Product Photo: Spirit Level Rule

Sorry I haven't had time to be putting up any videos the last while. I figured I'd put this one up quickly though without a video. Pretty simple setup, so the shots at the end should let you see how to go about it.

Well, first thought for this shot was background colour. I figured something vivid was called for, so I opted for the brightest of the bunch - a nice bright yellow sheet.

Next thought was how I was going to light this. I wanted to get some light deep in that bubble to make it glow well. I opted for a ringlight which I knew would give a good "shadowless" light while showing up the colour of the bubble. I fired off a test shot to see how well it worked.



Pretty spot on for the bubble, brightness wise, but virtually no light comes back from the ruler because it's sitting at an angle. To deal with this, I needed to put some fill from the right hand side. I put in a couple of my small white foamboard reflectors and fired off another test shot.



At least you can see the effect even if it's subtle. The boards were angled to catch light from the ringlight. So I could either boost the ringlight power to get more light on the ruler, but thereby make the bubble overly bright, or I have to add another light source.

I grabbed another speedlight and put on a small softbox and honeycomb on the front. This had a couple of benefits. Firstly, the soft source of light would more evenly light the two reflectors. Secondly, placing it to the left and firing it over the top of the ruler meant I got a little spill on to the background which gives a nicer brighter image. Lastly, the honeycomb meant I'd not get flare from the light source being just off to the side of the shot. So here's the result. You'll note I've reframed the shot to try and give a better composition. The previous shots were purely tests.



Here's a couple of setup shots.