Week 3 (January 15th - 21th) | Picture 4

Well, it's official - I am obsessed with OCF (off camera flash)! I love, love, love it. This week's project was inspired by another one of my favorite ways to spend the free time I never get - with a little bit of alcohol . . .

I actually didn't pull this setup from any one place in particular, just some reading on Strobist and some searching around on Flickr. A lot of people have much fancier setups, but I just wanted to try something quick and easy.

The result:


Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: 35mm f/1.8
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/64th power
Exposure: manual

(EXIF data is not intact - sorry, that's because of the Photoshop work to get it on the wide layout. All other editing done exclusively in LR.)

I am loving OCF!!! This was so easy to setup and so much fun to play with. I toyed with my settings a lot. I really liked the look of a much stronger flash and a much narrower aperture - it really silhouetted the glass beautifully, but you didn't get enough of the color of the liquid. Maybe I'll do an empty glass like that in a future week.

Anyway, last week someone asked me if I had taken a setup shot of how I staged my water drop and I didn't think to do that, but I did this week. Here's my remarkably simple and cheesy setup.

My husband couldn't believe the glass was sitting on a white piece of foam core. I tried to explain to him that it was all about the light bounce, but he still couldn't believe it. If I actually plan for this experiment the next time I do it, I'll get a piece of black poster board. I don't love the variegation in the piece of foam I was using (but it was all I had on hand), and I think a black surface would make for an even stronger image - but for what I had in the house, I'm happy.