$60.00 Shooting Table

I metioned at the Silver Falls a table I've been designing. I thought I'd share it for others that might be interested. It works pretty well - I set it on the floor so that my daughter could take photos as well - there are 42" leggs to the left in the photo. Very easy to make with standard parts. Most difficult part were the 3-way L's for the corners of the table. I went to a plumbing store for them but the rest were purchased at Lowes. The Plexiglass was 19.00 at True Value.

Here are a few of the shots I've captured so far with this table.

#2

Hi John,

Now how did you know that I was thinking of just that kind of thing? I've seen similar setups on the net, but my sticking point is the lighting. If you don't mind my asking, what's your setup and would you buy it again if starting over?

Kevin

John,
Man the results are impressive. Got to get me a set of those strobes!

Kevin, I bit the bullet and purchased 2 Alien Bee strobes. Total kit with soft box, stands was over 1K but totally worth it in the long haul. I used cheap "always on" lights before getting these strobes - and it works - but it would be 6 seconds at f16.0 on tripod. With these babies (and a 20.00 wireless transmitter/receiver from ebay) I'm at 1/160th at f/16.0 HANDHELD.

My daughter has even taken a few shots. We're printing these to give to her school to hang on the walls - I do this every year when the leafs turn and fall. We go on walks looking for the nice color leafs to shoot. It's a lot of fun to do with her.......

Oh and yes, I'd do this all over again with these flashes.

Here is another handheld shot of my daughter using just one of these strobes with a medium sized softbox.

If this is too many photos in a single post, let me know and I'll delete.....

Cool John, thanks for posting this.

I have to get the full details of the lights and strobes and softboxes and such from you. John. I really need this kind of setup for Hood River Coffee Co. product shots.

Pretty dern cool John. Nice job! It would be interesting to see these images without shadow. Is that where a third light would come in handy? Might I ask why you use a strobe and not a solid beam?

Rick, the strobe thru a modifier is a very clean light that enables me to get much faster shutter speeds than I did with solid lights. I did similar shots last year and they were 6 second exposures. These are 180th of a second at f/16.0 handheld. That is a hell of a lot more light The only way to remove the shadows would be to use my plamp and hold them up in the air away from the paper, but I love the shadows....

Cool, ya...the shadows are good here, just was curious about removing them when needed.