Post Your Tabletop photography, pack shot and still life

Blue439

Blue439

New member
iPhones of yesterday and today (2025)

In the background is my very first iPhone of 2007. The other one is my most recent acquisition, a secondhand iPhone 13 Mini in like-new condition. I bought this only a few days ago (January 2025) to replace my iPhone SE of 2016, which still worked just fine. I would have been very happy to keep it for a few more years at least, but programmed obsolescence (darn! they’ve even come up with a fancy name for “scr**wing you in the butt”) had hit it, it couldn’t be updated to the latest versions of the operating system, and therefore many applications that also couldn’t be updated were beginning to have problems, freeze or quit, etc.

Well, you do know the type of things electronics manufacturers do to force you, the consumer, to discard their products and buy newer ones. Apple are no better than the others (who said “they’re worse!” over there in the back?).

Anyway, I was looking for the smallest, more recent iPhone in existence, and that’s how I found the 13 Mini. It is not “mini” by any stretch of the imagination (or maybe it is if you look at how enormous and ugly “Mini” cars are today), it is in fact significantly larger than my SE, yet it remains more manageable than the brick-sized slabs they try to sell you today and pretend they are telephones... And I liked the dark blue back, so I bought it.

Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor Z 135mm, ƒ/1.8 S Plena lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca–Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Single exposure.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Focusing rail (2020)

As Chinese manufacturers go, NiSi is not bad, and even quite good. I showed above one of the filter holders I use from them, and this NM-180 manual focusing rail is a good and precise tool. Not as good as the German-made Novoflex Castel XQ II rail I use with my bellows, but still does the job fine when manual focus stacking is needed.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 11 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
In the limelight (2020)

Quiès ear plugs under the light of a LumeCube.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z “Nify Fifty” 50mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting, single exposure.

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Needa

Needa

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Blue439 said:
Focusing rail (2020)

As Chinese manufacturers go, NiSi is not bad, and even quite good. I showed above one of the filter holders I use from them, and this NM-180 manual focusing rail is a good and precise tool. Not as good as the German-made Novoflex Castel XQ II rail I use with my bellows, but still does the job fine when manual focus stacking is needed.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 11 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Nice reflection. What are you using for the surface?
 
Blue439

Blue439

New member
Graphics card (2020)

I needed quite a powerful one when I assembled my new PC and so I chose this MSI GE Force model.

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 7 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Nifty fifties (2020)

A parade of 50mm lenses: from left to right, my oldest one, the ƒ/2 that came with my very first Nikon F; the ƒ/1.4 that came with my F2; and the modern-day 58mm ƒ/1.4 Nokton made by Cosina for Voigtländer and designed to look just like the older ones...

Nikon D850, Micro-Nikkor 60mm, ƒ/2.8 D macro lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 3 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Parting ways with an old friend (2020)

This is the caption I wrote when I uploaded this photo to Flickr:

One last parting portrait of a now departed friend: the trusty 200~400mm ƒ/4 VR Nikkor lens which I had acquired in March 2007 and used, first for birds, wildlife and aviation, then for sports (classic yachts regattas, eventing) while I was shooting those.

It was a superb lens but darn bulky and heavy. More recently, I bought a 300mm ƒ/4 Phase Fresnel, much smaller and lighter, which satisfies all my current and foreseeable needs for long lenses, and with the advent of the Z mount and the probable future move to mirrorless, I didn’t see the need to keep a 200~400 in the F mount. Rather than taking up space in the safe, I sold it to someone who could use and enjoy it —in this instance, a guy in Italy who’s delighted with his purchase.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 85mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Single exposure.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
All kinds of white (2020)

White yoghurt, white China cup, white backdrop, white of the silver spoon... The idea was to try and render all those different nuances.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 85mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting, single exposure.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Sainte Roseline wishes you Happy New Year (2021)

Again in the high-key style, an artsy-fartsy shot of a bottle of Sainte Roseline “Lampe de Méduse” rosé wine from Provence (better than Brad and Angie’s!).

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z MC 105mm, ƒ/2.8 VR S macro lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss geared head. Flash lighting.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Orientalism (2019)

Still life composition of raw silk scarf, 19th century ivory netsuke (kimono button) and wakizashi (short saber) handle from Japan, and 17th century Chinese lacquered box. Background is an old map of the city known today as Beijing.

This was a focus-stacked image, and as happens often, Helicon Focus strips the EXIF data. The date tells me it was taken with the Z7 camera, but that is all I know. Of course, as usual, Gitzo tripod and Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head, of that I can be sure. Flash lighting, too.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Poker dice (2021)

Learned poker dice as a teen at Club Med in Italy in the 1970s and quickly got pretty decent at it. What poker players proudly call “bluffing” is just flat-out lying, so I guess I was a passable liar back then... :rolleyes: Used to play for drinks at the bar (I was hooked on succo di pera, pear juice, at the time) and usually won. :cool:

Never played poker nor any game of chance as an adult (except once in Vegas in ’84, won almost 200 bucks at black jack [beginner’s luck] and left right away with my winnings), my game was really bridge, where chance is brought down to a very low level, to the point of being almost non-existent.

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Single exposure.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Wifi, but still hifi... (2019)

While I readily embrace the positive aspects of modern technology, I do not follow it in its misguided ways, like tricking the young ones into believing that MP3 canned muzak is a faithful way to reproduce the original sound. I stick to high-fidelity reproduction and the German DIN 45500 standard.

This is a photo of some components in my hifi installation, all of them by Japanese manufacturer Teac: the CD deck, the amplifier and the AM–FM tuner. The speakers are Control Room Monitor 4411s by James B. Lansing.

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens. FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Natural light, single exposure.

teac.jpg
 
Blue439

Blue439

New member
Fragrance (2021)

A bottle of Shalimar perfume by Guerlain. I shot that as usual with my Indra500s, I have no idea why I bumped up the ISO to 160, which was quite unnecessary... Probably a change made during a previous shoot that I forgot to reset.

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor Z MC 105mm, ƒ/2.8 S macro lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Single exposure.

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Blue439

Blue439

New member
Pasta shapes and hues (2025)

A flat-lay still life of pasta. I wish I had time to collect more original shapes, as there are so many... Things being what they are, I made do with what I found in the kitchen!

This was the first time I tried out my new gigantic Manfrotto 161 MK2B studio tripod with the Neewer horizontal arm and the K&F Concept ball head, all of which were acquired to do studio work, and in particular flat lays. They all performed flawlessly! Plus, lugging and setting up all that, then packing it all up again and stowing it away saves me a trip to the gym. The tripod alone is 8 kilos! And I haven’t even mentioned the studio strobes, the light stands, the softboxes, the scrims and reflectors, the long tethering cable, etc.

Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor Z 35mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Manfrotto 161 MK2B geared tripod, Neewer horizontal arm, K&F Concept, ball head. Flash lighting. Single exposure. Tethered shooting with Lightroom Classic.

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Marilynne

Marilynne

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Blue439 said:
Pasta shapes and hues (2025)

A flat-lay still life of pasta. I wish I had time to collect more original shapes, as there are so many... Things being what they are, I made do with what I found in the kitchen!

This was the first time I tried out my new gigantic Manfrotto 161 MK2B studio tripod with the Neewer horizontal arm and the K&F Concept ball head, all of which were acquired to do studio work, and in particular flat lays. They all performed flawlessly! Plus, lugging and setting up all that, then packing it all up again and stowing it away saves me a trip to the gym. The tripod alone is 8 kilos! And I haven’t even mentioned the studio strobes, the light stands, the softboxes, the scrims and reflectors, the long tethering cable, etc.

Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor Z 35mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Manfrotto 161 MK2B geared tripod, Neewer horizontal arm, K&F Concept, ball head. Flash lighting. Single exposure. Tethered shooting with Lightroom Classic.

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Did you or your wife make the pasta? I used to make my own.
 
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