DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

Crossing Over To The Dark (Field) Has Never Been Easier

Mar 2, 2011 by Udi Tirosh Leave a Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Crossing Over To The Dark (Field) Has Never Been EasierGlass is one of the hardest thing to photograph. It is transparent, hard to define, and punish for every spec of dust. In this post, we will explore two cheap, easy ways to ease the pain of shooting glass. And get stuffed with Pringles while doing so.

Bright Field and Dark Field are two lighting techniques used to shoot glass I first saw the term while reading Light Science & Magic though the principles are probably way older then the book.

Photographer Steve Bennett came up with a sweet and super cheap setup to perform both lighting schemes quickly and on a budget.

Why Is Glass So Hard?

Glass is hard to shoot for several reasons

  • It has mirror qualities and it reflects almost anything in front of it creating distractions
  • It is transparent and light just goes through it making it hard to define its shape
  • It is very smooth and punishes up for every speck of dust

Dark Field Lighting

Hint of Red 365/269In dark field lighting, we use a dark background. If all we used was a dark background our glass object will have no shape. The way to overcome this is by highlighting the glass edges.

The edges are lit by light, bigger than our background and right behind it. For that we want to keep out background small, and use a sheet of semi-opaque material for creating the light source.

The image above was taken using the setup below. The light is coming from a single CFL bulb and reflected from the background and from the two simple V-cards. (The V-card have a white side on their back).

The black background is seen through the body of the bottle, but the edges are defined by the light that goes behind the black card and reflected by the v-cards.

Hint of Red Setup

Bright Field Lighting

Cheers 365/273In bright field lighting we do the exact opposite from what we did in dark field.

The background is lit and the body of the glass pears to be white. The edges are defined by dark cards that create “negative light”.

Again, the background light is limited to the smallest area possible to reduce flare.

The image on the left was taken using the setup below.

Two CFL snoots were used to create a contained white background, and black cards were used to define the edges of the glass.

Cheers Setup

Tools Used

This is the best part, Steve uses uber cheap tools to create his lighting, but compensate for money with creativity, smart use of lights and a ton of Pringles.

The images below should give a good idea on how to create each tool, but I encourage you to lick through and read the full explanation on the photo description.

I like those solutions because A – CFL are one of the cheapest sources of light available, and B – it shows that lack of gear is never an obstacle for the creative mind.

The Snoot (A LA Pringles & CFL Bulb)

PRINGLES SNOOT 01

PRINGLES SNOOT 02

PRINGLES SNOOT 03

PRINGLES SNOOT 04

Pringle Reflectors

Soft Light 06

Pringles Reflector 02

Baked Beans Diffusion Screens

Difussion Screen 01

Difussion Screen 02

Difussion Screen 04 365/135

Box File V-Cards

Box File 365/264

Your Best Friend For Shooting Glass

Best Friend 365/271

As you may have noticed, all the images on this post are of Steve Bennet, If you are in to technical shooting on a low budget, lurk his stream like I do.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Depth of Field: the ultimate beginner’s guide to controlling depth of field using lens aperture in nature photography In Santa’s Sleigh Tracks: Watch The International Space Station Crossing The Moon This town in Iceland has a floating zebra crossing to slow down drivers CP+ 2020 cancelled over coronavirus fears – Crossing fingers for NAB, TPS and Photokina

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Featured, Readers Projects

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

« Build A PVC Camera Shoulder Rig
Using a Twist Jar Opener as Follow Focus »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Sony teases upcoming ZV-E1 full-frame vlogging camera coming on March 29
  • The Xencelabs Pen Display 24 is silent, glare-free retouching tablet
  • Fall in love with astrophotography with these 10 space objects
  • Hipstamatic app relaunches as a social network, but only for iOS
  • Instagram now has ads even in search results. Sigh

Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy