Lego brick + Micrometer - Take 2

[Manfred M]

I took a bit more time and changed my setup so that the whole micrometer is in the image.

I hung the tool and lego brick with string and retouched the string out of the image. I used a two light setup with a 7" reflector and 10° grid to control the light spill as my key light and added a bit of fill from a light with a snoot.

I ended up not stacking as the shot seems to be sharp enough when shot with my 105mm lens at f/13. I tried focus stacking with Photoshop CC 2019, but found that the depth of field used and the distance from the subject at that aperture ended up being superior to the stacked image. I suspect the tiny bit of movement from the setup swaying caused issues in spite of using the align feature in Photoshop.





The micrometer is my daughter's that she bought for school. It was an inexpensive student model where the dust cover broke after 5 years of use. The high end Japanese replacement she just bought is about 3x more expensive.

I've ordered some Epson and Moab metallic papers and am looking to print this on these.

[pschlute]

Like this one much better , the colours jump out.

[ST1]

Take two is definitely the stronger of the two Manfred. This one works very well, because to my mind it shows the whole of the tool.
Your image shows what can be created using two simple subject elements that sit together to become a whole IYSWIM


Sent from somewhere in Gods County using Tapatalk

[xpatUSA]

I took a bit more time and changed my setup so that the whole micrometer is in the image.

Super shot!

The micrometer is my daughter's that she bought for school. It was an inexpensive student model where the dust cover broke after 5 years of use.

It looks like a classic "inch" model with a 40 tpi barrel thread but I could be wrong. Is that a circular Vernier scale on the body?

The high end Japanese replacement she just bought is about 3x more expensive.

Similarly, I had a cheap plastic Vernier caliper for years - and then I splurged on a stainless Mitutoyo dual-scale model. Not cheap, even on eBay ...

[Manfred M]

It looks like a classic "inch" model with a 40 tpi barrel thread but I could be wrong. Is that a circular Vernier scale on the body?

Yes - this is a classic Vernier micrometer that is accurate to 0.0001 inches / 0.0025mm. The horizontal lines on the barrel are the Vernier markings.

Interestingly enough, the replacement was a Mitutoyo...

[Manfred M]

I thought some people might find the setup interesting.

The snoot is about 30 cm from the subject and the reflector with grid about 45 cm. The tripod with geared head and focus rail are in the shot as well, but I am using the camera to take the shot, so it is obliviously not in the shot. The chrome C-stand and arm are what I hung the micrometer from with two pieces of thin string.

[William W]

Love it.
The Lighting (Shadows on Micrometer) - much better.
It is really "cute".

WW

[Stagecoach]

This prompted me to have a look at the state of my hardly ever used now 1" micrometer that I got as a prize at the end of the first year of my apprenticeship

Imperial, a class manufacturer and in better condition than me

[Manfred M]

I just wanted to add another image to show a well known studio technique that most people that don't shoot in that type of environment know about; the use of the inverse square law in controlling the background colour. The wall colour in my "studio" is actually blue. Anything with no light falling on it is recorded as black.

By having my subject way from the wall (in this case just over 1m / 4 ft and positioning my lights close to the subject, almost no light hit the wall. I controlled the light so that the background wasn't pure black and in fact the bottom right shows an even lighter blue / gray from where the light spill from the snoot falls.




One does not have to shoot against a black background to get a black background in the image. The actually colour of the background in the image is actually a very, very dark gray.

[DanK]

One does not have to shoot against a black background to get a black background in the image. The actually colour of the background in the image is actually a very, very dark gray.

If one has sufficient space, which I unfortunately don't with my current setup.

thanks for posting the photo showing the lighting setup. It was helpful.

[pschlute]

Manfred, you would have been a natural technician for "Thunderbirds"