This meant that with the largest
boxes, even if I had to crank the camera
to the top of the rail, I had the option
of zooming to a shorter focal length in
order to fit the whole subject into the
frame. The zoom also allowed me to
shoot from a lower position (closer dis-
tance) at a shorter focal length (more
wide-angle) in order to create a sense of
being “inside” the box, with its interior
walls more visible and tapering toward
the bottom. The Zeiss zoom is perfectly
rectilinear at its wide end and eye-pop-
ping in sharpness throughout.
Though the window light was fairly
consistent and had the soft character I
wanted, it still produced strong shad-
ows and high overall contrast because
the interior itself was dim. I often used
a white fill card, placed on the side of
the subject opposite the window, to help
open up shadows. But my main method
of contrast and shadow control was to
use High Dynamic Range Imaging
(HDRI) —shooting a series of identi-
cal frames of the subject at different
exposures, then combining them with
Photoshop’s File>Automate>Merge to
HDR Pro command. (Other apps offer
HDRI too, of course.) Though HDRI
is now usually associated with special
effects obtained essentially by overdo-
ing the technique, at its best, it’s a very
effective way to capture and control
the full brightness range of a contrasty
subject, as long as it’s static. More about
that shortly.
After leveling the camera (using
a bubble level) and making sure the
subject was square, I typically shot
seven or nine RAW frames of the
subject at different exposures: one
“on,” three under and three over; or
one “on,” four under and four over.
These brackets were usually sepa-
rated by increments of .7 stop and
were changed strictly with exposure
time to avoid differences in depthof field between the frames, which
would have been impossible for the
HDRI software to resolve.
My exposure times were long, given
the low sensitivities (ISO 200 or under)
I chose to ensure good image qual-
ity and the small apertures (ƒ/16 or
smaller) I chose for adequate depth
of field at such close distances. They
often extended, at the far end, into sev-
eral seconds and beyond. I always shot
with the mirror locked up to mini-
mize image-degrading shake and was
careful to wait between each exposure
for any vibrations to die down givenThe house
contained
thousands
of cardboard
boxes, often
several nested
inside a larger
one, stacked
up in layers
against the
walls.The Freezer Before I Defrosted It digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 37