Shooting Beer

The image seen in a glass is an image of whatever is behind it.

Bubbles look great against a dark background until they "clear" and then the beer looks dark. You can't get the best look for bubbles and cleared beer in one lighting/propping setup. You might consider putting a second glass lit for clear beer into frame background as the foreground one "clears"

Glasses must be super clean so bubbles don't form on the sides. A little salt or sand in the bottom will initiate bubbles after poured and cleared.

The background of a cleared glass of beer should have variations and not just one color.

The backside of a glass can be dull sprayed and backlit to give color to the beer, but this should be done only for background glasses. Back lit real condensed water droplets look good too.

Beer pouring is a skill that sometimes is worth hiring a professional who knows just when to stop pouring to get the right amount of foam over the rim. Temperature is critical to how beer foams. Do lots of testing before rolling film.

Making a lot of perfect pours in one shot is not easy.

The tighter a shot the higher speed the camera should roll. 64 FPS or more for a splash down in the bottom. Less as the beer is poured. Some people are concerned that beer at high speed looks like honey. Yes it does if in a honey container, but in a beer glass it looks like beer at high speed. A thin stream of beer can easily look like water.

© Copyright 1999-2004 Ron Dexter. All Rights Reserved.