Table Top Photography – Practical Evening

Tuesday was a busy evening, with the Rosebowl taking place on Zoom and a practical evening of table top photography in the hall for those who wanted to make some new photos with their cameras.

Table Top Photography

The idea was to being items in from home to photograph. The range of items were quite varied, and several people brought along some additional lighting to help give their subject something extra. In one case the subject was a bulb and the whole setup was all about the lighting.

Like many previous practical evenings there was plenty of opportunity to try something a little different, get to discover capabilities that you didn’t know your camera had, and even take a photo or two. The learning opportunity was taken advantage of with several members having a go at styles of photography they’d not considered before. There was also quite a lot of learning about light too.

Tripods were amongst the most useful of accessories, as the light emitted from apparently bright LEDs was often less than members expected, or hoped for. A tripod being a great way to steady the camera when the shutter speeds are slow.

Several members discovered that a tripod is a poor composition aid. Just arriving at a setup, placing the tripod down and attaching a camera to it means that you haven’t explored all the opportunities the subject provides. It is much better to look through the camera handheld and find the best point of view of a scene, before placing the tripod under the camera in that position.

Some results…

Thankfully Laurence has been able to send a couple of his shots taken on the night…

This was a capture of the woodland scene that was a collection of leaves, twigs and the odd mushroom fresh from the local woods. Lighting was with LED lights at each end of the scene.

 

The flying food set up that Chenxi created was a more challenging shot. Studio flash was used to provide a very brief high intensity burst of light. This required good timing to get the food suitably airborne.

The light build and reflection of a grid from below was created by placing an LED filament lamp on the grid of a studio light aimed straight up to the ceiling. The grid not only created the pattern for the glass to reflect, but also prevented the light spilling out and illuminating the walls of the hall behind.

As we cleared up and prepared to go home the news came in that ImageZ had also won our first round tie in the CACC Rosebowl competition, so a good evening whether you were at the hall or sitting on Zoom at home.