Hello!

I'm catching up again!

I've been hopelessly busy this week, trying to find good equipment for a home photo studio and also fixing my sleep schedule. (Done pretty well with it now that I have been able to keep my eyes and hands off Twitter!)

I've been a bit fed up with my current one flash + led work-light setup. (The led light has an annoying yellow tint, that when corrected makes the flash look blue. And vice versa, if I balance the photos with the flash, the yellow tint takes over.

Another annoying fact is using the mains for leds doesn't give constant light, but flickers. The fact that the 50 Hz AC (in EU, 60HZ in US) makes the leds go on and off 50 times every second makes it impossible to use faster than 1/40th second shutter speeds. (And even that's kinda pushing it.) I am tied to using slow shutter speeds, and thus tied to using the tripod.

(If you shoot faster than 1/50th of a second against a led lit with mains AC, you'll find out that some of your photos will be underlit, and some of them overlit, and it'll ruin your day.)

Wednesday's photos:

These photos were taken with the camera hanging below the tripod, shooting straight down.

Had to tighten the ball-head real tight to not let the camera twist and turn due to it being so heavy with the 50mm Sigma lens, battery handle and the remote trigger.

I placed three white A3 paper cardboard sheets around the tripod to even the light. The flash was bounced off one of them (bottom left), while the led floodlight (upper right) was shaded with a paper towel to make the direct light softer.

The base under the products, is just a mid gray A3 cardboard sheet.

Shooting products directly from above is in fact considered somewhat amateurish, and you won't be selling many products if you choose to do so. But that's only if your only photo is shot from a bird's eye view.

If you are building an extensive catalog, and you want to have multiple photos of each product, it is beneficial to also have one from above.

I might need to post the next one tomorrow, as it is getting late again, and my sleep schedule is in danger of getting messed up again.

See ya in the next one! More studio adventures coming up...