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Still-Life Tabletop
Photography
Made Easy!
By: Roger Lewis
 When it comes to simple basic Still-Life Tabletop
Photography, as far as the novice 'wanna-be-photographer'
is concerned there is often a mental block, when
really it's quite simple, so much so that if you
start to do it professionally, after a few years the
trick is to stay awake.
I asked UK photographer Phil
Selfe why he sold his very successful studios a few
years back and he answered, "I just got bored Rog".
I remember when he was my
assistant back in the seventies, I would set up the
first still-life shot, then say to him, "Shoot off
the rest Phil" and go out for the rest of the day.
Of course not all still-life is
so mundane and in fact some still-life shots are
very exacting, requiring careful planning,
construction of the set and attention to lighting
details, which would include running test shots to
acquire the effect that was needed. Sometimes this
could take a day or two to successfully complete.
If you were shooting room sets
as I use to do some time back, this would require a
lot more work and would involve the use of many
assistants, carpenters for set building and in many
cases taking days to successfully complete. You
would also need some serious studio space to
accomplish this type of specialist work, as I use to
have.
But as UK comedian Ronnie
Corbett would say "I digress", lets get back to the
basics of still-life tabletop photography.
For lighting you will need an
attachment to your studio flash unit called a 'Soft
Box'. This is as it sounds, a box constructed in
fabric, which is reflective on the inside, with a
diffuse panel at the front, providing a directional
soft defused light to illuminate the subject. An
umbrella attachment is not sutible for this work as
the spread of light is to wide.
If you don't have a studio
flash unit you can buy a soft box that will attach
to a hammer head flash gun. If you have a second
flash head you can put this to good use by simply
bouncing it off the ceiling, to help fill any shadow
area.
 What you will need for
Still-Life Tabletop Photography.:
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1. Medium Format Camera and
a 'macro' lens (close focusing). Better still a
5x4inch. View camera, which has tilt and swing
front and rear panels for ease of focusing.
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Did you know that only one
in fifteen NEW cameras sold to day, are film
cameras, this means there are great bargains to
be had in the use film camera market, take
advantage of that right now.
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2. Soft Box Attachment.
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3. Tripod, a good solid
one.
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4. Lighting Stands, you
will need two or three.
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5. White Card as reflectors
or as a background, size 1mtr.x70cm. from your
art shop, get three.
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6. Background. muslin or
material, off white or neutral in color.
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7. Low table about 2ftx2ft.
18 inches high.
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8. Light Meter for flash
exposures.
What to do:
Set up your soft box at an
angle of 45 degrees to the left or right of camera
and slightly to the back of the set. This should be
for small still-life objects and the light should be
no more than a meter away from the subject, so you
are able to stop down, (set the lens aperture), to
at least f22, to get as much depth-of-field as
possible so the image will be in sharp focus. If you
have a second flash head, use it bounced off the
ceiling to help to fill any shadow area.
Fix your reflector, (white
card), the opposite side to the flash and an
additional reflector the other side underneath the
soft box.
 Use a good lens hood, such as a
bellows lens hood, to keep the light from the soft
box hitting the lens. It's also good practice to fix
a small piece of black card, suspended over the lens
of the camera to prevent any light causing flare
from the lens, taking care that the black card
doesn't clip the picture area, or effect you meter
reading.
Make test exposures to find out
the best result and after some experimentation, you
will find the results that you want. It's also good
to "bracket" your exposures, which means to make
three exposures, one at half a stop, (f.stop
number), above the reading and one at half a stop
below, choosing the best density of the three
exposures made. Most pro photographers, even after a
tests, use this as standard practice. Film is cheap
and digital is nothing.
Now if you think that there is
some other 'magic' formula that the pros use to
shoot simple still life, your WRONG. This is the
most used pro photo still-life set up, but of course
there many exceptions to the rule and not all still
life work is table top.
Final comment: The best
way to become an accomplished photographer in
still-life or other work, is go work for one as an
assistant. It's the way most good pro photographers
make it.
Happy shooting.
To check out the story and
images about Still-Life Tabletop Photography go
here:
Still-Life Tabletop Photography
I'm from London. I started out
in the days of the Swinging Sixties and London was
quite a place to be. In those days we use to shoot
catalog fashion shots with a 10x8 inch View camera,
so the color transparency images would be the same
size as the image on the catalog page, I have to
tell you right now that took quite some doing. Now I
spent most of my time with my website:
Pro SECRETS of Money Making PHOTOGRAPHY, writing
about and teaching photography, occasionally
shooting assignments.
To check out more info about
Still-Life Photography, go here:
Pro Still Life PHOTOGRAPHY
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