Day 9-- Lighting

Now we get into some fun.  I love playing with lighting.  Today,  even though we were supposed to still set up a story,  I just went with one dish (albeit weird dish).  I still a little sick and exhausted from this cold,  so I just focused on lighting.  I decided to just go step by step adding my lighting till the final image.

Here's the first one with artificial light:

First image: Just bare light. Camera right.  ISO 800  |  f8  |  1/250  |  50mm lens
Second image:  I added an umbrella to the main light ISO 800  |  f8  |  1/250  |  50mm lens
First mistake,  I forgot to meter the light!  When adding a light modifier like a soft box or umbrella  you can lose one stop of light resulting in an underexposed image.  I had to adjust this image in aperture. 
Third Image: Added rim light. Avocados look more evenly lit now.  The rim light was one stop lower than the main light.
Final image:  I added a reflector camera left.  This helped bring out some of the detail in the hotdogs.

But wait!  Why stop with artificial light,  when I can play around with natural light too!!

First image:  Window light camera left. No curtains or diffuser of any sort.  ISO 400  |  f5.6  |  1/125

Second Image: Added a diffuser and lost a stop of light. ISO 400  |  f4  |  1/125

Third image:  Added reflector camera right of the dish.  Helps bring out avocado  ISO 400  |  f4  |  1/125

Some extra images just for kicks.

Photographers note:  I did not do any extra editing on these images except for levels.