In my experience, a cloudy day is ideal. Nice diffused lighting, with soft shadows. Bright daylight? It’ll be harsh, too much contrast. But if you use a translucent half-box over the subject, it can look really good.
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I have upgraded my lights and have been working with a “real” camera. No disrespect to the iPhone, but I don’t have the “Pro” model so it’s camera is a bit limited. I’m still having issues getting everything in focus, but i think this is a limitation of my camera. Then I went down a rabbit hole learning about focus stacking, and I think I don’t want to get that involved in post processing at this time.
But I’m happy with the results so far.
Thanks everyone for the advice to get me here.
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The LED lights and scaffolding I got super cheap on AliExpress.
I positioned them at about 45 degrees from the pencil.
I have an opaque white acrylic base (I wanted a slight reflection) and white paper background at an angle, to get a ever so slight gradient. I had the tripod, but its a must in this case.
Although the lights were dimmable, everything turned out better when they were diffused so I cut the ends off a box and covered with parchment paper. I also wrapped the light on top in paper towels to help diffuse the light.
Basically made an open-air lightbox?
Edit: also all the other lights in the room are off. I have been working mostly at night. The room I’m in doesn’t have good lighting -natural or otherwise.
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These are great results!
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One step before focus stacking: aperture bracketing.
I’m assuming your camera allows you to pick a focus point and set it to ‘A’ or Aperture Priority Mode.
If you pick a target focus zone around the critical grip area, shoot 3 photos with the aperture to the widest: f/2.8-f/4.0?, medium f/8 and tight f/16. The widest aperture depends on the Zoom setting on your lens.
Then you will be able to see how much ‘blur’ is achieved around the focus zone and ‘behind’ it. Practice and you’ll learn how to set the camera for the effect you want.
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Photographers at my work use tilt shift lenses for object photos without blurring (nice and expensive gadget to buy 
).
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Ooh that’s exotic territory. I’ve only seen them used by architectural photographers looking correct the verticals…
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Thanks. I will do that.
Yes, of course it is over the top here 
the idea is to bring the focus plane parallel to the pencil axis, so tip and push knob is „sharp“ and you have the more pleasant oblique view as in the photos here.
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How did you go with the cheap light box? I’ve been considering a 40cm version but I’d like to hear from a MP person about their experiences with one before I take the plunge.
It could just end up being another piece of gear that sits in the cupboard gathering dust.
Maybe I just need to set up the R5/100mm macro/tripod/speedlite and stop being lazy.
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I ended up buying some cheap LED lights and poles to hold them from AliExpress. For the light diffusers I took cardboard box tops and cut off the top portion and then stretched a dollar store shower curtain over it.
I have a light on either side, and one on top, all diffused with shower curtain.
So basically it’s an open air light box of sorts.
Edit:
There’s a couple pictures higher up in this post above of my same set up, however, I used paper initially. That didn’t hold up. The shower curtain seems to be working OK for now.
I’m really happy with the results, as long as I remember to turn the room overhead light off.
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Man, that’s a lot of work. I think that’s a bit beyond me and I don’t really have the space.
I like the idea of something portable that I can easily set up and pack away.
Impressive work though.
Think I’ll experiment a bit more with my existing gear first.
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The result is really nice, would love to see more photos of your collection.
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It is hard to come by with nice photos which still shows the pencil clearly, to this day, this is one of my favorites:
And your photos follow that.
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thanks - I would too lol. I got all this setup months ago and then got a promotion at work and about a 75% increase in workload. I have a goal to have to it all photographed, so I will be posting them here sooner or later.
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