I finally got my tabletop studio going. The table is a draped Black & Decker Workmate 200. The backdrop is a Savage CB114G dark/light gray reversible collapsible backdrop with the light side in use for the first series of images. Lighting comes from a Savage LED-SB portrait kit containing a pair of 5600K LED lamps with soft boxes. The tripod is a Focal that I have had for thirty years. The camera is my Pentax K-70 with the DA 18-270 F3.5-6.3ED SDM lens. Aside from the camera and lens everything is inexpensive and low-tech, but it does well enough for the goal of photographing vintage electronics for my web site and photographing items to be sold on eBay.
The first two ingénues in front of the lens are General Radio decades that I picked up last spring (I collect General Radio instruments). The first, a Type 1490-B Decade Inductor ca. 1954, cost $335.00 in the 1954 GR catalog (about $3,100.00 in today's dollars). It is shown in a cropped and resized JPG on my antique radios and test equipment site at: https://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/pages/gr-dec.html#1490b The raw image is available at: https://PlymouthColony.net/starcity/radios/images/raw/gr1490b.pef Note that none of the knobs are original - someone probably stole them for replacements on a larger, more expensive, and likely more useful GR instrument. I have some GR knobs of the correct type and size but they are Concord gray rather than Cambridge black. I will track down a set of the correct type. The second, a Type 219-M Decade Condenser (decade capacitor for you young whippersnappers), ca. 1939, cost $45.00 in the 1939 GR catalog (about $800.00 in today's dollars). Shown in a cropped and resized JPG on my site at: https://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/pages/gr-dec.html#219m The raw image is available at: https://PlymouthColony.net/starcity/radios/images/raw/gr219m.pef It will take some time and experimentation to achieve optimal results. As a side note, as I am typing this I am indulging in what I consider to be the ultimate in narcissism - listening to myself on the radio (I produce and host a pre-recorded weekly three-hour free-form music program on a local low-power FM station) For those who would like to get an idea what kinds of music I play on The Mathom House Radio Program you can visit the show's web site and look at the playlists of all the shows from the revival of the program (which I originally did in college) in May through tonight's show at: https://mathomhouseradio.net Dale H. Cook, many years as 35mm SLR photographer, now Pentax K-70 w/ Pentax-DA 18-270mm walking- around lens or SMC Pentax-A 50mm/f2 lens -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
