North Carolina meets Illinois: Joy Ensues.

Decided to try some product lighting tonight. This one is straight outta "Light Science and Magic": Dark field lighting, and a translucent subject. Harder than it looks. Easier with beer. Hit the jump for the rest...

Main lights are a hotshoe softbox camera right and slightly in front of the glasses, and a shoot-thru umbrella camera left and slightly behind the subjects. The big light sources create a nice large highlight on the edges of the glass surfaces. To illuminate the golden tastiness of the ale, we cut a piece of rigid paper that exactly fit behind the glass from the perspective of the camera lens. This was then lit by one more hotshoe strobe with a tight snoot above camera right, aimed only at the paper. In hindsight, we could have brought the paper closer to the glass and shaped it for that position, and it wouldn't have the edges it does now. Live, learn.