Coffee porn 2.0, the light box
It's probably worth explaining how this image was created. Although it wasn't all that much trouble, it's not just simple snapshot. It was shot inside my 'mini-studio' which is nothing more than a cardboard box with the sides cut out with the holes covered with some translucent paper I picked up at the hobby store. A flash was fired on camera left outside the box shooting through the translucent paper, synced to the camera with a cord. A second flash was used for fill and synced to the first wirelessly and bounced off the right side wall with a gobo used to block any direct light from the 2nd flash. Both flashes were set to full manual mode and adjusted independently by taking sample images and making adjustments by looking at the histogram. In Camera Raw, I warmed the image up a bit to mimic morning sunlight, which is warmer than mid day sunlight. What I was aiming for is a soft morning light coming in from a nearby window. I shot this in the morning, so I could have just used soft light coming in from a nearby window, but that wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.
If anyone is interested in the cups, they are simply 5.5oz Italian made bar cups. The coffee is my version of an 'americano' which is a double shot of espresso, about an equal amount of hot water, and a bit of cream added and carefully stirred to create a nice pattern on top.
For a fun photography project, I highly recommend you make a light box if you don't already have one. The one I made is almost identical to the one in the link, but I used translucent paper described above which I think works better than tracing paper and it's not nearly as fragile. It's best if you have a macro lens, because you'll need a lens that focuses pretty closely, but if you have a 18-55 kit lens, this will work also as it will focus close enough for this kind of work. If you don't have a lens that will focus close enough, you may have to back the camera off a bit and do some cropping. You don't need to use a flash. You can use a simple table lamp or even a flashlight on one side and either a white piece of paper on the other side as a reflector or a 2nd lamp on the other side. By changing the distance from the light to the subject, you can adjust your lighting ratios between the key light and the fill.
