Post Your Food Photography

Or just tossing it all up. You could nail it on the third try... or the 1733rd thus eliminating that tedious editing. And what a challenge!
Not serious at all! Getting any still life without these challenges are enough for me.
Great job, BTW. It's a great shot!

-Duck- wrote in post #18653212
My first attempt (four hours of trial the day before) was trying to utilize thin fishing line. My thought being it was more invisible and easier to edit out (works well in many product shots). The problems I encountered were load weight differences between each layer causing different amounts of sag. Also the "hammock" effect every time I tried to make an adjustment, which caused a chain reaction collapse. While the wire was optically thicker in comparison to fishing line (as spotted by OhLook! from my lack of diligence in editing) it was far more stable, though it did have it's shaky moments.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

That's interesting because my very first thought was to use the fishing line. Now I understand why you didn't use but perhaps a heavier fishing line wouldn't have any issues with sagging.
Anyway, thank you for your instructions; very helpful

itsallart wrote in post #18653286
That's interesting because my very first thought was to use the fishing line. Now I understand why you didn't use but perhaps a heavier fishing line wouldn't have any issues with sagging.
Anyway, thank you for your instructions; very helpful

You're welcome. As for the thicker line consideration... I think no matter what the flexibility of nylon line would cause too much sag to be useful. Creating more tension, as OhLook suggests, only made the light stands creep in closer and start to bow in. The lines require a surprisingly larger amount of tension than one would think to keep that seemingly minimal weight from causing sag. Probably due to the span the lines have to cover. Also, bringing the poles in closer, while may have helped, would cause interference in both working space and light placement/shadow casting.

Perhaps with a cross bar across the top of the two stands may offer more rigidity, but that's for another experiment. My next project I'm going to expand on this and add suspended items from a cross bar so I'll test the increased tension idea.

I think I should have posted this image in its own thread...

icopus wrote in post #18653255
Or just tossing it all up. You could nail it on the third try... or the 1733rd thus eliminating that tedious editing. And what a challenge!
Not serious at all! Getting any still life without these challenges are enough for me.
Great job, BTW. It's a great shot!

Thank you. I appreciate the compliment.

-Duck- wrote in post #18653321
Creating more tension, as OhLook suggests, only made the light stands creep in closer and start to bow in.

If the light stands aren't stable and stiff enough, floor lamps or tripods might be.

OhLook wrote in post #18653324
If the light stands aren't stable and stiff enough, floor lamps or tripods might be.

I doubt any of those would solve the problem. Here's the situation I found on my first try with the fishing line; I began building the scene by first constructing the scaffolding with lines. I placed five sets (looped around two light weight light stands) about two inches apart. When I placed the bottom bun that line naturally sagged. I then placed the meat, which also sagged fairly equally. So far, so good. I thought I was in the clear. The cheese, being denser, caused greater sag so that required moving the line up. This is when I started noticing issues. As I had built the scaffold, each successive rung added more tension on the stand, causing a slight inward bowing to the lightweight stands (about 3 feet apart touching the sides of my table). Shifting that rung up made it slightly but discernibly looser. While it may seem like a very minor shift, with the stretch inherent in nylon fishing line it was enough to cause an increase in the sag, requiring to adjust upward even more which started a bit of a chain reaction. the next level (the lettuce) was lighter and therefor had to be adjusted downward which ran into the lines below it at the pole sides. So in actuality to get the lettuce visually lower (since we are viewing from a low camera perspective) that rung needed to be below the rung for the cheese because of the weight differences.

I was able to flub it for a while but when I added the tomatoes the whole thing really started to transmit movement and the "hammock" effect kept disturbing things below it and I ended up finally giving up. So you see, it's not all just about getting enough tension on the rungs but also being able to compensate for the different weights of each element while maintaining the stability of the entire structure. Steel wire allowed for a more stable rig and also allowed me to micro adjust the tensions as the rungs moved up and down (yes, weight still affects steel wire, though not as much).

I think maybe higher tensile strength wire would work better since it wouldn't sag as much. Something to consider down the road.

Just got cover of this months food issue for Vegas modern luxury

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/JZT7​fn

amairphoto wrote in post #18653579
Just got cover of this months food issue for Vegas modern luxury

Congratulations. Something to definitely be proud of. Now go out and get that cover matted and framed and prominently displayed on your wall. You've earned the bragging rights!

Tossed salad anyone?

A simple shot although the thought of each piece of shaved lettuce in this one would be "challenging". Fantastic shot Duck!!!

-Duck- wrote in post #18657112
Tossed salad anyone?

Hosted photo: posted by -Duck- in
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forum: Food Photography & Visual Recipes

Ok, you explained your first shot that involved wires; is this the same technique or not quite?
Thanks.

itsallart wrote in post #18658143
Ok, you explained your first shot that involved wires; is this the same technique or not quite?
Thanks.

Same basic principle but the wire work got a little more elaborate.
Thanks for the interest.

hungry now....

Here's a BTS sketch of the setup.

-Duck- wrote in post #18658682
Here's a BTS sketch of the setup.

Hosted photo: posted by -Duck- in
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forum: Food Photography & Visual Recipes

Thank you for this awesome image, Duck!