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I was bored, so I spent 30 minutes tonight setting up a little shot I've seen done a few different times. It's the old "drop something in a wine glass" shot. I chose a cherry in a glass filled with green dyed water (no sense wasting actual mint liqueur).

Shot was taken with the Canon 50mm/1.8 lens. I used only two Alien Bee strobes in this shot, both angled at about 45° off to the left and right (you can see their reflections). The left strobe had a 20° honeycomb filter on it and was aimed more at the front of the glass, while the other (with the full 80° spread) was aimed towards the background (setup shot in the extended entry).

EXIF data for the shot says: f/5.6, 1/250s, 0 EV, ISO 100. The Alien Bees were set to 1/8 power. I was down to f/1.8 to f/3.2, but the DoF was so damn narrow none of my first shots were in focus. The Alien Bees were all the way down at 1/32 for those shots, too.

I missed about 50% of the time - either pressing the shutter release on my wired remote or literally missing the glass with the cherry/cherries (the above shot used two cherries). I had to drop them from about three feet to get a reasonable splash.

If I were to do this shot again, I'd dedicate one light to blowing out the background (perhaps with a 20° honeycomb and 1/2 to 1/4 power) and bouncing back through the glass. A second, softer light (perhaps bounced off an umbrella) could throw a little light onto the glass.

More photos of the green liquid at flickr.

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