Tomato portraits

This week the tomatoes have been coming in big-time. The dryer is running 24/4, and we’re having tomatoes with every meal except breakfast.

I made some pictures. I used the simplest lighting setup I thought would do well: a single Paul Buff Einstein aimed at a single 3’x6′ diffusing panel. No reflectors. No gobos. No soft boxes or fancy grids. I controlled the specularity and shadow detail by moving the light towards or away from the panel.

I treated the tomatoes like portrait subjects, and I soon found out that many of the same decision pertain thereto. Do you leave the spots in, or take them out? Since I didn’t have to worry about the tomatoes not paying — or for that matter, paying — I left them in. How much softness do you want in the light? How much defocus blur for the background? Do you cut off the tops people’s heads when you do real portraits? There’s an analog here.

All with an a7RII and the Sony 90 mm f/2.8 macro. I may get to doing stacking next week.