Crank the aperture and ditch 'correct' colors – here's my quick guide to photographing old camera gear

Shooting old cameras with a macro lens.

The relentless march of time and technology means that today’s camera tech becomes tomorrow’s obsolete junk. However, give it enough time and that junk will slowly become collectible. When it’s passed from useful to decorative, that’s the time to set your camera collection up for a macro shot.

For this image I’ve set the cameras up on a table with window light in the background. However, the front of the cameras is lit by a tungsten lamp with a color temperature of around 3000K. The camera's auto white balance has catered for this, which means that the highlights on the tops of the cameras have a contrasting blue cast.

A wide aperture was used to give a shallow depth of field, with the focus on the front features of the central camera.

Behind the scenes

Arrange the cameras how you want but don't leave any gaps (Image credit: Future)

The setup has some other cameras at the back to fill in the gaps between the ones at the front. It was simpler than propping up a background. The tungsten lamp provides the light for the camera to meter from.

Essential settings

Dial in the settings for the shot, keeping an eye on the shutter speed (Image credit: Future)

This was the widest aperture available at this focus point for the Sigma 105mm f/2.8 DN OS HSM macro lens. An ISO of 200 ensured a fast shutter speed to make a tripod unnecessary.

Post production

Giving the image a warm tone in Photoshop (Image credit: Future)

As these are vintage cameras, the image was given a warm red tone tweak using Color Balance, with a mask used to make sure it didn’t affect the blue highlights.

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Check out our full guide to the best macro lenses you can buy today, along with the best cameras for macro photography.