Tabletops and macro stereo pictures

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As I am getting ready to return Stan White's "Stereo Tabletop Photography -
A Primer", I am impressed by Stan's comment on picture 5 of "Beyond the
Third Dimension".  He writes: "As a subject for photographic images
(humour) tends to be a second class citizen and a good whimsical picture 
will lose out to an equally good serious picure."  This is an interesting
statement.  Few of his pictures are very good potential serious table-
top images with humor added to them.  

For the time being I would like to try some effective serious tabletop 
images and leave the humor for later.  The area that I need to concentrate 
is lighting.  I think it makes the difference between what is good and what 
is not so good in tabletop photography.  There are limits, of course, and 
Stan warns us: "Even God in his omnipotence can rarely manipulate sun and 
clouds to make a work of art of a landfill site."

I remember another tabletop image (not Stan's), closeup from the 50s with a 
good PSA salon record.  It shows just a piece of bread, sliced at the wood 
board with a knife next to it.  It was called "Our Daily Bread".  Pretty 
simple but  lighting and composition made it a very good tabletop image.

The question of tools for close-up photography has come up.  Stan is using
a Nikon F2 with a 50 mm macro lens.  He usually stops down to the smallest
aperture (f32).  For amount of shift he follows the simple 1/50 rule 
(reason # 4: there is no good aesthetic reason why maximum stereo depth is 
always necessary.)  For "live" tabletops he uses a Zeiss Stereotar "C" 
attachment with a Contax 2A or 3A camera.

George Themelis, looking to improve his tabletop images...


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