Originally posted by sbh Thanks. Yes, the fifty is the perfect studio lens. It can get really close and the IQ is a joy.
Usually I take 1-3 shots of every setup that I like. Many product shots are composites for lighting reasons. It's hard to get the light everywhere at the same time.
In the last two shots I wanted to have the watch fade to black quickly. With a usual white or grey reflector, it didn't look right. So I printed a gradient (black to white) on paper to get a nice fading reflection – from bright in front to dark in the back.
On the side-by-side comparison you can see the difference between a solid white and gradient reflector (the lower side of the watch).
Yes, this is exactly what he said. He started by shooting the label first, then round to the rear of the bottle for the lighting of the contents inside, even the strip box effect behind for the rim of the bottle highlights/outline. Fascinating stuff.
I can see what you've done with that gradient 'reflector', very smart.
What I was surprised about so much with the bottle video was the way he took his portable wireless strobe and just kinda fired heaps of shots off at the bottle from all kind of angles, to get a more complete and even light. With your set up you looked more constrained perhaps? Could you for example seek that more 'even distributed' light on the straps by firing a diffused low powered shot straight onto the watch face from the front (of course not using any of the light from that shot on the watch face itself, just for the straps, so that they would be more 'equalish')? I'm just saying because that's what my head would be thinking to try first before something as clever as a gradient homemade reflector...