Great effort Johnathan. Can you describe your lighting? I have done a lot of product shot commercially with soft box but have been way too lazy to set everything up. Maybe i need to get thaem out and show you PS guys that a verito under a Soft box is pretty special :)

Steve

Hey Steve

Thank you very much Steve, it would be my pleasure to run through this. You can buy a very huge 6 ft reflector, the kind they sell to reflect light at these outlets that sell hydroponic gear. The reflectors are large sections of 'leafs' that you connect to form a dish. They are white on one side, bare brushed aluminum on the other side, about 3.5ft long, about 2ft wide, narrowing to about a foot. Shaped like a wedge you cut out of a pie.

When I want to do this kind of lighting, I'll position a stool very close to my white wall, place the brushed aluminum sheet on the stool w/the end almost touching the wall, the sheet sags at the front and back, and both ends drop down.

I'll then position my light source above the aluminum sheet, pointing at the wall behind the sheet and the subject matter on it so that the bottom edge of that light pattern on the wall trails off into darkness.

In other words, you point a light at the wall behind your subject matter sitting on the brushed aluminum. You position the light pattern coming from that light, so that the bottom edge where the light falls off, is just above the brushed aluminum. This falloff is the top edge of where you see it going dark at down to around the lower third of the bottle.

Not only do you create a pattern you can see by creating this pattern on the background w/the edge falling off into black, but that light source is hitting the wall/background and hitting the glass from the rear, thus indirect lighting.

Remember that I said that the aluminum sheet is positioned on a stool, since not all 3 feet are supported, the front and back overhang of the sheet sags, and the light bouncing off the wall hits the brushed aluminum, but looking at this through the lens, the back of the sheet which has sagged down and out of sight doesn't have any reflected light on it that the lens can see, this makes the back go dark.

Folks pay thousands of bucks for these expensive softboxes, you can save money and do what I've done here, essentially point any light you want at a white wall, and you've duplicated the light from a softbox, and this set-up is pretty much as if I positioned a softbox from behind the glass(but in addition to that, I've included the light pattern from the light source hitting the wall). Indirect lighting.

I feel silly writing all this because it's easier to understand it than explain it. I'll upload a diagram which will probably illustrate it better.

It's still early, and my brain isn't fully awake, sorry.

I'll add that w/just a bit more familiarity w/the Ser. III, that it seems to be what I thought is was/is, a continuation of the Visual Quality, you get more, if you're willing to put up w/the trouble of trying to focus it. Also, the inherent difficulty of coming up w/lighting schemes that this lens will tolerate without blowing everything out or skewing the light to distraction.

I can see where Pinkham & Smith made the strategic decision to stop at some point w/the production of this lens, to move forward w/the Visual Quality, and later the Synthetic.

The Semi-Achromatic has all the softness you want but is difficult to focus, so they react by cutting everything in half w/the Visual Quality, and then they try to come up something that will focus easily with more of the original softness via the Synthetic, which I believe is the same type lens as my Gundlach Achromatic Meniscus.

The lens is still producing a fairly soft image @F8, and I'll be experimenting later on down the line on just what it does bet. F7.2-11.

My focusing is getting a little better, the trouble is, not only is there a tremendous image displacement as you rack focus, the soft and sharp images overlayed over each other become less/more in diff. directions confusing what's supposed to be sharp, of late, I concentrate on the sharp image which can be VERY faint 'SOMEWHERE' in all that softness.

This shot has told me of at least one light scheme where the glow doesn't intrude, and I think you're onto something Steve where this might also work on the Verito et al. Indirect lighting, eliminate the glow if you choose, well, it's a thought anyway.

Thanks very much for sharing. Like all excellent lighting set ups it is deceptively simple but none the less complex. Balance would be everything. There is a hydroponics store on the way to the supermarket so I now have an excuse to call in.

I am really getting great benifit from all of the images presented here. Each person has a different take on the use of the soft lenses.

Steve