As promised, I’m going to share with you how I made the lemon shot from yesterday’s post. It really is quite simple, so let’s get started.
First, I used a square vase like the one here. Then, to get all the micro bubbles and sizzle you see, I filled it about 3/4 the way up with Sprite. I have also heard plain soda water works, but I couldn’t find it and, in this case, Sprite seemed to do the trick. Next, I used a Canon 430EX speedlite to light the vase and lemon. I placed the speedlite to the left of the vase, directly up against it so it would light the entire scene nicely. I had the flash connected to the camera’s hot shoe via a flash extension cord, similar to this one. I set the flash in manual mode at 1/2 power. I had my camera set on a tripod. To ensure correct focus, I stuck a toothpick in the lemon slice, dropped it down in the water at the depth I thought was correct and manually focused on the lemon. Once focus was set, I was ready to try my hand at the shot. I dropped the lemon in the water from a few inches above the surface. It took a few tries to get my timing down on where I wanted the lemon to be, but after a few I got it dialed in pretty good. Since I was using flash, I was shooting my camera in manual mode, too. I set my camera between F/20 and F/22 depending on how bright the flash was on the subject. Then I set my shutter speed at 1/160th and the ISO to 100.
This is really a fun shot to setup and try. On a later blog post I’ll show you another good use for that vase, so don’t put it away soon 
Here are a few more shots I made while I had the vase, lemons, limes and Sprite out.
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