Here is my entry for the fourth strobist bootcamp assignment. You can read about my entry for the 1st assignment here, for the 2nd assignment here, and for the 3rd assignment here. I was quite pleased with the results this time around. The shot’s story from my flicker post to the strobist group can be found at the bottom:

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I came back to the US from China for a brief vacation, and didn’t bring my full kit of gear. I was only going to be in the states for about a week, and thus wasn’t too worried about the bootcamp as all prior assignments were two weeks long. Well…..on my second day here, I noticed that we were only given one week for this assignment….DOH!

I knew that my current location, Telluride, Colorado, was a good place to shoot a water advertisement as it had a lot of beautiful scenery (mountains, streams, etc.) but I was worried about my gear. I had all my flashes and two light stands, but I didn’t have any of my light modifiers (snoots, gels, umbrellas, etc.). I made a few cereal box snoots that made my family members laugh, and decided to make do with what I had.

My sister Rachel had an initial idea of shooting a bottle of Evian covered in condensation on a grassy knoll. I would shoot looking up at the bottle, and get a bit of grass and the bottle in the foreground, and then a mountainous landscape in the background. We did a few test shots but thought that they were all too boring. We then passed a small stream on the way home for lunch, and thought that the stream would be a better idea. It was noon and the light was horrible so we decided to come back around sunset.

When we got back, the sun was at camera left and setting fast. I metered for the background at my desired f stop and got f/14 at 1/125s with an ISO of 400. I then tried to bounce a flash off the side of the SUV that I had my sister park next to the shooting area, but the black SUV was either too far away or absorbed too much light as the Canon 580EX on full power didn’t make any difference. I scrapped that light.

I then added a snooted Canon 580EX on a light stand to camera right pointed at the bottle’s large label. This was set to around 1/64 (can’t remember exactly) and triggered by one of my new pocket wizards (which I LOVE!!!)

I adjusted the flash level until things looked right and started shooting. As the sun set, I had to constantly adjust my ISO and shutter speed to keep the background exposed properly. My sister used a 409 bottle filled with water to keep up the condensation look on the side of the water bottle. I tried using a S. Pellegrino bottle first, and then an Evian bottle, but the Pellegrino bottle looked best. You can see the setup here:

And a sample ad with some corny text here:

My final exposure settings were 90mm f/14 1/125s at ISO 400.

Technical Details:
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Digital
Lens: Canon 70-200 F/2.8 L IS USM
Memory Card: Ritek Pro-2 8GB
Wireless Device (x2): Pocket Wizard Plus II
Flash(x1): Canon Speedlite 580EX
All images shot in RAW
Used Adobe Camera RAW to convert to JPG

Many thanks to my patient sister Rachel.

-Andy
http://www.andrewstrauss.net