Garlic Head

[Mike Buckley]

I was inspired to use the purple tones for the tabletop by the similar tones in the front of the garlic head that I'm not used to seeing in garlic.

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Photo of the Setup
The tabletop is glossy, black, opaque acrylic and the background is presentation board. Though the background itself is not included in the above scene, it is reflected in the tabletop and acts as a reflector that lights the rear parts of the garlic head in purple tones. The advantage of using a lamp that is so much larger than the scene being photographed, such as the lamp on the left, is that I can control just a tiny bit of light falling either indirectly or directly on the subject by changing the position of the lamp's reflector ever so slightly. Notice that, from the perspective of the camera's lens, that lamp is pointing fundamentally upward, allowing very little light to fall directly onto the subject as displayed above. Indeed, the subject is lit mostly by the small white reflector to the right and in front of the subject, not by the larger lamp.

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[rick_reno]

That purple background is brilliant Mike.

 

[daveg]

Nice shot Mike, but one thing is bugging me. Why do you not take the setup shot with your "other" camera and show the actual taking camera in situ?

DG

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Rick and Dave!

Why do you not take the setup shot with your "other" camera and show the actual taking camera in situ?

There are a few reasons I use the D7000 as a proxy for my Z6, allowing me to shoot the setup photo using the Z6. Though I recently expanded the working area of my makeshift studio a bit, it's still too small to include everything important in the setup photo when using the D7000 and its APS-C sensor, especially considering that my shortest focal length for use with the D7000 is 35mm. It's also easier to manually focus the Z6 thanks to its focus peaking (not available in the D7000). The room is so dark that using the D7000 would produce more noise than the Z6 at the high ISO usually required for hand holding the camera even if the other factors made it practical to use the D7000. Indeed, I would need at least two stops higher ISO if I used the D7000 because it has no IBIS, which in turn would create even more noise.

 

[Binnur]

Hi Mike. I really like the composition and reflections in the image. But your BG color is so powerful that it actually distracts me from the whole image. May be a fainted purple color?..

 

[Mike Buckley]

May be a fainted purple color?..

That might work well. Thanks for the suggestion!