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Master Bottle Lighting: High-Key vs Low-Key Product Photography for Photographers

The Professional Photographers of America compare high-key and low-key approaches to lighting a bottle, showing how the same product needs a different rig for each look.

Professional Photographers of America (PPA) · 33 min · Advanced · LGT · Lighting · 2025

What you take away

Decide high-key or low-key before you place a light — the two setups share almost nothing.

Watch it

Filed under

Films to study for light

Books on lighting

Kit for this lesson

Aputure Lantern 90 — Soft from every direction — ambience in one piece
DoPchoice Snapbag Octa — Opens like an umbrella — the rental standard softbox
Nanlite PavoSlim 60C — A thin RGB panel for tight rooms
Nanlite Compac 200B — A cheap, big, soft panel
Canon RF 50mm F1.2 L USM — The portrait-adjacent normal
Viltrox AF 56mm F1.2 LAB — The APS-C portrait prime that embarrassed the brands

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