Paper of the 21st Century

I used to be fascinated by this kind of photos when I was a child. I was a big fan of technology and was always browsing tech catalogs and brochures. Since the only option for personal storage 20 years ago were mechanical hard drives, also known as HDD (Hard Disk Drive), every manufacturer used this type of clean ultra sharp photo to promote their drives.

So I had some 15 year old drives laying around and I thought to myself “I’m gonna make my first focus staking photo and match the style of those old HDD brochures”.

I mounted 2 Godox AD200s on stands, got my tripod, attached the Fujifilm XF 80mm F2.8, turned down the lights in the room and started taking shots. I don’t remember exactly but I think I took about 35 photos. My X-T20 doesn’t have focus bracketing, so I did the work manually, but the result was exactly what I was looking for.

Since then I’ve looked into more advanced macro gear like (electronically controlled) focusing rails, bellows and TS lenses, but in the end I don’t see myself doing controlled macro projects like these frequently so it’s not worth it. But if I ever find a great deal on a TS lens I might just bite the bullet.