Blue439
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Thanks! The good lens helped a lot!
Post Your Tabletop photography, pack shot and still life
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Blue439
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An old style picture with a glasses case and a Timex watch.
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 17 focus-stacked exposures, using the built-in function on the Nikon Z7. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 17 focus-stacked exposures, using the built-in function on the Nikon Z7. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.
Blue439
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A study in minimalism (2019) —and, yes, this is a color photograph. 
Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ II adapter. Gitzo tripod and ball head, artificial lighting. Single exposure.
The behind-the-scenes: very basic lighting, just one studio flash to the left with a small softbox. The back square thing you see peeking out behind the improvised stand (a stack of wooden boxes draped with soft, non-reflective fabric) is the head of a cobra flash that lights the white paper sheet used as background. Then, all is a question of balancing the power of the light sources.
Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ II adapter. Gitzo tripod and ball head, artificial lighting. Single exposure.
The behind-the-scenes: very basic lighting, just one studio flash to the left with a small softbox. The back square thing you see peeking out behind the improvised stand (a stack of wooden boxes draped with soft, non-reflective fabric) is the head of a cobra flash that lights the white paper sheet used as background. Then, all is a question of balancing the power of the light sources.
Blue439
New member
I know this is not a very exciting shot, but I meant to upload it to demonstrate what I hope is a good example of technical product photography. There is no glamour there, you simply need to show an industrial tool and what customers need to know about it —which does not mean you cannot try and light it in a more “artistic” (I am always very careful when using that word) manner...
For the last 10 or 12 years of her career, my wife worked as HR Director for a French company that I dubbed “the Hermès of the glass-making industry”, in reference to the luxury brand (see here). That company made highly specialized, often custom-made, always extremely expensive tools for glass-making companies, and just like Hermès, their products were in such demand that customers basically lined up on the parking lot waiting to be allowed to buy them! I worked for and/or counseled pretty successful companies in my professional life, and I have never seen anything like that anywhere else in the industrial world. Anyway, at one point I was commissioned to photograph their whole line of products, and this was one of the photos.
Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single exposure.
For the last 10 or 12 years of her career, my wife worked as HR Director for a French company that I dubbed “the Hermès of the glass-making industry”, in reference to the luxury brand (see here). That company made highly specialized, often custom-made, always extremely expensive tools for glass-making companies, and just like Hermès, their products were in such demand that customers basically lined up on the parking lot waiting to be allowed to buy them! I worked for and/or counseled pretty successful companies in my professional life, and I have never seen anything like that anywhere else in the industrial world. Anyway, at one point I was commissioned to photograph their whole line of products, and this was one of the photos.
Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single exposure.
Blue439
New member
A collection of gloves, from vintage off-white wedding gloves (used to be my Mom’s, now have been passed down to my wife) to work and garden gloves and silicon oven mitts...
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting.
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting.
Blue439
New member
Nikon R1 C1 macro flash kit
This is a photo of the Nikon flash kit for macrophotography, showing the SU-800 “commander” unit and the two SB-R200 flashes that attach onto a special circular mount around the lens’s front. You can also see on the left the reflectors that can be used to angle the light from the flashes for very close-up photography. It is a very nice set of lights which I have owned for years, but haven’t used much. So, the big box sits on a shelf, but some day...
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 10 focus-stacked exposures, using the built-in function on the camera.
This is a photo of the Nikon flash kit for macrophotography, showing the SU-800 “commander” unit and the two SB-R200 flashes that attach onto a special circular mount around the lens’s front. You can also see on the left the reflectors that can be used to angle the light from the flashes for very close-up photography. It is a very nice set of lights which I have owned for years, but haven’t used much. So, the big box sits on a shelf, but some day...
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 10 focus-stacked exposures, using the built-in function on the camera.
Blue439
New member
During my senior year in high school, I began to play whist with some friends, and soon thereafter graduated to bridge, which I played madly all during my student years. The game is immensely challenging and loads of fun to play, even if your hand is not too good. The coded dialogue of the bidding between you and your partner is very interesting to learn and master, and the actual playing does wonders for your memory, as you keep it in great shape by having to memorize, if you can, every card that’s been played to make educated guesses at what the other players may still have in hand... Then, when I began to work I seemed to shed the habit, probably because young lawyers are notoriously overworked and there is not much time to do anything else...
Anyway, in memory of those bygone days, I took in 2019 this flat-lay photograph of a pair of Kem plastic card sets, the best brand there was back then half a century ago. They are as good as new!
Nikon Z7, Voigtländer Nokton 58mm, ƒ/1.4 lens, manual focus. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single exposure.
Anyway, in memory of those bygone days, I took in 2019 this flat-lay photograph of a pair of Kem plastic card sets, the best brand there was back then half a century ago. They are as good as new!
Nikon Z7, Voigtländer Nokton 58mm, ƒ/1.4 lens, manual focus. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single exposure.
Blue439
New member
Living the life of Chief Inspector Morse
In 2019, a theme-based group I belonged to on Flickr set the theme “Fictitious lives”, or something like that. Chief Inspector Morse of the Thames Valley Police in Oxford being one of my favorite characters of fiction, I knew just how to compose my photo: a Morse notebook, a crossword puzzle, a tumbler of Lagavulin, and of course, to celebrate Morse’s love for opera and classical music, a Denon turntable cartridge, a pair of AKG Reference headphones and a Deutsche Grammophon recording conducted by Herbert von Karajan... I regretted having nothing Jaguar to place in the frame, while enjoying the fact of being one of the not so many people having driven in a Jaguar Mark II just like Morse’s —my father had one when I was maybe 12 or 13...
And by the way, to those of you who don’t know who Morse is, I very warmly recommend the books by Colin Dexter, OBE († 2017). They are the damn cleverest thrillers I have read since the very best by Agatha Christie, only of course much more modern and believable. The absolute best is, in my opinion, The Way through the Woods, closely followed by The Jewel that was ours. The TV adaptations weren’t bad either, with magnificent John Thaw, CBE († 2002) as a perfect Morse —but of course, you have much less time in a made-for-TV movie to develop plot lines and characters versus a book. The TV prequel(s?) and sequels, such as the Lewis series, are much less good.
Nikon Z7, Sigma 135mm ƒ/1.8 Art lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 25 focus-stacked exposures, using the camera’s built-in function. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.
In 2019, a theme-based group I belonged to on Flickr set the theme “Fictitious lives”, or something like that. Chief Inspector Morse of the Thames Valley Police in Oxford being one of my favorite characters of fiction, I knew just how to compose my photo: a Morse notebook, a crossword puzzle, a tumbler of Lagavulin, and of course, to celebrate Morse’s love for opera and classical music, a Denon turntable cartridge, a pair of AKG Reference headphones and a Deutsche Grammophon recording conducted by Herbert von Karajan... I regretted having nothing Jaguar to place in the frame, while enjoying the fact of being one of the not so many people having driven in a Jaguar Mark II just like Morse’s —my father had one when I was maybe 12 or 13...
And by the way, to those of you who don’t know who Morse is, I very warmly recommend the books by Colin Dexter, OBE († 2017). They are the damn cleverest thrillers I have read since the very best by Agatha Christie, only of course much more modern and believable. The absolute best is, in my opinion, The Way through the Woods, closely followed by The Jewel that was ours. The TV adaptations weren’t bad either, with magnificent John Thaw, CBE († 2002) as a perfect Morse —but of course, you have much less time in a made-for-TV movie to develop plot lines and characters versus a book. The TV prequel(s?) and sequels, such as the Lewis series, are much less good.
Nikon Z7, Sigma 135mm ƒ/1.8 Art lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 25 focus-stacked exposures, using the camera’s built-in function. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.
I have put them on the list, while I read mostly nonfiction a novel now and then is a nice break. Have watched both Morse and Lewis the fun for me is the old buildings and trying to guess the different car makes.
Blue439
New member
You’re in for a good read !
Clovishound
Senior Member
My family and I really enjoyed the Endeavour series. The Inspector Morse series was very good as well.
Blue439
New member
Well, while we’re on the subject of Morse, here is my (probably) most valuable possession: a bronze poniard found on the archæological dig of Troy in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). It is probably one of the objects that were taken out of the country in the years after 1870, which is when Schliemann discovered Troy and started digging on the site.
This poniard or dagger is from around 1250 BC and the Morse connection is that the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has one exactly like it. This is truly museum-grade stuff. I cannot find the web page where I saw it a few years ago, maybe they took it down. The website “Lanes Armoury” has one for sale for 945 UK pounds which they list as in “fine condition” (here), and it looks in very poor condition indeed compared to mine.
It is still quite sharp on the edges... To think that this maybe belonged to someone like Hector or Ajax or Achilles or Diomedes... Holding it in one’s hand sends the mind reeling...
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 35mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single shot.
This poniard or dagger is from around 1250 BC and the Morse connection is that the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has one exactly like it. This is truly museum-grade stuff. I cannot find the web page where I saw it a few years ago, maybe they took it down. The website “Lanes Armoury” has one for sale for 945 UK pounds which they list as in “fine condition” (here), and it looks in very poor condition indeed compared to mine.
It is still quite sharp on the edges... To think that this maybe belonged to someone like Hector or Ajax or Achilles or Diomedes... Holding it in one’s hand sends the mind reeling...
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 35mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single shot.
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Blue439
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Stuffed conchiglioni
Food photography is of course an integral part of tabletop photography! Here is an improvised (and very lacking, I had to work too fast) snap of conchiglioni (literally, “shellfish-shaped”) pasta stuffed with veal and mushrooms in a creamy sauce. An invention of my wife, this was one of the courses of the family Christmas lunch 2019. At Christmas, when we’re in France and not in the UK, we host either the Christmas Eve dinner, or the Christmas Day lunch.
Of course, this was only the rehearsal... With all the family present (that’s between 14 and 20 people), I wouldn’t have time to shoot anything on the actual day...
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 9 focus-stacked exposures, using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.
Food photography is of course an integral part of tabletop photography! Here is an improvised (and very lacking, I had to work too fast) snap of conchiglioni (literally, “shellfish-shaped”) pasta stuffed with veal and mushrooms in a creamy sauce. An invention of my wife, this was one of the courses of the family Christmas lunch 2019. At Christmas, when we’re in France and not in the UK, we host either the Christmas Eve dinner, or the Christmas Day lunch.
Of course, this was only the rehearsal... With all the family present (that’s between 14 and 20 people), I wouldn’t have time to shoot anything on the actual day...
Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss geared head. Artificial lighting. Composite shot made up of 9 focus-stacked exposures, using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.