Studio shot showing the texture of condensation on a beer can

Studio Texture Shot

A 'texture' shot, the whole point of the shot is the condensation. Getting this right was harder than I anticipated, I put a few beers in the fridge overnight and thought that the condensation would just form naturally when I put them under the hot lights. Well, all that happened was the cans looked dull, the droplets of condensation were too small to be seen.

With my rudimentary knowledge of science I figured that the difference in temperature needed to be greater so I put the cans in the freezer and put the fire in the room up to full blast. Sometime later I tried again but still could not get nice looking droplets.

Next I tried boiling the kettle nearby and warming the can with steam. This seemed to improve matters a little but the trouble was, the kettle kept switching itself off. So finally I had to stand there with the kettle in my hand holding the switch in and strafing the can with steam. Finally I got the nice large droplets that you see in the picture.

I like the gradation of light around the can, the way it goes almost to black but not quite.

The objects you can see at the bottom of the picture are lumps of coal.