Digital Camera World - UK (2022-02)

60 DIGITAL CAMERA^ FEBRUARY 2022 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com

COMPOSE YOUR STILL-LIFE SCENE

1

Set up your camera with a wide-angle lens attached,

pointing through the large end of a box grater on a table.

We used the grid with diagonal lines in Live View to help

us compose and set up with a dark background behind.

DIAL IN THE KEY SETTINGS

2

Go into Manual mode and set the shutter speed to 1/125

sec and ISO to 100 for best image quality. Now set the

aperture value to f/16 for a larger depth of field, which will

make it easier to get all of the grater in sharp focus.

PRO TIP

EXTENSION TUBES

Extension tubes fit between your

lens and camera body to shorten your

minimum focusing distance, so you can

focus much closer than normal. This will

work well with the wide-angle and kit lenses in this

setup, where we want the focus distance to be very short.

ou can have some

great fun raiding your

kitchen drawers and taking

experimental pictures of

various culinary gadgets

and gizmos. In this step-by-step guide,

we’ll show you how to take amazing

close-ups of a box cheese grater: once

you’ve tried it out, you could give it a go

on other items around your house, too.

The key is to use a wide-angle lens to

really show off the incredible detail

that lies inside your subject.

We used a 16-35mm lens, although

the wide end of a kit zoom lens like an

18-55mm or even a fisheye lens would

also work well. Here’s how you can do it...

Y

f/16 1/125sec

ISO

100

HOW TO SHOOT AN ABSTRACT STILL-LIFE

FRESH PHOTO IDEAS FOR 2022

6

Use a wide-

angle lens

to play with

perspective

Still-life photography isn’t all about zooming in with macro

lenses – try a different approach with a wide-angle optic

Using the camera grid: on our Canon

EOS 6D Mark II, we used the 3 x 3 grid

display with diagonals enabled so that

we could perfectly line up the diagonal

lines of the box grater, for a perfectly

geometrical shot.

PRO SHOT

Box grater

Our 16mm ultra-wide-angle lens reveals

the incredible detail on the inside of this

box grater – it almost looks like a scene

from a science fiction film! The crisp

reflections work well to bounce around

the flash light, and the dark background

adds loads of contrast.

PRO ADVICE

Wide-angle lens

50mm is considered a ‘standard’ lens

because it’s roughly what the human eye

can see. Anything longer, like 200mm,

is a telephoto; and anything wider, like

16mm, is a wide-angle. We used the

16mm end of a 16-35mm lens to go

super-wide and squeeze in maximum

detail from this box grater scene.