Conceptual still life with the Fuji X-Pro2 and Zeiss Touit 50mm macro lens

One of my favorite lighting sources for photographing stills these days is using a few small LED lights. For the shots below of a glass chess set and glass globe, I placed two of the lamps side by side on a table and suspended the glass chess table over them so the light would pass upwards through the glass subjects. For the bottom shot I also used an even smaller LED above the glass globe to add the "dawning" light on top, which I later enhanced into a burst in Photoshop.

The camera used here was the Fuji X-Pro2 equipped with a Zeiss Touit 50mm macro lens. I kept the aperture fairly wide open at f/2.8 and f/4 to maintain a selective focus on the surface of the globe. Two of the lights were the Bescor LED-125 dimmable units set next to each other on the table beneath the glass. A third light I used for adding a highlight was the tiny Bescor LED-40 unit. These light are very small, inexpensive, and battery operated. I find them very convenient for tucking into small places and for adding accents to still life images.

In this shot I also added a vignette to darken the corners and a star burst to emphasize the "dawning" effect above the globe.