Naughty or Nice

While looking for my next indoor photo project (I really need to get back outside!) I found this video on how to photograph a steaming cup of coffee.  I thought this would be a great idea with Christmas themed props to complete the scene.  Above is the results of my efforts.  This particular project turned out to be even more challenging than photographing whiskey bottles.

Setup showing diffuser and back light holder.

Getting the light behind the coffee to be at just the right angle to illuminate the steam and not cause too much glare in the lens or cause too much of a shadow to be cast in front of the mug turned out to be quite difficult.  I needed a way to suspend a light at just the right height and not having a boom arm stand of any kind I had to use my wood working skills to improvise.

Showing the reflector in on the scene.

I used a powerful mag light as my steam back light and a spot light through a (newly) homemade diffuser bouncing off a reflector as my main lighting.  I used my standard 50 mm lens at f/9.0 for 1/20 second exposure and an ISO of 1000.  The excellent performance of my new camera at relatively high ISO settings makes it possible to use continuous lighting like this and still get excellent results.  The noise at ISO 1000 with my previous cameras would have had me think twice about this setup.

Replaced the coffee with hot cocoa and whipped cream. 

The coffee I used in the mug was some old instant we had around the house and I made it relatively strong to get a dark coffee in the mug.  While everything was setup I figured I would dump out the coffee and replace it with a huge serving of hot chocolate with whip cream and cinnamon.  Those of you who aren't coffee drinkers will likely find this version of the shot more appealing.  I did not try and light any steam off this mug because I figured the whipped cream would hold it down and besides, that was what made the shoot so difficult in the first place.  After snapping a couple shots of the mug full of hot cocoa I grabbed the subjects of the shoot and returned to my study for a well deserved snack ;-)