I was feeling lazy this Sunday afternoon and decided to stay at home and do some still life photography which would also come in handy for my children's learning experience.

Working with highly polished surfaces like glass and crystal and stainless steel requires creative lightning techniques and patience. How far I have succeeded is for the viewer to judge.

The cars are part of my sons collection and he found it very interesting shooting those crystal ones, This particular watch I picked up for my son as it is just the right size for his 15 year old wrist. The Tissot is the one I picked up for myself a couple of months back.

All the pictures were taken with my aging Coolpix 995 which is to be replaced soon

there looks like a slight imbalance in the light but they are really amazing pics

how did you manage to get the light right on the crystal ?

Digital camera is a great tool in the sense that you know the results instantly. I kept experimenting with the angle of light and the crystal cars, I knew once the alignment was right. This is something of a luxury which a film camera is not capable of providing.

As for the glowing ones I had to do that in darkness since the surroundings needed to be pitch black to get the thing to glow. i of course had to keep the watch very close to the tungstun lamp to revitalise it. The exposure was long so used a tripod otherwise it would be ruined due to blur if handheld.

You talk of imbalance, could you elaborate and tell me which picture?

Anyway thanks for your comments, they always are helpful

There was a problem with linking but now have attached the pics to the post itself

Great pics, Quad!

I can never get the hang of taking close-up pictures with a dark backgroud yet adequade lighting for the object... I'll have to work on it this summer

Great pictures as always!

Gabs x

Black background will never work if used with the matrix metering or centre weighted metering, when working with small reflective objects or ones that give out light you need to work with the spot meter and get the correct exposure reading right off the object. Try it, you will realise that it is not that difficult. Just remember to adjust the lighting according to the need, it should be just enough and not make the object seem washed out. Tripod in such situation becomes mandatory, handheld is impossible with slow shutter speeds.

Another thing to keep in mind is to measue the white balance manually as Auto will not give you the correct colours as it entirely depends on the colour temperature of light used and type of light used. I tried with auto and ended up with picutures with a cast of some sort or other, I did it only to see how much difference there was as I never had the intention of shooting on auto white balance mode anyway. I have come to a conclusion that setting white balance manually always gives the most accurate colours. Therefore anyone buying a camera must ensure that this facility is provided in the camera, if not, look for some other models.

Interesting stuff, Mr Quad

on the first picture there seems to be a slight reflection on the right hand side, did you use a flash when taking any of them ?

Very good observation on your part Let me explain the whole thing to you.

What you actually see is the reflection of the florescent tube on the far right in the room with a blue reflector at the back giving you the blue light on the bezel of the watch. If I had used the flash it would surely have produced very harsh shadows on the left hand side of the background, agreed? Main illumination on the watch is by the chandelier on the top right with six candle bulbs. The place where I shot the pictures was especially chosen for the available lighting and is basically my daughter’s desk in her room. The black background is actually me wife's silk dress.

You see the whole process involved common things within the household. I never used photographic lights nor any special photographic backgrounds. I was merely trying to teach both my son and daughter how to make do with what you have handy in the house.

If you have any more questions I would be happy to answer them.