Snooth Talk: Taking Pictures of Wine Bottles

Wine Talk

: Taking Pictures of Wine Bottles; Posted by tabednar, Dec 24, 2008.; I have some wines that have no pictures. I would like to take a picture to upload to the site but I don't know much about photography or how to take a good picture of a wine bottle. All I have is a simple powershot digital camera to work with. Anyone have any suggestions?

67 693: Reply by gr, Dec 24, 2008.; Well, for starters I wouldn't sweat it too much, since some picture is better than no picture. I've uploaded plenty taken with an iPhone (because until recently I had no other functional digital camera).

That said, I can't vouch for all of them, but I recently bookmarked http://www.pxlshots.com/blog/2008/12/34-essential-tutorials-to-get-started-with-digital-photography/ to come back to and read in more detail. I'm pretty sure things like the lighting guide would be relevant to your question.

122 39: Reply by tabednar, Dec 24, 2008.; I was trying to take pictures with my iPhone but they always seem to come out blurry or can't focus on the label very well. Have any suggestions? To your pictures come out okay? Thanks gr!

67 693: Reply by gr, Dec 24, 2008.; Some better than others. The iPhone's camera lens isn't all that hot and if yours, like mine, rides around in a pocket all the time, it'll probably have some lint collected on it, and it certainly doesn't have any of the shakiness correction that . Resting the phone or your arm on a solid surface helps, as would any of the advice at that link around avoiding blurriness: it's just that the iPhone's more prone to it because there's no flash, it's a bit narrow to hold steadily, and you have to push into a surface that doesn't give way when you trigger the shutter.

Here's one of mine that's not so hot:

http://www.snooth.com/wine/ravenswood-old-vine-zinfindel-2006-2006/

and one from the same evening that worked better:

http://www.snooth.com/wine/goulart-malbec-2007-reserva-2007/

I haven't used them, but there are several apps you can install that make use of the accelerometer to get better pictures by waiting to actually take the picture until the camera is still (after you push the button). http://www.sudobility.com/Night%20Camera.html is one of them, and I believe that I recall seeing at least one other name in the iTunes app store.

Oh, also, make sure that you upload the post-sync'ed image from you computer, rather than emailing it (can't touch images directly from the Snooth iPhone app, as it's web-based and, so, does not have device access), as the iPhone lowers the resolution of the image when it transmits it via email.

67 693: Reply by gr, Dec 24, 2008.; Huh... that page doesn't actually have a *download* link... http://www.appcraver.com/night-camera/ is possibly more useful. Also, I see now why I hadn't tried it yet: it actually costs money! ($0.99, but still.)

12 4: Reply by abryksa, Dec 24, 2008.; I would highly recommend building a light tent, then using external light sources to highlight the wine. Then you can take photos without a flash, which is what causes glare.

http://www.creativepro.com/article/digital-photography-how-to-building-a-light-tent

1665 3027: Reply by Philip, Dec 24, 2008.; Tab - well if you do take the pics, we'd be grateful for any you load up.

The two basic alternatives are either:

- take the best picture you can and upload it
- go to the winery website and grab an official image off their site

Both are pretty common.

Even though winery images are copyright, they tend to be happy that we are helping them sell more wine. In fact we have over 250,000 images on the site and have never had a winery ask us to remove an image (excluding images that were incorrect).

67 693: Reply by gr, Dec 24, 2008.; Nice proofreading I did there...

"it certainly doesn't have any of the shakiness correction that" modern point-and-shoot digital cameras usually do.

122 39: Reply by tabednar, Dec 24, 2008.; @ Philip ... For the most part I search for the official images put out by the winery. I have some obscure wines that don't have websites and I can't find an image anywhere so I will do my best to get something.

@gr ... thanks for the iphone info. I will look into that program and see what I can do. It is a nice option because like you said I will always have the iphone on me.

@ abryksa ... I am going to try to set up some sort of light tent. Thanks for the website. I should be able to rig something up using there ideas. I will just see what kind of time I have on my hands. I will post the images I get...

Thanks everyone!