. Until earlier this year Minoltas were manufactured by Sony but Minolta sold their digital SLR line to Sony. BTW I forgot but Fuji makes a really fine digital SLR.

Lenses are another issue. Take a look at either an 85mm or 100mm macro lens or a good wide angle to telephoto zoom macro lens. Using the short telephoto will help correct any lens distortion you would get from using the normal lens on a camera. Personally, I would not buy a normal lens.

One other thing. Camera meters are calibrated to middle grey. That means when the camera looks at a scene it is optimizing the exposure at middle grey. Camera meters will be fooled by a white background. You can correct this by bracketing your exposures or by using a good incident light meter. Bracketing is so much simpler with digital so I would recommend doing that instead of purchasing the meter.

I apologize for being so long winded. This is really a can of worms because photographers are passionate about their equipment. Once again, it comes down to what feels right to the person using the camera.

Let me know what you get in a PM.

Cheers,

Dave

[DM Nathan]

Wow, thanks a ton for the information yet again. I have tried alot of point and shoots, including a canon S3, and I bought a Pentax isDS..which I just recently sold. I'm really interested in the D40..my sister is a photographer and she recently got one and it felt really good. I just don't want to spend money yet again, on a camera that isn't going to work out for the drinks.

[DWH]

Nathan,

The D40 will do you a good job. Check to make sure you can set the white balance. A short telephoto with macro is a must.

The biggest part of any type of photography is not the camera but how the scene is composed and how the lighting is applied. Go to the web site I mentioned in my first post and study the lighting.

Good Luck,

Dave