Guess the Setup: iPhone Closeup

Guess how I created this photo. Hint: no flash, no light painting, and no Lightroom or Photoshop tricks. Think you have it figured out? See below for the answer: ... ... ... The main light was my laptop, which lit up the sides of the iPhone and part of my hand. The light from the phone helped illuminate the bottom of my hand. The light from the phone that reflected off my hand also added fill light to bottom of the phone (edge closest to my wrist). I turned off all the lights in my house, but left the television on. A Clash documentary was on PBS, so I couldn't turn it off. :-) I double checked that the light from the TV did not contaminate my shot. In these setup shots, I forgot to turn off the flash on my point-and-shoot. Believe me, the room was dark except for the television, laptop, and phone. That "Macbook" you see is actually an IBM ThinkPad with an Apple sticker ;-)It was difficult balancing the exposure time and the aperture. Ideally the exposure time would be less than a second, because I wouldn't be able to hold my hand still for too long. But a short exposure time meant a large aperture (lower number) which meant less depth of field. For most of the phone to be in focus, I needed a smaller aperture. With the very low amount of light coming from the laptop and the phone I couldn't have both a short exposure time and a small aperture, so I decided that the focus of the phone was more important than the blurring of my hand. Through trial and error I found that f/6.3 was the largest aperture that allowed most of the phone to stay in focus. With the aperture set, I found that 3 seconds was the least amount of time needed to create the photograph I wanted. It's too bad my hand is blurry. I'm kicking myself for not remembering to increase the ISO. Dang it! Info of the featured photo: 52.5mm focal length, 3 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200, light provided by laptop and iPhone