I’ve finally updated my kit page to better reflect my current lineup of equipment. I’ve been putting off adding any new items until I’d taken suitable images to accompany them. So, while I had everything set up to photograph a red pepper in my kitchen, I used the opportunity to get some new photographs of my toys too.
The last time I did this was just over a year ago, when I made some early experiments into product photography. Back then, I resorted to setting up a(n unironed) sheet on my bed to try to get a clean white background. The results were mixed; I ended up overexposing the shots to bleach out the background then used a contrast adjustment to bring the kit back into sharpness. The results were a bit unnatural looking and I was never entirely pleased with them.
Fortunately since then I’ve had a lot more practice of shooting with flash and bought a few new toys for the purpose. Although of course photographing those is pretty tricky. The main piece of kit I was keen to photograph was my new (I guess now newish) EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM lens, bought back in October but missing from my kit page due to the lack of photo.
First, though, was a group shot to warm things up. Fortunately, despite replacing it with the 105, I still had my 18-135mm lens around to take the shots, meaning I could get a great group photo of all of my lenses. First I tried the lineup you see at the top of this post. Then I tried a few other arrangements to see if I could find a more aesthetically pleasing one.
Why yes, I am aware that all of the Canon logos are upside down. For some reason I forget that lens caps can be rotated. It doesn’t help that I don’t notice these things until I’m editing the photos long after the shooting setup has been disassembled.
To shoot the 24-105mm L lens, I used the 100mm f/2.8 macro, the idea being that I could get some close up details as well. I didn’t plan for the fact that the kit page, as it was and still is, doesn’t have much scope for creative images; the pages contains almost exclusively simple, all-encompassing shots, so as it turned out the first shot I took was the one I used on the page.
I also grabbed this shot, but the slightly higher angle meant the full front of the lens wasn’t all in focus and I found the steeper view less appealing.
With the formal shot out of the way, I started getting a bit creative. Click on any of the images below to take a closer look.
As you can see, on the last image, I played about with the aperture and closed it up to f/11 to get in more detail and make sure no part of the lens was out-of-focus. Liking the result I tried the same aperture on the full-length lens shot, and liked the result.
To be honest, there’s a lot I prefer about this image compared with the one that made it onto the kit page. Although I preferred the deeper depth of field in the latter shot, and its slightly lower angle, when it came down to it the lens was pointing the right direction in the former image. It looks far more balanced when the ‘Image Stabilizer’ text and the focal length indicator (which probably has a technical name that I can’t find on Google) are facing front. So, the former image is the one that made it onto the page.
My kit page still isn’t quite finished. For a start, most of my other lenses haven’t been photographed like this (with the exception of the 18-135mm which I used as a test shot) so the ones shot against a sheet over a year ago stand out a bit. I’ve also still got a few smaller items of kit that I’ve not imaged at all, like my shutter cable, or the latest addition to my arsenal, my Triggertrap. I’m also not a fan of how the page ends, it all seems a bit rushed once you get past the major bits of equipment. It’s something I definitely need to work on, but can’t quite get my head all the way around just yet.
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