Table top photography is a tough genre.

I had one semester of  this in college.

That class taught me a lot.

Besides learning to use a 4 x 5 view camera, I learned before I pressed the shutter release, everything on the inverted image on the ground glass had to be close to perfect.

The exposure, focus, composition, lighting, camera angle, choice of props, and background all have to be right.

Unless I had several film holders, I only had 2 sheets of film I could expose at a time.

I decided to revisit this recently but not on the same scale, using my Canon Powershot G11 instead.

What I used

So from my  local thrift store and a low budget of $11, I found:

1. 3 wine glasses filled with water
2. two pieces of poster board
3. one piece of plexiglass that was laying around the house
4. one flexible light (Joby Gorilla pod light). actually any household lamp will work
5. Canon Powershot G11
6. A room which you can darken completely if working in the daytime

Other thoughts

You probably want to minimize post production work in Photoshop, so using distilled water instead of water from the faucet eliminates the need to clone out little air bubbles.

If you can, a completely dark room is best because the reflective glass picks up every little highlight in the room.

Peter Phun Photography

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