Post Your Tabletop photography, pack shot and still life

[Blue439]

Dessert, anyone?

Chocolate éclair and raspberry tartlets. You understand now why I do very little food photography? I tend to devour the hero subject before I can even shoot it! This sort of photography is best done on a very full stomach, even if it feels less comfortable —oh, and editing, too.

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

 

[Blue439]

’Tis the season !

A pair of Timberland high shoes, perfect for the Autumn, as temperatures begin to head down and humidity starts to creep in...

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 85mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting (2020).

 

[Blue439]

Meet Zelda

This orange thingy is a so–called “L-bracket”. When it was launched in 2018, it had been designed especially for the Z7, in official collaboration with Nikon, by a British company called Three-Legged Thing, a maker of tripods and ball heads. I have owned “Zelda” since then, and used it extensively on the Z7 then the Z7 II. It does the job just fine.

Photographed here with a Datacolor Spydercheckr color chart in the background.

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]

Tombstone for a friend

François was a friend. He was flying the helicopter that crashed in the Sahara in a sand storm during the Paris–Dakar Rally of 1986, killing himself, the rally organizer Thierry Sabine, and popular French singer Daniel Balavoine.

François’s mom, Albina du Boisrouvray, whom I knew very well, funded in memory of her son the construction of a building at the Harvard School of Public Health, that was inaugurated in 1994. As friend of the family, I was invited to the ceremony (at the time, I was practicing law at the Skadden Arps firm in New York City) and given this “tombstone” as a souvenir of that momentous day.

Nikon Z7, Sigma 135mm, ƒ/1.8 Art lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting, single exposure (2020).

 

[Peter7100]

Blue439, hope you don't mind me posting in your tabletop thread but the weather was rubbish today and I thought I would have a go

 

[Blue439]

I don’t mind at all, Peter, and it’s not my thread, so you’re quite welcome by any means, and so is everyone else who’d like to have a try. I thought I said so in my very first message when I created this thread but I will happily reiterate if anyone else feels like joining us!

Nice beer can!

 

[Blue439]

Fruit tartlets on parade (2020)

More tartlets... If you really must know, I myself did not eat them all after the shoot. I had a little help from my granddaughter.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 35mm, ƒ/1.8 S. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single exposure.

 

[Needa]

Fruit tartlets on parade (2020)

More tartlets... If you really must know, I myself did not eat them all after the shoot. I had a little help from my granddaughter.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 35mm, ƒ/1.8 S. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Artificial lighting, single exposure.

View attachment 412301

Stop with all the delicious food shot! I've gained two pounds just looking at them.

 

[Blue439]

Stop with all the delicious food shot! I've gained two pounds just looking at them.

Oh my dear, I am so sorry, but I’m afraid there are a few more whence that one came... Brace yourself!

 

[Peter7100]

Oh my dear, I am so sorry, but I’m afraid there are a few more whence that one came... Brace yourself!

Is this all home made before you get the camera out

 

[Blue439]

Is this all home made before you get the camera out

Are you kidding? It is all store-bought. If I had to make them all myself they wouldn’t last long enough to be photographed!

 

[Blue439]

All right... Needa gets a respite today, no more food photos for the moment!


The photographer’s forgotten companions

For many photographers, the standalone light meter symbolizes accessories of bygone days. No one uses them today, even though the chief reason why they were used in the past is still there (measuring incident light instead of the reflected one). Some portrait pros, some studio pros, probably still use one, unless they just “play it by ear”, shoot first and then assess the results on the back screen of their camera, or the screen of their portable computer if they shoot tethered –forgetting that what the camera sends there is a JPEG and not the actual RAW image they have just taken... Some directors of photography in the feature film industry, too...

That is why I will never cease to congratulate companies that still manufacture them and keep developing new and better models. Japan’s Sekonic Corp. arguably makes the best light meters there are, and I have two of them: one Studio Deluxe III which I acquired years ago and that works the old-fashioned, analog way, without any batteries nor any kind of power, and the new L-858D, which does absolutely everything in light metering and flash metering, and which I use routinely in the studio to balance the light between multiples sources. It can even talk to my Phottix studio strobes and trigger them remotely to measure illumination.

For both photos: Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm ƒ/1.8 S “Nifty Fifty” lens, Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. The L-858D is a composite shot made up of 10 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera, while the Studio Deluxe III needed only 7 exposures. Stacks processed with Helicon Focus. For the L-858D, I also had to composite two shots: one with strobes firing to light the device, and one in the dark with just the screen illuminated.

 

[Peter7100]

All right... Needa gets a respite today, no more food photos for the moment!


The photographer’s forgotten companions

For many photographers, the standalone light meter symbolizes accessories of bygone days. No one uses them today, even though the chief reason why they were used in the past is still there (measuring incident light instead of the reflected one). Some portrait pros, some studio pros, probably still use one, unless they just “play it by ear”, shoot first and then assess the results on the back screen of their camera, or the screen of their portable computer if they shoot tethered –forgetting that what the camera sends there is a JPEG and not the actual RAW image they have just taken... Some directors of photography in the feature film industry, too...

That is why I will never cease to congratulate companies that still manufacture them and keep developing new and better models. Japan’s Sekonic Corp. arguably makes the best light meters there are, and I have two of them: one Studio Deluxe III which I acquired years ago and that works the old-fashioned, analog way, without any batteries nor any kind of power, and the new L-858D, which does absolutely everything in light metering and flash metering, and which I use routinely in the studio to balance the light between multiples sources. It can even talk to my Phottix studio strobes and trigger them remotely to measure illumination.

For both photos: Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm ƒ/1.8 S “Nifty Fifty” lens, Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. The L-858D is a composite shot made up of 10 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera, while the Studio Deluxe III needed only 7 exposures. Stacks processed with Helicon Focus. For the L-858D, I also had to composite two shots: one with strobes firing to light the device, and one in the dark with just the screen illuminated.

View attachment 412359

View attachment 412357

So I am curious about the page number as 1427 with a lot of pages still to go seems like a very long book. On searching 'La Peste' I came up with 'an absurdist novel by Albert Camus' which is approximately 308 pages long.

 

[Blue439]

So I am curious about the page number as 1427 with a lot of pages still to go seems like a very long book. On searching 'La Peste' I came up with 'an absurdist novel by Albert Camus' which is approximately 308 pages long.

I see you have an eye for detail... Indeed, La Peste does not run for more than 1,000 pages, very few single novels do. And therefore, unmistakably, when a book looks like this one does, it must be because it is indeed a collection of several works, as is the case here: the book you see in the photo is Volume II of the complete works of Albert Camus, as published by La Pléiade. Look them up here.

 

[Blue439]

The true story of a pair of Sony headphones

In 2016, with more than two years of work still ahead of me before my retirement, the biotech company I worked for as head of the Legal Department relocated part of its ever-growing resources and assets to a newly designed and built building, half a kilometer away from our previous premises. The Legal Department was among those resources that were to move into the new building, which was just fine in all respects but one: in keeping with the fashion of the day, the new place was going to be “open space”, meaning we were going to lose our individual offices in favor of those inhuman cubicles that American movies have made so widely known over the years —except, of course, the 4 or 5 top bosses who, France being France, were to retain individual offices, albeit glass-walled for political correctness (but promptly equipped with Venetian blinds for practicality).

Now, I may already have been an old dinosaur by then, but I’d been used to having my own office since my very first job(*), and losing the privacy, the quiet, the confidentiality and the ability to concentrate without being disturbed by the outside world, all of that was going to be lost...

The open space having proven, after a few weeks, that it was as bad for my ability to focus as I had anticipated, I bought this pair of noise-canceling, cordless headphones that saved my (professional!) life. When activated, they once again isolated me in a bubble of quiet. I could listen to music from my iPhone, or not. I was still alerted when a phone call came in (either via the cell phone or the land line), and I could even converse with the caller if I chose to... They were comfortable and light and a pleasure to wear.

So, in May 2020, one year and a half into my retirement, I thought they deserved to be immortalized in a photograph... and there they are! My saviors. But Gosh! how I hated that open space...! And now that the Chinese virus is (mostly) behind us, it is recognized worldwide how open spaces did facilitate the spreading of it in work environments! Cherry on the cake.

(*): I exaggerate a bit: as a junior lawyer in New York City, I shared an office for the first two years or so.

Nikon D850, Micro-Nikkor 105mm ƒ/2.8 macro lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 25 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

 

[Blue439]

Primes in lockdown (March 2020)

March 2020, the first days and weeks of COVID lockdown in France...

Having been head of the Legal Department in a world-leading biotech company for 12 years before I retired in December 2018, I was quite accustomed to dealing with emerging pathogens and what’s to be done in such a case. Therefore, as soon as I heard and confirmed factual reports about what was happening in China through local contacts from my earlier profession (and that was early January 2020), I knew what would be coming and I quietly began to stockpile foodstuffs, basic products, as well as gloves and masks —not those ridiculous surgery masks that don’t help much, but the FFP3 masks that have genuine filtration and protection capabilities, such as the one in this photo. They were readily available by then, and still very inexpensive.

My wife, who had just retired at the beginning of 2020, mocked me at the time, as all the powers-that-be kept uttering soothing words about how the virus would never come to us (just like the cloud from Chernobyl which flew all over Western Europe but conveniently stopped at the Rhine and never crossed over into France...). There was, unfortunately, no more mocking in the weeks and months that followed. I wish the mocking had continued, as that would have meant I was wrong, and nobody likes to be right about so many people meeting an untimely death all over the world, even if France ended up being much less hit than many other countries.

Anyway, in March 2020 I shot this picture with items that were going to be so symbolic of 2020 and 2021... and probably other years to come.

Being fortunate enough to live in a large house with lots of space for each other and an ample garden surrounding it if we really had to take a walk, I must say we lived through the lockdown without any issue. Of course, I was frustrated for not being allowed to pursue photographic projects outside, but I had quite a backlog of shots to process and I set myself to doing that instead, with the additional interest of studio sessions I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I went out to the supermarket once a week, as well protected as I could, and my wife and I got the Pfizer shots as soon as the vaccine was available. I am glad to say neither of us ever contracted the disease, even though I was a contact case once. My wife stayed happily at home, involved in her various projects, and did not poke her head out for three months, not even to go down the driveway to collect the mail!

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR II, FTZ II adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. I see the lens was stopped down to ƒ/5.6 for this shot, and given the depth of field I see on my screen, there was obviously some focus-stacking involved, but I have no further record of that.

 

[Peter7100]

Anyway, in March 2020 I shot this picture with items that were going to be so symbolic of 2020 and 2021... and probably other years to come.

Fingers crossed it be anytime in the near future

 

[Needa]

Now, we’re not back to food photography yet, but we’re getting ever closer,

Thanks for the warning!

 

[Blue439]

Fingers crossed it be anytime in the near future

Fingers crossed indeed.

Now, we’re not back to food photography yet, but we’re getting ever closer, Needa... We’re already in the kitchen! This was not tabletop, but rather stovetop photography...

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 85mm, ƒ/1.8 S lens, handheld and wide open, the IBIS doing a great job at 1/25th second...

 

[Blue439]

Thanks for the warning!

LOL ! Sorry, I deleted my earlier message when I realized I hap uploaded a photo larger than 1,200 pixels. I do not know how to simply change photos, if that is at all possible, so I deleted the entire message and re-posted it afterwards with the right-size photo... but now your message responding to mine is above and not below it!